John Bilsborrow was rector of Upholland College when he was named as Bishop of Salford. He came from Lancashire yeoman stock that had kept the Catholic faith through penal times. He was born at Singleton Lodge in the Fylde on 30 March 1836. Ordained priest in 1865, he was sent to Barrow-in-Furness to establish the new mission there. In 1883 he was appointed to the newly opened seminary of St Joseph at Upholland, near Wigan. There he taught dogmatic, moral and ascetic theology.

Bishop Bilsborrow was a strong advocate of voluntary schools, for whose existence there was an intense struggle, culminating in the victory of the Education Act of 1902. During his episcopate, Catholics in the diocese of Salford increased from 217,000 to 270,000. He founded 12 new missions. He took a keen interest in the education of his future priests and transformed the Ecclesiastical Education Council to increase the number of poor boys to receive a higher education and then become students for the priesthood. He was known as a friend of the clergy and the poor.

Dogged by poor health during most of his term of office, he died at Babbicombe in Devon in March 1903.