Origins

The Diocese of Salford celebrates its birthday each year on 29th September. That was the date in 1850 when Pope Pius IX signed a decree re-establishing Catholic dioceses in England and Wales.

The Pope’s decree ensured that the newly-created Diocese of Salford was to consist of “the Hundreds of Salford, Blackburn and Leyland”. The name “Hundred” goes back over one thousand years. In the ninth century King Alfred reorganised the shires of England into areas known as “Hundreds”. South-east Lancashire became the Hundred of Salfordshire, though over time the name was shortened to the Hundred of Salford.

This ancient title survived well into the 20th century: it was only in 1971 that a High Court known as the Court of the Hundred of Salford was discontinued.

The Hundred of Blackburn at the date of Domesday Book consisted only of the parishes of Blackburn and Whalley. It grew to include Clitheroe, Chipping and Ribchester. The Hundred was bordered on the north and east by the county of York, on the south by the Hundred of Salford, and on the west by Leyland Hundred and the River Ribble. The scenery of the vale through which the Ribble winds its course is in many parts of great beauty. The same may be said of the Calder and Hodder valleys, where thousands of visitors as well as locals come every year to take advantage of the scenery.

The Diocese of Salford was not to enjoy the company of the Hundred of Leyland. Bishop Brown, the first Bishop of Liverpool, argued that as he had to pass through Preston (in the Hundred of Leyland) to reach the northern part of his diocese in Lancaster, the Hundred of Leyland should be transferred to Liverpool. And so it was, by a papal brief dated 27th June 1851, that the Diocese of Salford relinquished the Hundred of Leyland to her larger neighbour.

The 1851 census revealed that in the Diocese of Salford there were 32 churches and chapels served by 37 priests. 33,029 Catholics attended Mass on 30st March 1851. Those Irish by birth in the diocese numbered 79,635 out of a total population of 1,180,834.