Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/485

 drowned in 1831, in the river Chagres, Gulf of Mexico. The church is dedicated to St. Anne, and the Rev. Isaac Mossop is the present vicar.

There is a Roman Catholic chapel at Cottam, erected in 1793, The date of the original one is unknown, but in 1768 it was almost completely destroyed by an election mob. A Wesleyan chapel was built in 1815, and another for the Primitive Methodists about 1819.

The township contains an auxiliary workhouse, connected with the Preston Union, which was erected in 1823. Annual courts are held for the manor of Wood Plumpton, which includes the hamlets of Catforth, Eaves, Bartle, and Wood Plumpton.

The school at Catforth was established by Alice Nicholson, of Bartle, who gave in 1661 the sum of £100 in trust for the maintenance of a free school within the manor of Wood Plumpton. Subsequent benefactions have been received as follows:—The same Alice Nicholson £10 by will, in 1664; John Hudson, of Lea, £20 by will, in 1676; John Hall, of Catforth, £20 by deed, in 1732; James Hall, of Catforth, £10 by will, in 1741; Richard Eccles, £100 by will, in 1762; Elizabeth Bell, £100 by deed, in 1813; Richard Threlfall, £20 by deed in 1813; and Ann Robinson, £90 by will in 1817. The total endowment up to 1813, amounting to £380, was invested on the 21st of April in that year, in the navy five per cents., in the name of the trustees. The further bequest of £90 was placed out at interest.

In 1817, Ann Robinson, the benefactress just mentioned, also left £90 in trust, the interest to be given to the master teaching the Sunday school at Wood Plumpton church.

Thomas Houghton gave, in 1649, the fourth part of the rental of an estate in Wood Plumpton to the poor of that township.

It is recited in an indenture, dated 9th January, 1709, that George Nicholson bequeathed the rents of several closes of land, which he stood possessed of for a certain term of years, in trust, for the poor of Wood Plumpton, and also left for the same charitable object, the sum of £200, to be retained by his executors, and the interest only distributed, until the expiration of the above term, when the sum should be paid to the churchwardens and overseers, and used as heretofore. The indenture further recites that on the death of George Nicholson in 1672, a Chancery suit