Gorton

Coordinates: 53°27′55″N 2°10′21″W / 53.465314°N 2.172491°W / 53.465314; -2.172491

Gorton is an area of the city of Manchester in North West England, southeast of the city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 36,055. Neighbouring areas include Longsight and Levenshulme.

A major landmark is Gorton Monastery, a 19th-century High Victorian Gothic former Franciscan friary.

History

According to local folklore, Gorton derives its name from Gore Town, due to a battle between the Saxons and Danes nearby. This has been dismissed by historians as "popular fancy". The name Gorton means "dirty farmstead", perhaps taking its name from the Gore Brook, or dirty brook, which still runs through the township to-day. The brook may have acquired that name because of the dirty appearance of its water, perhaps caused by discolouration due to peat or iron deposits.

In medieval times, the district was a township of the ancient parish of Manchester in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire.

Manchester City F.C. was founded as St. Mark's (West Gorton) in 1880. The club was formed with the aim of binding the local community and to combat a form of gang warfare called scuttling that existed in the 1870s. The rector's daughter, Anna Connell, is widely credited as the founder, although churchwarden William Beastow is believed to be the person who played the main part in creating sporting activities for the parish. In 1875, St. Mark's Cricket Club are known to have played and this evolved into the football club later in the decade. The first recorded football game was played in November 1880.

Gorton (disambiguation)

Gorton can refer to:

People

Places in England

Other

Gorton (surname)

Gorton is a surname which translates in English as "dirty farm", and may refer to:

See also

Gorton's of Gloucester

Gorton’s of Gloucester is a subsidiary of the Japanese seafood conglomerate Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., producing fishsticks and other frozen seafood for the retail market in the United States. Gorton’s also has a North American food service business which sells to fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s, and an industrial coating ingredients operation. It has been headquartered in Gloucester, Massachusetts, since 1849.

History

The company traces its roots to a fishery called John Pew & Sons. William Pew, son of John Pew, picked up fishing after serving as a Colonial soldier in the French and Indian War. While most people moved West after the war, Pew turned eastward and arrived in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1755. The father-and-son fishery business emerged as an official commercial company, John Pew & Sons, in 1849.

When nearby Rockport’s chief industry, the Annisquam Cotton Mill, burned down, Slade Gorton, the mill’s superintendent, was out of a job. At his wife’s urging, he began a fishing business in 1874 known as Slade Gorton & Company, and began to pack and sell salt codfish and mackerel in small kegs. This company was the first to package salt-dried fish in barrels. In 1899, the company patented the “Original Gorton Fish Cake.” In 1905, the Slade Gorton Company adopted the fisherman at the helm of a schooner (the “Man at the Wheel”) as the company trademark. Today, he is known as the Gorton’s Fisherman.