Huyton - Governance

Governance

Huyton was an ancient parish in the county of Lancashire which, in the mid-19th century, contained Croxteth Park, Knowsley and Tarbock, in addition to the township of Huyton-with-Roby. It was part of West Derby (hundred), an ancient subdivision of Lancashire, covering the south-west of the county.

In 1894, the township was included in the Huyton with Roby Urban District. "Since the First World War, Huyton-with-Roby has been transformed into a residential suburb of Liverpool, while agriculture, formerly the area's main occupation, has almost disappeared". In 1932 Liverpool City Council purchased a large area of the Earl of Derby's Knowsley estate. Thereafter, throughout the 1930s, the city built four large housing estates in the north-west of Huyton-with-Roby. These Liverpool ‘overspill’ housing estates were Fincham, Huyton Farm, Longview and Woolfall Heath. Other smaller developments were commissioned by the urban district council or privately commissioned. By 1950 the population was over 55,000, the vast majority of whom had moved to the area from the city of Liverpool.

After the Second World War, the district successfully fought off absorption into the Liverpool City Council boundaries. However, its own application for borough status failed in 1952. On 1 April 1974, Huyton-with-Roby became part of the new metropolitan borough of Knowsley.

By convention, Huyton-with-Roby contains Huyton Park, Roby, Longview, Huyton Quarry, Page Moss, Woolfall Heath, Bowring Park, Fincham, and Court Hey. Today this area is divided into seven local government wards: Longview, Page Moss, Roby, St. Bartholomew's, St. Gabriel's, St. Michael's, and Swanside.

Huyton was immortalised in the poem by Thomas Arthur Lumley

Huyton, Huyton, Two dogs fightin’ One was a blackin and the other was a whitin

This recognised the long-standing rivalry within the area between religious factions which notably reached a nadir in the seventies with ‘end of term' fighting between opposing Roman Catholic and Church of England Schools notably St. Augustine’s of Canterbury and Seel Rd School respectively.