Morecambe

The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his History of Manchester (1771), when he refers to the "æstury of Moricambe". It next appears four years later in Antiquities of Furness, where the bay is described as "the Bay of Morecambe".

That name is derived from the Roman name Moriancabris Æsturis shown on maps prepared for them by Claudius Ptolemœus (Ptolemy) from his original Greek maps. At this distance in time it is impossible to say if the name was originally derived from an earlier language (e.g. Celtic language) or from Greek. The Latin version describes the fourth inlet north from Wales on the west coast of England as Moriancabris Æsturis. Translated, this gives a more accurate description than the present name of Morecambe Bay as the Latin refers to multiple estuaries on a curved sea, not a bay, as then the word sinus or gulf would have been used.

The name appeared in March 1862 on a steam locomotive built for the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway, which could indicate it was already in unofficial use for the area.

It was not until 1889 that the necessary legislation was passed to officially name the area Morecambe, comprising the hamlets of Poulton, Bare and Torrisholme (a township for the purposes of the Census of 1841 but shown as separate townships in the previous Census of 1831). In 1894, the Urban District Council was formed, thus freeing Morecambe completely from its governance by the Borough of Lancaster until 1974 when Lancaster again took charge.

Before the creation of Morecambe, Poulton acquired two suffixes, "le Sands" and briefly "on Sands". The reason for these additions stems from the dearth of names of townships in earlier times with the same name recurring over again. In the days before free movement of people, this was not so important. As travel became easier through first the turnpikes and later the railways, it became necessary to differentiate between the various towns with the same name, hence the additions.

On 3 August 1928, the name changed again when the Corporation of Morecambe amalgamated with Heysham Urban District Council to form the Municipal Borough of Morecambe and Heysham.

In 1846, the Morecambe Harbour and Railway Company was formed[4] to build a harbour on Morecambe Bay, close to the fishing village of Poulton-le-Sands and a connecting railway. By 1850, the railway linked to Skipton, Keighley and Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and a settlement began to grow around the harbour and railway to service the port and as a seaside resort. The settlement expanded to absorb Poulton and the villages of Bare and Torrisholme. The settlement started to be referred to as "Morecambe", possibly after the harbour and railway. In 1889, the new name was officially adopted.

Morecambe was a thriving seaside resort in the mid-20th century. While the resort of Blackpool attracted holiday-makers predominantly from the Lancashire mill towns, Morecambe had more visitors from Yorkshire (due to its railway connection) and Scotland. Mill workers from Bradford and further afield in West Yorkshire would holiday at Morecambe, with some retiring there. This gave Morecambe the nickname "Bradford on Sea".[5][6][7] Between 1956 and 1989, it was the home of the Miss Great Britain beauty contest.

Morecambe suffered a decades-long decline after a series of incidents that damaged tourism and the local economy.[8] Two piers were lost: West End Pier was partly washed away in a storm in November 1977, and the remnants were demolished in 1978; Central Pier, damaged by fire in 1933, was removed in 1992. In 1994, The World of Crinkley Bottom attraction in Happy Mount Park closed only thirteen weeks after opening. The ensuing Blobbygate scandal led to a legal battle between Lancaster City Council and TV star Noel Edmonds. The closures of Bubbles, Morecambe's swimming pool, and the Frontierland fairground soon followed.

Concern over the decline of Morecambe's West End led to regeneration and investment in the area. The Times and The Daily Telegraph ran features on Morecambe's revival around Easter 2006. After falling into abeyance in the mid-1980s, the Miss Morecambe beauty contest was revived in 2006 by Margee Ltd, a local fashion store founded in 1933 – the same year that the second Midland Hotel opened.

Morecambe was selected by the RNLI as the location for its first active life-saving hovercraft. (Griffon 470SAR) H-002 "The Hurley Flyer", which became operational on 23 December 2002, was housed in a temporary garage next to the Yacht Club until a permanent building could be designed and built. Work on the latter began in 2008, and it officially opened on 12 June 2010.[9]

On 5 February 2004, there was a major loss of life in Morecambe Bay when Chinese immigrant shellfish harvesters were drowned.

In December 2017 a local general practitioner and community health activist[10][11] claimed that children in Morecambe were suffering from malnourishment and implied that cases of rickets had been observed as a consequence.[12] The Morecambe Bay Clinical Commissioning Group subsequently sought to correct the GP's claims and clarified the aetiology of vitamin D deficiency in the local population, explaining "rickets is a very rare condition and has multiple causes".[13]

The "Morecambe Budget"

Morecambe Beach looking towards the West End

Enoch Powell made a speech in Morecambe on 11 October 1968 on the economy, setting out alternative, radical free-market policies that would later be called the Morecambe Budget.[14] Powell used the financial year 1968–69 to show how income tax could be halved from 8s 3d to 4s 3d in the pound (basic rate cut from 41% to 21%)[15][16] and how capital gains tax and Selective Employment Tax could be abolished without reducing expenditure on defence or the social services. These tax cuts required a saving of £2,855 million, and this would be funded by eradicating losses in the nationalised industries and denationalising the profit-making state concerns; ending all housing subsidies except for those who could not afford their own housing; ending all foreign aid; ending all grants and subsidies in agriculture; ending all assistance to development areas; ending all investment grants;[17] abolishing the National Economic Development Council; and abolishing the Prices and Incomes Board[18] The cuts in taxation would also allow the state to borrow from the public to spend on capital projects such as hospitals and roads and on the firm and humane treatment of criminals.[19]

The town is in the Morecambe and Lunesdale parliamentary constituency, the current Member of parliament is David Morris.

Before Brexit, it was in the North West England European Parliamentary Constituency.

Morecambe is governed by three tiers of Local Government:

• Morecambe Town Council,[20]
• Lancaster City Council (District),
• Lancashire County Council.

Morecambe Promenade

Morecambe's main central shopping area stretches from Central Drive Retail Park to the Arndale Shopping Centre. This area also incorporates two markets—the Festival Market and the Morecambe Sunday Market—and the Reel Cinema complex.

Morecambe's manufacturing and industrial businesses are largely located in the White Lund Industrial Estate.

Morecambe is primarily a seaside resort with a large proportion of the local economy based on tourism, hospitality and catering located along the seafront. It is also situated at the foot of the Lake District National Park.

Tourism

Morecambe Sands in summer

Morecambe Hotel and Tourism Association, which had forty members, has merged with the Bay Tourism Association. At a full meeting of the Morecambe Hotel and Tourism Association on Monday 8 March 2010, it was unanimously resolved that the MHTA would join with Bay Tourism to become one association under the name of the Bay Tourism Association and the MHTA would cease to operate as an association. The BTA works closely with Lancaster Chamber and organises joint promotional ventures with other tourism associations in the region. Recent tourism initiatives have made Morecambe a centre for bird watchers with the Tern Project enhancing the town's heritage linked to the extensive natural landscape of Morecambe Bay and its diverse wildlife.

Morecambe is served by a number of primary, secondary and tertiary educational establishments. These include Morecambe Bay Academy, Bay Leadership Academy and Lancaster and Morecambe College.

Eric Morecambe statue

One of Morecambe's most famous landmarks is a statue commemorating one of its most famous sons, Eric Morecambe. It was created by sculptor Graham Ibbeson.

One of Morecambe's landmark buildings is the partially renovated Victoria Pavilion or Morecambe Winter Gardens. This was once a venue for swimming baths, a grand theatre, a restaurant and a ballroom.

Morecambe's current library opened in 1967; it was designed by the office of the architect Roger Booth. It replaced the Victoria Street library, which opened in 1928. There had been earlier proposals to build a library in Morecambe with Carnegie funding, but arguments about the rates involved stalled the project. The library is mentioned by Pevsner and is one of the few noteworthy buildings, other than churches, that are not connected to the seaside trade. The building is formed by hexagons, with a hyperbolic parabolic roof, creating a distinctive skyline and interior.[26]

Morecambe once boasted two fairgrounds: a small one to the north of the railway station, which closed down in the 1980s, and a larger one to the south of the station, which ultimately became Frontierland and closed in 1999. The last remaining landmark on the site was the Polo Tower, left standing only because of the contract for the phone mast on top.[27] This was demolished mid 2017. The future of the remaining land remains uncertain, although a shopping complex is heavily rumored.

In July 2008, the local council ordered a clean-up of the Polo Tower, and scaffolding was erected around the structure to carry out a survey. It was demolished in sections, in July 2017.

Near the promenade is the Morecambe and Heysham War Memorial which commemorates the men of Morecambe who lost their lives in the two world wars and the Korean War.[28] The memorial differs from most as it lists the First World War as 1914 to 1919 rather than 1914 to 1918.

In March 2019 a Time and Tide Bell designed by Marcus Vergette was installed beside the Stone Jetty, as part of a national public art project.[29][30]

Midland Hotel

Midland Hotel in 2008 after restoration

The Midland Hotel is an art deco hotel on the seafront. It contains interior design and art pieces by artist Eric Gill. In 2009[31] it underwent a £7m restoration, headed by Manchester company Urban Splash. The hotel re-opened for business in June 2008.

In March 2011 Urban Splash sold the freehold of the building to Lancashire-based 'The Lancaster Foundation'.

• Morecambe and the neighbouring village of Heysham are the setting of the Cthulhu Mythos novel The Weird Shadow over Morecambe, published by the writer Edmund Glasby in 2014.[37] The title of the book is a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Shadow over Innsmouth", which is also set in a seaside town.
• Morecambe was mentioned in an episode of the prison-set television comedy Porridge first broadcast in 1973: "...  Fletchers's old woman said she wasn't returning, cos she was going to live with that Maltese ponce in Morecambe.".[38]
• The 1960 film The Entertainer, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, was filmed on location in the town. Morecambe-born actress Thora Hird co-starred.
• Sunset across the Bay is a play by Alan Bennett written in 1975 for the BBC Play for Today strand, set and filmed in Morecambe.
• Morecambe is extensively written about in Bill Bryson's "Notes From A Small Island". (1995).
• The 2019 ITV series, The Bay, was set and filmed in Morecambe. The series was renewed for a second season, with an early 2020 release date.

See Category:People from Morecambe

• Emma Atkins - actress
• Tyson Fury - boxer (World Heavyweight Champion 2015-16, 2020-)
• Paul Hayes - antiques expert, TV personality
• Wayne Hemingway - designer, founder of Red or Dead and Northern Soul DJ
• Graham Hicks - strongman
• Dame Thora Hird - actress
• Isaac Lowe - Commonwealth boxing champion[39]
• John McGuinness - motorcycle racer
• Albert Modley - Yorkshire comedian
• Eric Morecambe OBE - comedian, who took his stage name from the town's name
• Peter J. Ratcliffe - Nobel prize-winning biologist
• Radford family - UK's largest family, consisting of Sue and Noel Radford, who as of April 2020 have 22 children and 5 grandchildren

• Listed buildings in Morecambe

• Hatch, J.; Kaye C.; MacGregor J.A.; Sumner W. (1909). Morecambe, Lancaster & District (souvenir of the Conference of the National Union of Teachers, 1909). Warwick Square, E.C.: Henry Frowde / Hodder & Stoughton. p. 266.
• Quick, R.C. (1962). The History of Morecambe and Heysham. Morecambe. p. 160.
• Potter, T.F. (1976). The Growth of Morecambe. Morecambe: The Visitor. p. 56.
• Stocker, David (1988). Potted Tales (Recollections and Views of Morecambe Bay Fishermen). Lancaster: Local Studies No.8, Lancaster City Museums.
• Bingham, Roger K. (1990). Lost Resort ? The Flow and Ebb of Morecambe. Milnthorpe, Cumbria: Cicerone Press. p. 320. ISBN 1-85284-071-4.
• Bracewell, Michael; Linder (2003). I Know Where I'm Going: A Guide To Morecambe & Heysham. Book Works. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-870699-61-7.
• Hayes, Cliff (2004). Lancaster, Morecambe and Heysham (Francis Frith's pocket album). Frith Book Company Ltd. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-85937-731-4.
• Lancashire Historic Town Survey Programme : MORECAMBE - Historic Town Assessment Report. Lancashire County Council. 1 February 2006. Archived from the original on 11 October 2008.
• Guise, Barry; Brook Pam (2008). The Midland Hotel: Morecambe's White Hope. Palatine Books. ISBN 978-1-874181-55-2.
• Bryson, Bill. Notes From A Small Island. pp. 271–277.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Morecambe.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Morecambe.

• Morecambe Visitor Information
• Bay Tourism Association
• Morecambe Newspaper Morecambe's weekly newspaper and local resources.
• Lancaster and Morecambe Citizen newspaper News and sport updated daily
• Morecambe Library