Eccles, Greater Manchester along the route of the track linking those two cities. Eccles cakes, first produced and sold in the town in 1796, are now exported across the world. The derivation of the name is uncertain, but several ideas have been proposed. One is that the "Eccles" place-name is derived from the Romano-British "Ecles" or "Eglys", itself derived from the Ancient Greek "Ecclesia". Following the arrival in AD 613 of the invading Anglo-Saxons at Lancashire, many existing British place-names, especially rivers and hills (the River Irwell for example), survived intact. The root "Ecles", found in several village names, is an exception to
Tom Eccles Tom Eccles Tom Eccles (5 October 1893 – 3 February 1962) was a British trade unionist. Eccles was born in Blackburn in 1893. In 1912, he joined the National Union of General Workers in 1912, a union in which his father, Fleming Eccles, was prominent. Eccles fought in World War I, but was seriously injured and spent a lengthy period as a prisoner of war. On repatriation to the UK, he again became active in the union, which later became part of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers (NUGMW), serving as a district organiser, then as the Lancashire