Eccles cake Eccles cake An Eccles cake is a small, round cake filled with currants and made from flaky pastry with butter, sometimes topped with demerara sugar. Eccles cakes are named after the English town of Eccles, historically part of Lancashire, but now classified as a town in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester. It is not known who invented the recipe, but James Birch is credited with being the first person to sell Eccles cakes commercially, which he sold from his shop at the corner of Vicarage Road and St Mary's Road, now Church Street, in the town centre in 1793.
John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles John Dawson Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles, (born 20 April 1931) is a British Conservative peer and businessman. He is one of the ninety hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999. The son of the 1st Viscount Eccles and Sybil Dawson, he was educated at Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, politics and economics in 1954. He served in the 1st Battalion (60th Rifles), King's Royal Rifle Corps, reaching the rank of 2nd