Ramsbottom Grant Arms Hotel in Market Place was the home of William and Daniel Grant, 19th century industrialists closely associated with the rise of the town and reputed to be the inspiration for the Cheeryble brothers in "Nicholas Nickleby" by Charles Dickens. The Grants' employees were paid in tokens that had to be redeemed at a public house owned by the company. The landlord converted the tokens into cash, but only after deducting threepence per person, which had to be spent on beer, a variation on the truck system. A network of roads and railways routed through Ramsbottom allowed for a
Hazel Dickens in the films "Matewan" and "Songcatcher". Dickens received the Merit Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 1994 and was the first woman to do so. In 2001 she was presented with a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Hazel Dickens died in 2011 from complications of pneumonia. After her passing it was reported in major media that she had been born on June 1, 1935, but her relatives and public records confirm the earlier date of June 1, 1925. Stating that