The Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph, Blackburn in the County of -- Lancashire --

St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church was first begun in 1869, by Father Parker, later Canon Parker, Rector of St. Alban's, Blackburn, who opened a new mission, dedicated to St Joseph, from three cottages in William Hopwood Street. It was served from St. Alban's by Father William Berry until June 1874, when Monsignor Maglione was then asked to go to Audley to meet catholic needs although there was no church or school, so his target was to build them. Father Maglione led the Blackburn mission and engaged Messrs. Goldie and Childe, architects of London, to design a very large building in the Italian style, the ground floor of which was to be a school and the upper floor a church with seating for about 600 people. The foundation stone was laid by Bishop (afterwards Cardinal) Vaughan on Whit Monday, 1875, and the church was solemnly opened by him on Thursday, August 30th, 1877, with Pontifical High Mass in the presence of several other bishops, and attended by the cathedral chapter and heads of religious orders.

	The Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph, Blackburn

The site was given by Mr. Richard Shakeshaft, who bought it from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for £1,000 freehold. A presbytery was built at the same time. One of the first and greatest benefactors of St. Joseph's was a non-Catholic, Mr. Eli Heyworth, a cotton manufacturer, a councillor of the borough who afterwards became an alderman and mayor. He gave £1,000.

Monsignor Maglione was born in Naples on June 23rd, 1834. He came to England as a refugee from the political troubles in Italy after the Garibaldian revolution and the overthrow of the Temporal Power. He was a most apostolic priest and a formidable controversialist. He died at St. Joseph's after a long illness, on January 13th, 1905, and was buried in the Blackburn Municipal Cemetery. He left the two treasures of the parish, a relic of the True Cross and a splendid monstrance.

The next Missionary Rector of St. Joseph's was the Very Rev. J. C. Canon Musseley, who came from St. Patrick's, Manchester. He had a talent for architecture which he applied both to the church and to the presbytery. He died at St. Joseph's on November 13th, 1910 and was buried in the Blackburn Municipal Cemetery.

Canon Musseley was succeeded by the Very Rev. David Power, V.F. Dean Power steadily paid off the parochial debt and made many improvements in the schools to meet the increasing demands of the Board of Education. He refloored the schools in maple-wood, redecorated the church, and erected a memorial to the parishioners who fell in the 1914-1918 war. He died at St. Joseph's on December 13th, 1935.

The Rev. J. McEnery was appointed parish priest in 1935. His chief work was the building of the chapel-of-ease of St. Teresa of Lisieux and the establishment of a new mission in the district which it served. Before he left, all arrangements had been made for making St. Teresa's into a parish.

Fr. McEnery was succeeded in March 1940 by the Rev. J. Arthur O'Connor, M.C., the present parish priest. Fr. O'Connor paid off the remainder of the capital debt and then formed a new Mass centre, dedicated to Christ the King, on Whinney Heights, to serve a new estate and the villages of Guide and Belthorn and the country around. The Chapel of Christ the King was opened on Easter Sunday, 1943 and closed in November 1965, there are no separate registers.

The original church above, described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘Blackburn’s most bewildering building, large and uncouth’, the Goldie & Child church was demolished in 1976, and a mosque now occupies the site.

The present church, below, was built on a nearby site in 1982, from designs by Bernard Ashton of the Cassidy & Ashton Partnership, Manchester.

	The new Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph, Blackburn

In 2008 the parish merged with St Antony, Shadsworth (cut off from St Joseph's in 1959) and St Teresa, Intack, to form the new parish of the Holy Family.