an urban district in the Accrington parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 32 m. E.S.E. of Blackburn. Pop. (1901) 14,192. It possesses cotton-mills, printworks, bleachworks and chemical works, and in the neighbourhood are collieries, stone quarries and potteries. At Peelfold, in the township, was born (1750) Sir Robert Peel, first baronet, who, as a factory-owner effected wide developments in the cotton industry.