1868 - The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland
"BRETHERTON, formerly a township in the parish of Croston, but now a parish of itself, in the hundred of Leyland, in the county palatine of Lancaster, 7 miles to the W. of Chorley. It is seated on the banks of the river Douglas, near the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, which has a station at Croston. The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Manchester, of the value of £150, in the patronage of the Rector of Croston. The church is a new building in the early English style, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. There are chapels belonging to the Wesleyan Methodists and Independents."