MIDDLETON, a manufacturing town of England, county of Lancaster, on the Manchester and Leeds Railway, and on the Rochdale Canal, 5 miles N.N.E. from Manchester. In 1775 it was only an inconsiderable village with 300 inhabitants, but it has now become an important seat of the cotton and silk manufactures. It contains several good streets and well-built houses, and has a parish church erected in the sixteenth century. It has also a grammar and other schools, a mechanics' institute, reading-room, and savings-bank. Coal mines are wrought in the vicinity. Pop. (1851) 5740.