Those Places Thursday - The State of the Poor UPDATE

Yes, I know it's Sunday, but this is worth mentioning now rather than waiting another four days.

Berkshire: Reading Poorhouse

An eagle-eyed blog reader, Adrian Bruce, found The State of the Poor: Volume II on Google Books. This is the volume with the rest of the Parochial Reports, as follows:

Bedfordshire: Dunstable, Houghton Regis, Humbershoe, Houghton Regis
Berkshire: Reading, Streatley, Wallingford, Windsor
Buckinghamshire: Buckingham, Maid's Morton, Stony Stratford, Winslow
Cheshire: Chester, High Walton, Mickle Trafford
Cornwall: Gwennap, Kenwyn
Cumberland: Ainstable, Bromfield, Caldbeck, Carlisle, Castle Carrock, Croglin, Cumrew, Cumwhitton, Gilcrux, Harrington, Hesket, Kirkoswald, Nent Head, Sebergham, Warwick, Wetheral, Workington
Derbyshire: Chesterfield, Derby (St Alkmund, All Saints, St Michael, St Peter, St Werburgh), Wirksworth
Devon: Clyst St George, South Tawton, Tiverton
Dorsetshire: Blandford, Durweston
Durham: Durham (St Margaret, St Nicholas), Holy Island, Monk Wearmouth, South Shields, Stanhope, Sunderland, Tanfield
Essex: Colchester (All Saints, St Mary, St James)
Gloucestershire: Bristol, Rodmarton, Stapleton
Hampshire: Gosport, Hawksley, Newton Valence, Petersfield, Portsea, Portsmouth, Southampton, Isle of Wight
Herefordshire: Hereford (All Saints, St Nicholas)
Hertfordshire: St Albans, Chipping Barnet, Redbourn

Norfolk: Yarmouth 'A row'

Kent: Ashford, Chalk, Great Chart, Little Chart, Cobham, Hothfield, Meopham, Westwell
Lancashire: Bury, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Warrington
Leicestershire: Ashby de la Zouch, Carlton Curlieu, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicester
Lincolnshire: Alford, Cockerington, Louth, Spilsby, Swineshead, Tattershall, Willoughby, Lincoln
Middlesex: Ealing, Hampton, St Martin's Westminster
Monmouthshire: Abergavenny, Monmouth
Norfolk: Downham, Gressinghall, Heckingham, Norwich, Yarmouth
Northamptonshire: Brixworth, Kettering, Northmapton (St Giles, St Peter), Rode, Yardley Goben
Northumberland: Newcastle, North Shields
Nottinghamshire: Newark, Nottingham, Overingham, Worksop
Oxford: Banbury, Deddington, Oxford
Rutland: Empingham, Luffenham
Shropshire: Bishops Castle, Ellesmere, Shrewsbury
Somersetshire: Frome, Minehead, Walcot (Bath)
Staffordshire: Litchfield, Wolverhampton
Suffolk: Bulcamp, Melton

Shropshire: Shrewsbury, Battlefield Road

 


 

Those Places Thursday - 'Old' Brompton and Fort Amherst

Many thanks to my friend and blogmeister Chris Paton of British GENES for alerting me to an excellent new website Brompton - civilian life in a military village. Brompton is the area immediately outside the gates of Chatham Dockyard, and only became 'Old' Brompton with the growth of 'New' Brompton, which in turn became the town of Gillingham, so that 'Old' Brompton could become Brompton again.

If your ancestors had any connection with Chatham Dockyard, or any of the numerous military establishments in the area, this site could be of use to you - it's of more tha.assed through this area. The army, in particular the Royal Engineers, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines all have long associations with Brompton. I have no ancestral connections, but I have a long-standing interest in both Gillingham and Chatham (grew up in the former, went to school in the latter) and the history of the Medway Towns in general.

There is a lot of good content on the Brompton website, including details of local pubs, schools and significant buildings. You can also comment on articles and add your own memories. There is a well-chosen page of links, one of which is to nearby Fort Amherst a series of tunnels in the chalk cliffs overlooking the dockyard. I used to pass this on the bus between Gillingham and Chatham hundreds of times without even realising it was there, but it has now been open to the public for a number of years. The website used to be rather cheesy and amateurish, but I'm pleased to say that it has been completely re-vamped and is greatly improved. As a tourist attraction it is overshadowed by Chatham's world-famous Historic Dockyard which is almost next door.

 

Those Places Thursday - what do you mean by 'London'?

Short answer - 'Well, it depends.'

Comprehensive answer - much too long for a blog post, and I'd have to admit to struggling with some of the finer points.

Shabby compromise coming up.

 When?

A lot depends on the time period you are talking about. Even today what someone means when they say 'London' depends on the context. If you want an example of this, look at a map and find London's airports - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City; and the current Mayor of London wants to build a new one on the Isle of Grain. If you said you were going to London for a day's shopping, none of these would be on your itinerary (unless you arrived by plane, of course).

London has grown enormously over the centuries, both in area and in population. Like many other large cities it has spread out and engulfed the surrounding area 'The march of bricks and mortar' And by the way, if you are at all interested in London and its history you should get to know and love The Victorian Dictionary. In the Middle Ages London was the small area now known as the City of London  or the 'Square Mile', on the north bank of the Thames. It extended from the Tower of London in the east to Fleet Street in the west. Its northern extent was approximately the modern street known as London Wall (big clue in the name).

As the built-up area expanded over the centuries it joined up with the City of Westminster to the west, and the surrounding areas. Expansion to the east was relatively late, and came about with the development of the London docks, particularly in the 19th century. This is the area known as the East End. The area on the south bank of the Thames also expanded, initially the area known as Southwark, directly opposite the City and connected with it by London Bridge, London's only bridge until the mid-19th century. Expansion on this side of the Thames mirrored that on the north bank, but on a smaller scale.

Counties

This is probably the single most confusing aspect of trying to research London ancestors - what county should I be looking in? Most of 'London' is in the county of Middlesex, on the north bank of the Thames, although the City of London itself has never actually been part of Middlesex, having its own independent local government, the Corporation of London. The county to the east of Middlesex, on the north bank of the river is Essex, and some of the eastern districts of modern-day Greater London were once part of Essex, but these were late ie 20th century, additions. 'London' south of the Thames was mostly in Surrey, but eastern districts such as Greenwich, Deptford and Woolwich were originally part of Kent.

The City of London was the only place that was technically 'London' until the formation of the London County Council (LCC) in 1889. But the term 'London' had long been used to refer to the whole of the built-up area, or the Metropolis; for example London Post Office Directories had been produced for several decades before the LCC was born. The new County of London was created from parts of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent, and in 1965 the LCC was replaced by the Greater London Council (GLC) a much-expanded area incorporating further parts of North-east Surrey, North-west Kent, the whole of the remainder of Middlesex and, for the first time, some of South-east Essex. There is a very good colour-coded map illustrating this on the website of the London Metropolitan Archives

Records and websites

The answer to the question 'What county should I be looking in?' should depend on the date of the record concerned. In practice, of course, it's not that simple. Collection of records don't always follow neat parish, borough or county boundaries for a start; then they may have been classified in print or online by people who have chosen not to arrange them according to those boundaries (or may not have   entirely understood them). So, to be on the safe side, always look in both London and Middlesex, or London and Surrey etc, depending on your place of interest. The Collections Information page on the LMA website has some useful information to start with. However, if your family came from Westminster, you will also need to look at the records held by the Westminster City Archives.

This is London, remember. It was never going to be that simple!

 

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History - Home

Cartside Street, Glasgow

When I was 16, we moved house. Nothing remarkable in that, but it was the eighth time we had moved since I was a baby. So when I read this week's challenge - Describe the house in which you grew up. Was it big or small? What made it unique? Is it still there today? - I wondered how it would felt to grow up in just one house. My seven previous moves were when I was aged 1, 6, 7 (twice), 8 (twice) and 11.  I spent the longest time in the second of them (Cartside Street, left), when I was tiny, and don't remember much, and the eighth, when I was more a teenager than a child.

Between them, my childhood homes represent quite a wide range of British housing; the first four places where I lived were flats, not houses, and they ranged in size from what would now be called a 'studio flat' (ie, a room), to  a three-bedroomed house with a garden. The flats were all on different floors, and one of them was even on two floors. The gardens attached to the houses ranged from tiny to one that was so long you couldn't see the far end from the kitchen window. The oldest of them was built in 1687, and the newest dates from the 1950s. Coincidentally, this was also the last one, where we moved when I was 16, and where my mother still lives. Geographically they range from Glasgow, where I was born, proceeding all the way south to Gillingham in Kent, via Warwickshire. My Glasgow homes were in the suburbs, in Warwickshire we lived in a small village, while Gillingham is one of the Medway Towns, urban, but not a big city.

So my memories of growing up are scattered between all of these home. I can even remember the first one, where I was born, because we that was my grandparents' home, and we moved back there for a while, so my first and third homes were one and the same. I have random 'growing up' memories attached to all of them; looking out of our top-floor window in Cartside Street at the cricket field opposite (yes, cricket in Glasgow, incredible but true), the kitchen with two enormous sinks and an old-fashioned boiler when we moved back in with my grandmother. Moving to rural Warwickshire for a year was such a contrast, and that's when I 'caught' history - living in historic houses, how could I not? I wrote about this in a previous post about Moving House from Glebe House to Wootton Hall, both in the village of Wootton Wawen. We were only in our tiny flat in Glebe House for a short time, but I will never forget it. It didn't exactly have a garden, but it had a whole wood behind it where I could play. I can still smell the pine cones. Wootton Hall was a much grander house, and we had a bigger flat there, where I loved the fact that the window-ledge next to my bed was so big that I could lie on it, although it wasn't very comfortable.

I hated leaving Warwickshire after only a year, to move to Kent, but I didn't have much choice, being only 8 years old, but I grew to like it. Our first house there was only temporary, but it was a house, not a flat. It was a classic 'two-up, two-down', or if you are an estate agent trying to sell one 'artisan cottage'. Or for a followed of British TV soaps, a Coronation Street house. These houses were often built without bathrooms, and many now have had ground-floor bathrooms added on. This one wasn't quite there yet; At least we had an indoor toilet, but it led directly from the kitchen. There was a bath, too, and that was actually IN the kitchen, with a green gingham curtain on a wire that you pulled across for privacy! The next house was another British classic, the 1930's 3-bedroomed semi-detached, with pebble-dashed walls, bay windows, front and back gardens and a wrought-iron gate at he front. There were French windows leading to the back garden, which was narrow, but very, very long. About half-way up was an old chicken shed that made a great den, if you didn't mind the smell, and a walnut tree with a swing. The tree was good for climbing, and there were some fruit trees and bushes. Right at the very end was an old wartime Anderson shelter, another good den. Even a dedicated indoor type like me spent lots of time outside with a garden like that.

We moved to our next house when I was 11, and just before my brother was born. It was a nice house, one of the really well-built council houses of the late 1940s, with good-sized rooms. It even had built-in kitchen cupboards, and a convenient alcove in the hall for my brother's pram. I had a lovely big bedroom, with pretty wallpaper, which I proceeded to cover with pictures, mainly of pop stars (Mummy and Daddy's little girl was growing up!). But there was one thing I pinned up that was a centre-page pullout from the Radio Times. Remember the classic TV adaptation of the Forsyte Saga, the 1967 black-and-white version, that is? Well, my Radio Times pin-up was the illustrated Forsyte family tree. The shape of things to come?

Mappy Monday - Chatham

This in an odd little map that I picked up several years ago, because I have an interest in the area covered by it; I lived in Gillingham and went to school in Chatham. I bought the map as a single sheet, and it is undated - like most maps of this kind it probably came from a book, and there is no clue to its provenance on the map itself. My guess would be that it comes from the early 19th century, or thereabouts, from the extent (or lack of it) of the built-up areas.

A number of features are indicated on the map, from two forts, Gillingham and Fort Pit, to a brick kiln and an oil mill, and even a pub, the Star, in the bottom right corner. The small cluster of dwellings that constituted Gillingham, and the even smaller Upnor are also shown, as are a few road names. But what interests me most is the lack of any label for arguably the most significant feature of the whole map, Chatham Royal Naval Dockyard. This is the area just to the north-west of the word 'Brompton'.

Although there is no key to the map, the faint dotted lines represent the parish boundaries, indicating 'part of Gillingham parish' and 'part of Chatham parish'. If you look closely you will see that the boundary between the two runs through the middle of the dockyard, so that part of Chatham Dockyard isn't in Chatham at all, but in Gillingham. The population of this are grew enormously during the 19th century, along with the growth of the dockyard itself, a major source of employment in the are until the late 20th century. In 1848 the completely new parish of Brompton was formed from parts of Chatham and Gillingham parishes, encompassing the whole of the dockyard, so that no part of it was in the parish from which it takes its name. Nowadays Brompton, including the dockyard, is part of Gillingham - a nice little piece of geographical trivia, which might come in handy in a pub quiz one day, you never know

Mappy Monday - Poor Law Unions of Kent

This is one of my favourite maps, and one of the first antique maps I bought, about 20 years ago. I have a particular interest in Kent, and I also lived there from the ages of 8 to 18, so I know parts of the county very well.

The map is undated, and was engraved for Lewis's Topographical Dictionary, of which there were several editions. So I can't date it exactly, but it is 19th century, and has to be later than 1834, when Poor Law Unions were formed, each Union being a collection of parishes grouped together for Poor Law purposes. The key in the bottom left corner of the map gives a number for each Union, and the printed boundaries on the map have been hand-coloured, making it more attractive and easier to read.

For the genealogist, maps like this are particularly useful because Poor Law Unions almost always have the same boundaries as Registration Districts for births, marriages and deaths, established in 1837. Anyone who is familiar with the Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers will recognise the style of this map, as the Atlas has similar county topographical maps (but without the marked boundaries) opposite parish boundary maps. I have a well-thumbed old copy of the Phillimore Atlas, but I rarely use it now for English research, because the wonderful England 1851 Jurisdictions map, part of FamilySearch, does everything that the Atlas does, and more. And it's FREE! If you haven't already used this fantastic resource, try it out. I've used it quite a bit, but I only discovered yesterday that you can save and print from it too. 

Parish registers online

FamilySearch is the biggest and best-known site for parish register indexes, but it isn't the only one.

A number of English counties have Online Parish Clerks, volunteer transcribers who 'adopt' parishes and  put the results online, free of charge.

They are all works in progress, but worth a look if your county of interest is listed here.

Cornwall
Dorset
Essex
Hampshire
Kent
Lancashire
Somerset
Sussex
Warwickshire
Wiltshire

The Online Parish Clerks have are separate sites for each county, but another site worth searching is FREEREG, which includes transcriptions from many counties in England, Wales and Scotland.

Many printed parish register transcripts can be downloaded from The Internet Archive including publications by Phillimore and Co, and some parish register societies.

Better yet are free digitised images of parish registers, and you will find these for some parishes in Kent and Essex. They are not indexed, although you may find indexes elsewhere, such as on FamilySearch or Online Parish Clerks. History House - dip into the history of Essex links to digitised images of some parish registers in the Essex Record Office. Registers from the area round the Medway Towns in Kent are on the Medway Archives CityArk site. This is not the most user-friendly site I have ever used, to say the least, but given the choice, I'll take inconvenient but content-rich over pretty but empty every time! For anyone not familiar with the term 'Medway Towns', it is the area round Rochester and Chatham; Chatham includes not only Chatham Royal Naval Dockyard, but is also a garrison town, so it is interesting for anyone with ancestors in the Army, Navy and Royal Marines, who may have been stationed there at some time. The Mid-Kent Marriage Index 1754-1911 is a useful resource for another part of the county.