Dedham, Essex Genealogy

England Essex  Essex Parishes  Dedham

Guide to Dedham, Essex ancestry, family history, and genealogy. Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Dedham, is a village, a parish, and a sub district, in Lexden district, Essex. The village stands on the river Stour, at the boundary with Suffolk, it is 2 3/4 miles North of Ardleigh railway station, and 3 1/2 miles W by N of Manningtree. There is and Independent chapel.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Poor Law Unions
Lexden and Winstree Poor Law Union, Essex

In the 1580s the vicar and lecturer agreed with the inhabitants a set of orders for the town. As well as regulating religious observances, they provided that the ministers and vestrymen should visit monthly the houses of the poor and places frequented by the disorderly, and that only householders and those retained by them might stay in Dedham. In 1645 the church wardens and constables chose four surveyors of the highways. In the early 19th century the parish vestry nominated four overseers of the poor. The 19th-century vestry was composed of principal inhabitants who generally served for life; vacancies were filled by cooption. Parish officers were elected annually on Easter Monday, and monthly meetings were held either in the church vestry or at inns including the Marlborough Head, Sun, and Compasses. Two police officers were recorded in 1841, but generally there was one police constable in the later 19th century. There was a police station in High Street by 1890. The workhouse or poorhouse recorded in 1671 may have been the cottage held by the churchwardens in 1672. It may have become the three timber framed cottages on Dedham Heath, which the parish held in 1838 and which were called a workhouse at their sale in 1840. A house on Crown Street was adapted as a new workhouse in 1725. The accommodation was increased after 1730 using land, buildings, and money given by John Freeman. In 1775 the new master was to maintain paupers at 1s. per head; he put them to work on the 20 spinning wheels and 4 looms in the weaving room and another workshop in the house. In 1781 the parish experimented with leasing its poor, but by 1804 there was a salaried governor. By 1807 the workhouse ran a sack manufactory and the following year had a starching room and setting shop as well as spinning rooms. Medical assistance for the poor was provided from 1775, and a salaried doctor employed from 1801. In addition to the 20-30 inmates of the work house in the early 19th century, 50-70 people received outdoor relief. Until 1801 such relief was in bread and meal; thereafter it was in money, although tea and coal were still given to the old and widowed, and clothing, furniture, accommodation, and loans were sometimes provided. The Speenhamland system was occasionally employed, and in 1808 the overseers themselves used subsidized pauper labour. In 1834 thirty-four Dedham men who had been refused outdoor relief marched to Colchester, where they were summarily dismissed by the justices. The £464 spent on the poor in 1776 was by far the highest amount in the Colchester division of Lexden Hundred, and the average spent on the poor between 1783 and 1785, £458 7s. 10d., was second only to Great Horkesley. A very large sum, £2,701, was expended in 1801, but relief fell the following year to £1,300. It then rose gradually during the second decade of the century until between 1816 and 1819 it again exceeded £2000. Between 1820 and 1835 it averaged c. £1600. Nonetheless, expenditure per head of population was considerably lower than in many neighbouring parishes, which may explain the nearly £100 voluntarily subscribed for the poor in 1820. The workhouse closed in 1835 and was sold in 1838 to Whitmore Baker, from whom it was later named Whitmore Place. Converted into tenements by 1841, it was in poor condition by 1937. Proposed demolition in the 1960s was successfully opposed by the parish council. It was restored and divided into four dwellings c. 1970. Buildings of the 16th century and later are arranged around a courtyard open on one side to Crown Street. Many red brick alterations and additions were made to the timber framed fabric in the 18th century, most of them c. 1725-30 when the property was converted to a work house. The western range is a 2½-storeyed, three bayed lobby entry house of the later 16th century to which red brick fronts were added on all but the west in the 18th century. The north and east fronts were brick faced perhaps c. 1725-30 when the house probably became the main accommodation for the poor. The inserted flat arch over the entrance door is a rustic version of the moulded and rubbed brickwork decorat ing the building on the south of the courtyard, apparently the workhouse master's house and offices. That is of two parallel ranges with brick facades of c. 1725-30 in two colours and with classical details. The north block has a three bayed north facade and a shaped east gable. The south block, which has a 1725 datestone, has alternating pediments to firstfloor windows on the south. Probably c. 1838 the facades of the south part were raised to a straight parapet and the ground floor was rendered and rusticated. The north range, apparently used as the sack factory, originated as a nondomestic 5 bayed timber framed building of the 16th century or earlier. Several modifications have been made to it, probably c. 1725-30. They include the casing of the south wall, underbuilding on the east wall, the addition of a north-east large stack with tabled offsets and a north outshut, and the inser tion of windows with ovolo mouldings under the eaves. The floor and the internal jetty in the westernmost bay were introduced c. 1970. A pest house north of Coopers Lane housed smallpox victims in 1749-50, but had presumably closed by 1770 when one was required. The house had apparently reopened by 1804, but was later demolished.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Essex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
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