Cheltenham St Peter, Gloucestershire Genealogy

Parish History
CHELTENHAM (St. Mary), a borough, market town, and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Cheltenham, E. division of the county of Gloucester, 9 miles (E. N. E.) from Gloucester, and 95 (W. N. W.) from London. The church of the Holy Trinity, in Portland-street, a handsome structure in the later English style, was erected by subscription, but finished by Lord Sherborne, and was consecrated in 1823.St. Paul's church, an edifice of the Grecian-Ionic order, with a portico and tower, was completed in 1831. This, also, is a chapel of ease to the parent church. St. James' church, Suffolksquare, St. John's, Berkeley-street, and Christ-Church, Lansdowne, were erected under what is called the Forty Years' act, 5 George IV. Another church, St. Peter's, on the Tewkesbury road, was commenced in 1847. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, the Connexion of the Countess of Huntingdon, Independents, Wesleyan and other Methodists, and Roman Catholics. The parish of St. Peter’s was created in 1845 and the building of St. Peter’s Church begun in 1848 at the cost of about £5,000. It was consecrated on 23 March 1849.

It was built to the design of Samuel Whitfield Daukes, architect who is also responsible for the railway station at Lansdown and Francis Close Hall in St. Paul’s. Daukes was born in London in 1811 and trained under J. P. Pritchett of York where he met a fellow pupil John Middleton, whom he later invited to Cheltenham. Middleton then became Cheltenham’s most famous church architect, creating buildings such as St. Mark’s Church, Holy Apostles Church in Charlton Kings and St. Philip and St. James in The Park.

The building of St. Peter’s is an edifice in the Norman style with a 90 feet high round tower rising from an octagonal lower stage and finishing with a conical roof and vane. The font is, in form, a copy of that in Lincoln Cathedral, and consists of a square bowl resting on a central pier.

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.

Church records
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Non-Conformist Churches

 * 1642-1996 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Gloucestershire 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
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain