Ulverston St Mary, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Guide to Ulverston St Mary, Lancashire family history and genealogy. Parish registers (baptism, christening, marriage, and burial records), civil registration (birth, marriage, and death records), census records, history, wills, cemetery, online transcriptions and indexes, an interactive map and websites.

See a Comprehensive List of Chapelries in Ulverston Parish



Parish History
ULVERSTON (St. Mary), a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Lonsdale north of the Sands, N. division of the county of Lancaster; containing, with the townships of Mansriggs, Osmotherley, and Subberthwaite, and the chapelries of Blawith, Church-Conistone, Egtonwith Newland, Lowick, and Torver. It lies 22 miles (N. W.) from Lancaster. This place derives its name, written in old records Olvestonam, from Ulpha, a Saxon lord; and was conferred in 1127, on the abbey of Furness, by Stephen, afterwards King of England. Ulverston is a port within the port of Lancaster, and is little more than a mile distant from the Furness channel in Morecambe bay. The parish was anciently included in the parish of Dalton. In the rural parts of the parish are five separate chapels. The Independents, Wesleyans, and Roman Catholics have places of worship; and Sunday schools in connexion both with the churches and meetinghouses afford religious instruction to a large number of children. There are, besides, auxiliaries of the Christian Knowledge, the British and Foreign Bible, the Gospel Propagation, the Church Missionary, and London and Wesleyan Missionary, Societies. The Friends meeting-house near Swarthmoor Hall is a plain structure: over the doorway is the inscription "Ex dono G. F. 1688.

The name Ulverston, first recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) as Ulvrestun probably means 'Úlfarr's farm' from the Old Norse personal name Úlfarr and tun, 'farm, homestead' or the equivalent Old English Wulfhere + tūn. The names Úlfarr and Wulfhere both translate roughly as 'wolf warrior' or 'wolf army', which explains the presence of a wolf on the town's coat of arms. The loss of the 'W' in Wulfhere can be attributed to the historic Scandinavian influence in the region. Locally, the town has traditionally been known as Oostan.] Other variations of the name recorded throughout history include Oluestonam (1127), and Uluereston (1189).

The town's market charter was granted in 1280 by Edward I. This was for a market every Thursday; modern Ulverston keeps its old market town appearance, and market days are now held on both Thursdays and Saturdays. The charter also allowed for all public houses to open from 10:30 am until 11:00 pm irrespective of any other statute on the books. During the summer months the Saturday market day is themed with craft stalls, charity stalls and locally produced wares on "Made in Cumbria" stalls.

Historically, the ancient parish included several other chapelries or townships which later became separate civil parishes: Blawith, Church Coniston, Egton with Newland, Lowick, Mansriggs, Osmotherley, Subberthwaite and Torver. From 1894 to 1974 the town constituted an urban district in the administrative county of Lancashire. It became a successor parish in the Cumbria district of South Lakeland under the Local Government Act 1972.

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.

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Online Records
Ulverston St. Mary parish registers and those registers of all of its smaller chapelries lying within its boundaries have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

Original Records
The Lancashire Record Office at Bow Lane, Preston PR2 1RE, holds the original parish registers in its vast collections. Contact their website for contact information.

The Family History Library has microfilmed the parish registers and Bishop's transcripts of Ulverston St. Mary parish for the years 1545-1914. These films are available for ordering/circulating and researching at any one of its satellite FamilySearch Centers worldwide.

Poor Law Unions
Ulverston Poor Law Union,Lancashire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Lancashire 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