Brent, London Borough Genealogy

Guide to The London Borough of Brent history, family history, and genealogy parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
As with all the other London Boroughs, Brent was cobbled together from a number of local areas with no concern for history or for the desires of the population. Family History researchers will need to review the specific segments listed below that were all part of the original County of Middlesex.

The London Borough of Brent is a London borough in north west London, and forms part of Outer London. The major areas are Wembley, Kilburn, Willesden, Harlesden and Neasden.

It borders the boroughs of Harrow to the northwest, Barnet to the northeast, Camden to the east, Westminster to the southeast, and Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Ealing to the south. Most of the eastern border is formed by the Roman road Watling Street, which is now the modern A5. Brent has a mixture of residential, industrial and commercial land. Brent is home to Wembley Stadium, one of the country's biggest landmarks, as well as Wembley Arena. The local authority is Brent London Borough Council.

The village of Wembley grew up on the hill by the clearing with the Harrow Road south of it. Much of the surrounding area remained wooded. In 1547 there were but six houses in Wembley. Though small, it was one of the wealthiest parts of Harrow. At the dissolution of the monasteries in 1543, the manor of Wembley fell to Richard Andrews and Leonard Chamberlayne, who sold it to Richard Page, Esq., of Harrow on the Hill, the same year.

There was a mill on Wembley Hill by 1673. In 1837, the London and Birmingham Railway (now part of the West Coast Main Line) was opened from London Euston through Wembley to Hemel Hempstead, and completed to Birmingham Curzon Street the following year. The changing names of the local station demonstrated the increasing importance of the 'Wembley' name. 'Sudbury' station opened in 1845, renamed as 'Sudbury and Wembley' in 1882, renamed as 'Wembley for Sudbury' in 1910, renamed as 'Wembley Central' in 1948, at the time of the Olympic Games.

In November 1905, the Great Central Railway (now, in this section, part of the Chiltern Main Line) opened a new route for fast expresses that by-passed the congested Metropolitan Railway tracks. It ran between Neasden Junction, south of Wembley, and Northolt Junction, west of London, where a new joint main line with the Great Western Railway began. Local passenger services from London Marylebone were added from March 1906, when new stations were opened, including 'Wembley Hill', next to what later became the site of Wembley Stadium - the national stadium of English sport - which opened for the FA Cup Final of April 1923, remaining open for 77 years until it closed for reconstruction in October 2000. After a long planning and redevelopment process dogged by a series of funding problems and construction delays, the new stadium finally opened its doors in March 2007.

Wembley, in common with much of northwest London, had an extensive manufacturing industry, but much of it closed in the 1980s. Factories in the area included Glacier Metals (bearings), Wolf Power Tools, Sunbeam Electrical Appliances, Griffin & George (laboratory equipment) and GEC (whose research laboratories, opened in 1923, were one of the first of their type in the United Kingdom.

Brent is among the most diverse localities in the country, with large Asian and Indian, Black African, Black Caribbean, Irish (largest in the country), and Eastern European minority communities. It is largely a bedroom community, with its population traveling to other parts of Greater London for employment.

Cemeteries (Civil)
The website for all inquiries for Brent Cemeteries: www.brent.gov.uk

Individual cemetery information:

Alperton Cemetery Clifford Road Alperton, Wembley, HA0 1AF

Carpenders Park Lawn Cemetery Oxhey Lane Watford WD19 5RL

Paddington Old Cemetery Willesden Lane Kilburn, London NW6 7SD

Willesden New Cemetery Franklyn Road Willesden, London NW10 9TE

Parishes
St Andrew's Church address: 28 Old Church Ln London NW9 8RZ Phone: +44 20 8205 7447

St Cuthbert's Church address: 214 Carlton Avenue West North Wembley HA0 3QY Phone: 020 8904 8599

St John's Wembley Church address: 1 Crawford Avenue Wembley HA0 2HX Phone: 020 8902 7105

St Michael the Archangel Church address: St Michael's Avenue Wembley HA9 6SL Phone: 020 8902 8921

St Augustine's Church address: 152 Wembley Hill Road Wembley, London, HA9 8EW Phone: 020 8908 1383

Church of the Annunciation Church address: South Kenton HA9 8QT

Church of the Ascension Church address: The Avenue Wembley HA9 9QL Phone: 075 9812 8104

St James' Alperton Church address: 32 Stanley Ave Wembley HA0 4JB

Holy Innocents Church address: 54 Roe Green London NW9 0PJ Phone: 020 8204 7531

St Mary's Willesden Church address: Neasden Lane London NW10 2TS

St Matthew's Church address: St Mary's Road Harlesden NW10 4AU Phone: 020 89653748

All Soul's Church address: Station Road Harlesden NW10 4UJ

St Martin's Church address: Kensal Rise Bathurst Gardens NW10 5HX Phone: 020 8960 3929

Christ Church with St. Laurence Church address: Christchurch Avenue and Willesden Lane London NW6 7YN.

St Anne's Church address: 125 Salusbury Road West Kilburn NW6 6RG Phone: 020 73726864

St Gabriel's Church address: Walm Lane Cricklewood NW2 4RX Phone: +44(0)20 8830 6626

St Michael's Stonebridge Church address: Hillside Stonebridge NW10 8LB Phone: 020 8965 7443

St Catherine's Neasden Church address: Neasden Ln London NW10 1QB Phone: +44 20 8452 7322

Non Conformists
Christian non-conformist groups that meet in Oxford include:


 * Baptist
 * Bethel Gospel Church
 * Church of Christ
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon)
 * Ecumenical
 * Evangelical Free Church
 * Maranatha Christian
 * New Life Christian Center
 * Redeemed Christian Church of God
 * Salvation Army
 * Unitarian

Non Christian groups follow:


 * Buddhist
 * Confucian
 * Hare Krishna
 * Jewish
 * Hindu
 * Muslim

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths records have been kept by the UK government since July 1837 to the present day. Prior to that, local parishes of the Church of England, and local branches of other faiths were the only repositories of this information.


 * Brent Council BMD records


 * UKBMD: Brent Records


 * City of London: Brent records

Local Histories

 * Brent Heritage


 * British History: Willisden


 * VisionofBritain: Wembley


 * British History: Kilburn and St. John's Wood


 * VisionofBritain: Harlesden


 * Hidden London: Neasden


 * Brent UK Pictorial History by Len Snow


 * The London Borough of Brent by Malcolm Barres-Baker and Rosamund King

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Geopunk UK: Brent London map


 * Google Maps: Brent Borough


 * Oldmapsonline: Brent


 * Francis Frith: Old Wembley maps


 * Francis Frith: Old Kilburn maps


 * Old Map of Harlesden


 * Francis Frith: Old Neasden maps


 * Brent Council Gazetteer


 * VisionofBritain: Wembley Gazetteer


 * Hidden London: Kilburn gazetteer


 * BritishBistoryOnline: Harlesden GAzetteer


 * Hidden London: Neasden Gazetteer

Newspapers

 * Brent and Kilburn Times


 * London Live: Brent


 * Getwestlondon: Wembley


 * The Harrow Times

Occupations
The major area of employment opportunities in the general Brent Borough area is in the professional athletic field. Eng;land's most famous sporting location is the rebuilt and renewed Wembley Stadium, home to most of Britain's major sporting events.

Brent is also the headquarters of Diageo, PLC., the world's largest producer of high alcohol content spirits, and also producer of major brands of beer. While the conglomerate has many producing sites through the UK, and indeed, the world, the HQ facility provides many employment opportunities for locals.

Close by is the UK's busiest airport, Heathrow with a multitude of career opportunities.

The general location is also home to the UK's major film industry, with most of the BBC's entertainment films made in this location. additionally the HQ for Elstree studios, a generic name synonymous with British movie making, is located in the district.

Despite the regional and national decline of this sector over the last twenty years, the manufacturing sector continues to play an important role in the local economy, albeit a less significant one that previously. Indeed, West London is the only place in the UK – with the exception of Northern Ireland - that hasn't succumbed to a mass wave of manufacturing redundancies in recent year. With around 53,000 people out of a total local workforce of 750,000 plying their trade within this sector, a high number of these jobs are concentrated in and around the Park Royal area in Ealing Brentford – the largest industrial estate in Europe. Carillion and GlaxoSmithKline remain the leading employers in this sector.

With the West End and Soho being the cultural, entertainment and leisure hub of the capital attracting some 200 million visitors a year – 50 per cent from overseas – it is hardly surprising that the tourism sector is the biggest provider of jobs in West London. Overall this sector employs around 232,000 (31 per cent of the district workforce) people in the district.

Societies

 * Willisden Local History Society


 * London Westminster and Middlesex Family History Society

Archives

 * Brent Borough Archives


 * The National Archives: Brent


 * The National Archives: Wembley

Websites

 * Brent Borough Council


 * Greater London Council


 * Wikipedia: Middlesex


 * Wikipedia: Wembley


 * Wikipedia: Willesden


 * Wikipedia: Kilburn, London


 * Wikipedia: Harlesden


 * Wikipedia: Neasden