Great Marsden, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Parish History
MARSDEN, GREAT, a township, in the parochial chapelry of Colne, parish of Whalley, union of Burnley, Higher division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of Lancashire, 3½ miles ( N. E. by N.) from Burnley; containing 1987 inhabitants. This place was anciently called Merclesden, and Merlesden. In the 35th of Henry III., Edmund de Lacy obtained a charter for free warren in "Great and Little Merlesden;" and in the 4th of Edward II., a fishery existed here, by grant from Henry de Lacy. Richard Merclesden was master forester of Blackburnshire to Isabella, dowager queen, in the reign of Edward III.; and in the same reign, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, granted a tract of land in Merclesden to Richard de Walton. The township is within the manor of Ightenhill Park, and is a pleasant and flourishing locality, containing some good mausions, among which are Marsden Hall and Catlow, the latter a modernised seat. At Cattover is an extensive quarry of fine grit, producing 150 tons per diem of flag and other stone; it is leased from the lord of the manor to Messrs. Thomas and Benjamin Chaffer, by whom the produce is sent by canal, chiefly to Manchester and Liverpool. A church district was endowed in 1845 by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners: the living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of £150, and in the patronage of the Crown and the Bishop of Manchester, alternately. The church is dedicated to St. John. The Wesleyans have a place of worship.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 260-263. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51135 Date accessed: 20 July 2010.

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
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Census records
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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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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