West Ham, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
West Ham All Saints is an Ancient Parish in the county of Essex. Other places in the parish include: Stratford with the Grove, Stratford, Victoria Docks, Upton, Silvertown, Maryland Point, Canning Town, Forest Gate, Grove, Hallsville, Hudson's Town Church Street, and Canning New Town.

A settlement in the area named Ham is first recorded as Hamme in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 958 and then in the 1086 Domesday Book as Hame. The earliest recorded use of West Ham, as distinct from East Ham, is in 1186 as Westhamma. It is formed from Old English 'hamm' and means 'a dry area of land between rivers or marshland', referring the location of the settlement within boundaries formed by the rivers Lee, Thames and Roding and their marshes.

West Ham formed a large ancient parish of around 4,500 acres (18 km2) in the Becontree hundred of Essex. The parish was divided into three wards: Church-street, Stratford-Langthorne, and Plaistow; with the village of West Ham corresponding to the Church-street ward. The parish also included the hamlet of Upton. Following the opening of the first railway station in the area in 1839 at Stratford, the focus of activity shifted northwards towards the fast-expanding Stratford New Town, with the original settlement diminishing in significance. In 1840 the parish was included in the Metropolitan Police District and soon after the built-up area of London had encompassed West Ham. However, the parish did not form part of the statutory metropolitan area established in 1855 or the County of London established in 1889. Instead, administrative reform was undertaken in the area in much the same way as a large provincial town. A local board was formed in 1856 under the Public Health Act 1848 and subsequently the parish was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1886. In 1889 the borough was large enough in terms of population to become a county borough and was outside the area of responsibility of Essex County Council. At the time of the 1901 census it was the ninth most populous district in England with a population of 267,308.

West Ham is in the London Borough of Newham in London, England. In the west it is a post-industrial neighbourhood abutting the site of the London Olympic Park and in the east it is mostly residential, consisting of Victorian terraced housing interspersed with higher density post-War social housing. The area has been one of the most deprived in the country and as part of the New Deal for Communities programme it forms, with neighbouring Plaistow, a regeneration area. The place lends its name to West Ham United F.C..

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
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Online images are available Seax - Essex Archives Online From the Essex Record Office

Essex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

All SaintsChurch St Baptisms 1653-1950 Marriages 1653-1945 Burials 1653-1854 Burials 1864,1875, 1876: ERO Baptisms 1950- date Marriages 1945- date: Not deposited

All Saints Church for the Deaf and Dumb East Rd Baptisms 1906- date Records with All Saints West Ham

St Jude Stephens Rd Built 1898 Bombed 1941

St Matthew Dyson Rd Baptisms 1896- date Marriages 1897- date: Not deposited

St Thomas Rokeby St Baptisms 1890-1948 Marriages 1891-1948: ERO

Primitive Methodist Chapel Marriages 1930-1940: ERO

St John's Reformed Episcopal Marriages 1891-1911: ERO

Census records
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

Index for the Census may be searched at FamilySearch Historical Records

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
West Ham Poor Law Union, Essex

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
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.