St Paul Covent Garden, Middlesex Genealogy

Guide to St Paul Covent Garden, Middlesex ancestry, family history, and genealogy: Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
St Paul Covent Garden, Middlesex, in Strand parliamentary division of Westminster.

St. Paul, Covent Garden is a parish, in the city and liberty of Westminster. The patron is the Duke of Bedford. It is a parish in the Strand Poor Law Union, the Precinct of the Savoy, and the Liberty of the Rolls.

Additional information:

St Paul Covent Garden [1653], the church of, is situated on the western side of Covent Garden Market, and was erected by the Earl of Bedford, as a chapel of ease to St Martin in the Fields, for the convenience of his neighbouring tenantry, which were then much on the increase. It is in the form of a Vitruvian Tuscan temple, and was designed by Inigo Jones, in 1638, as appears from a manuscript in the Harleian collection at the British museum, printed in the Gentleman's Magazine of November, 1789, a dispute had arisen between the above named earl and the vicar of St Martin in the Fields, relative to the right of patronage to this newly built church, and that is was heard before the Privy Council, who determined that it should be a chapel of ease to St Martin's, till an act of parliament should be passed to make it parochial... In 1645, the precinct of Covent Garden was separated from the parish of St Martin, and made parochial, by an ordinance of the Lords and Commons, sitting at Westminster; but, being considered an illegal ordinance, an act of parliament was obtained immediately after the restoration of Charles II, in 1660, by which the patronage was vested in the Earl of Bedford and his heirs forever.

The church was built by Inigo Jones, by direction of the earl, as a mere barn... The walls were of brick, but were cased with stone about the year 1788... In 1795, the roof and interior was consumed by fire, which have been since substantially repaired and reinstated by the late Thomas Hardwick, Esquire.

By the before-mentioned act, the patron has the privilege of nominating one of the churchwardens, the rector another and the parishioners elect a third. The church is by the same authority, a rectory, in the county and archdeaconry of Middlesex, in the diocese of London and in the patronage of the Duke of Bedford.'

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
To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

1634-1900 Rate Books

 * Westminster Rate Books at findmypast - (£).

1666 Hearth Tax

 * Hearth Tax: Middlesex 1666: Covent Garden at British History Online - free.

1693-1694 Four Shilling in the Pound Aid

 * St Paul's Covent Garden at British History Online - free.

Probate Records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Middlesex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Cemetery
(47+ entries)

Poor Law
The Westminster, Poor Law and Parish Administration collection at findmypast includes:


 * 1715-1876 - St Paul, Covent Garden Workhouses
 * 1747-1898 - St Paul, Covent Garden Examinations

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

Websites
Covent GardenSt Paul in GENUKI