Henbury St Thomas, Cheshire Genealogy

Parish History
Henbury St Thomas was created as a parish from Prestbury, Cheshire Ancient parish as a result of concerns about the conduct of people in the area.

John Bird Sumner, Lord Bishop of Chester, consecrated the Church in 1845 and it was built in Henbury at the instigation of Thomas Marsland who acquired Henbury Hall in 1842. At that time the local area contained some pretty unsavoury characters and had ".....long born an evil reputation, and was a colony of poachers and lawless men." He decided that a church was needed and gave £800 to the building fund, the stained glass windows, a clock for the tower and £1000 to endow the living while his wife funded the organ. The total cost was about £1600. The bell, weighing 7 cwts. and costing £40.8s, is much older than the Church being about 500 years old and came from a peal in Aldford Parish Church near Chester. The Church is made of local stone, accommodates 200 and nowadays serves a partly suburban part of Macclesfield partly rural area.



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.

Registration Districts

 * Macclesfield (1837–1937).
 * Cheshire East

Registration events can be searched online at Cheshire BMD

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.

Prestbury, St. Peter (C of E). The ancient parish church for the township of Henbury cum Pexall. Henbury, St. Thomas (C of E). Founded 1845 as the parish church for Henbury cum Pexall. Registers of Baptisms 1845–1968, Marriages 1869–1977 and Burials 1845–1956 have been deposited at the Cheshire Record Office.

Parish registers for St. Thomas, Henbury, Cheshire, 1845-1981 Cheshire Record Office call number: P253/1.

Bishop's transcripts for Henbury, 1892-1904 Cheshire Record Office Call number: EDB 107

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

Poor Law Unions

 * Macclesfield
 * Macclesfield Poor Law Union, Cheshire

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