Lewisham St Mary, Kent Genealogy

England   Kent   Kent Parishes 



Parish History
LEWISHAM (St. Mary), a parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Blackheath, lathe of Sutton-at-Hone, W. division of Kent, 6½ miles (S. E.) from London, on the road to Tonbridge.

Lewisham is a district and London Borough Lewisham Wikipedia Lewisham grew from settlement around the Parish Church of St Mary

Lewisham St Mary was an Ancient Parish in the county of Kent.Other places in the parish include: Sydenham, Southend, Cockshed, and Rushey Green.

Lewisham North West Kent Family History Society details the Anglican parishes which developed in the Borough and includes other places of worship. The pages also includes a map of ecclesiastical parish boundaries in 1903. See also St Mary the Virgin, Lewisham High Street

From this parish developed

Lewisham St Mark Clarendon Rise

Lewisham St Stephen High Street

and numerous parishes in Southend, Sydenham, Forest Hill, Catford, Brockley, Crofton Park, Bellingham, Hither Green, Honor Oak Park, Bellingham and Blackheath

Blackheath All Saints

Hither Green North West Kent Family History Society Hither Green St Swithun see Hither Green Wikipedia

Honor Oak Park North West Kent Family History Society Honor Oak Park St Augustine see also Honor Oak Wikipedia

Sydenham North West Kent Family History Society Southend North West Kent Family History Society

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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

IGI Batch Numbers



Census records
Census Returns for Lewisham 1841-1891

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions. to locate local Family History Centres in UK to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search. Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions
Lewisham Poor Law Union, Kent

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent 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