West Bromwich All Saints, Staffordshire Genealogy

England Staffordshire



Parish History
West Bromich All Saints is believed to be an Ancient Parish..

BROMWICH, WEST (All Saints), a town and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Offlow South, S. division of the county of Stafford, situated about 6 miles (N. W.) from Birmingham, 4 miles (E.) from Dudley, and 4 (S.) from Walsall; adjoining the town of Wednesbury; and containing, in 1841, 26,121 inhabitants. The name has been variously written at different periods as Bromwic, Bromwych, Bromich, Bromwhiche, and Bromwidge. It is derived from the broom supposed to have once grown plentifully in the neighbourhood, and wic, a Saxon word signifying village: West appears to have been added to distinguish the place from Castle-Bromwich, Little Bromwich, and Bromwycham, as Birmingham was once called. The parish is not mentioned in the Domesday survey; but it appears from other records to have belonged to the barony of Dudley, and in the time of Henry III. Walter de Everons, and his two coparceners, held the town of Bromwich of Roger de Somery. In the 21st of Edward I. one Richard Bassett was lord of the manor, which the family of Freebody afterwards appear to have held; and Cecily, daughter and heiress of William Freebody, marrying John Stanley, conveyed it to him: she died in 1553. The manor remained in the Stanleys for about a century, when Sir Edward Stanley sold it to his cousin, Sir Richard Shelton, Knt., from whose family it passed about 1700 to Sir Samuel Clarke, whose descendants now hold some of the property; though the greater part was sold by Mr. Clarke Jervoise in 1822, when the manor and several of the estates were purchased by the Earl of Dartmouth. The parish comprises nearly 6000 acres; about twothirds of the cultivated land are arable, and the remainder pasture: a considerable portion of land is occupied with buildings, collieries, and brick-yards. On the east lies the parish of Handsworth, on the south lie Smethwick parish and Oldbury township, on the west the parishes of Rowley-Regis and Tipton, on the north Wednesbury, and on the north-east Barr. The river Tame, which is but a small stream here, bounds the parish for nearly nine miles: the whole circumference is about thirteen miles.

The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £566; patron and impropriator, the Earl of Dartmouth: there is neither glebe nor glebe-house, but a residence for the incumbent is provided by his lordship. The parish church formerly contained some fine monuments of the Whorwood family; but these were unfortunately destroyed when the body of the edifice and the chancel were rebuilt, in 1787: the tower remains nearly in its original state, and has a good peal of eight bells.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 400-405. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50835 Date accessed: 03 April 2011.

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
West Bromwich All Saints is probably an Ancient parish

Deposited parish registers at Staffordshire Record Office Bap 1608-1920 Mar 1608-1975 Bur 1608-1956 available on microfilm only Lichfield Record Office holdings of Bishop's Transcripts Bap 1676-1878 Mar 1676-1837 Bur 1676-1868 See Sandwell Archives

Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts 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

Poor Law Unions
West Bromwich Poor Law Union,Staffordshire

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