Mow Cop, Staffordshire Genealogy

Guide to Mow Cop, Staffordshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Mowcop is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Staffordshire, created in 1843 from Wolstanton Ancient Parish, Keele Ecclesiastical Parish, Hanford Ecclesiastical Parish and Biddulph Ancient Parish; Exact boundary unknown. Non-Church of England denominations identified in Mowcop include: Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan Methodist.

The name is first recorded as "Mowel" around 1270 AD. It is believed to have come from either:

Anglo-Saxon Mūga-hyll = "heap-hill", with copp = "head" added later The Common Celtic ancestor of Welsh moel (= hill), with Anglo-Saxon copp added later. At its summit men had quarried stone to make into querns used for milling corn since the Iron Age; this trade ended in the Victorian period.

Mow Cop is noteworthy as the birthplace of the Primitive Methodist movement. Starting in 1800, Hugh Bourne from Stoke-on-Trent and William Clowes from Burslem began holding open-air prayer meetings. On 31 May, 1807 a large 14-hour camp meeting was held and as a result the Primitive Methodist Church was formed in 1810. These camp meetings became a regular feature at Mow Cop and camps were also held to celebrate the 100th, 150th and 200th anniversaries of the first camp.

Mow Cop is a village on a high isolated hill. The village straddles the Cheshire–Staffordshire border and is thus also divided between the North West and West Midlands regions of England.

Parts of the parish lie in the Cheshire East District since 1974 and part in Newcatle under Lyme District of Staffordshire. Accordingly parts of the parish lie in different Poor Law Unions and registration districts.

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. Online index for Congleton registration district Cheshire BMD

See also Staffordshire BMD

Church records
Mow Cop St Thomas was formed in 1843 from parts of Biddulph, Staffordshire and Wolstanton, Staffordshire Ecclesiastical parishes.

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

Deposited parish registers at Staffordshire Record Office Bap 1842-1973 Mar 1844-1990 Bur 1842-1913 Lichfield Record Office holdings of Bishop's Transcripts Bap 1842-1845 Mar none Bur 1845

Non-Conformist Churches
Mow Cop Wesleyan Methodist Chapel parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Poor Law Unions
Congleton Poor Law Union, Cheshire

Stone Poor Law Union, Staffordshire

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


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain