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England London Boroughs  Barking and Dagenham

Guide to London Borough of Barking and Dagenham history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
As with most of the other London Boroughs, the British Government action of 1965 destroyed all traces of the original settlements from the point of view of Family History. Researchers should instead consider researching the original Barking and Dagenham townships in their original county of Essex.

Barking's name came from Anglo-Saxon Berecingas, meaning either "the settlement of the followers or descendants of a man called Bereca" or "the settlement by the birch trees". In AD 735 the town was Berecingum and was known to mean "dwellers among the birch trees". By AD 1086, it had become Berchingae as evidenced by the town's entry in the Domesday Book.

Barking was a large ancient parish of 12,307 acres (49.80 km2) in the Becontree hundred of Essex. It was divided into the wards of Chadwell, Ilford, Ripple and Town. A local board was formed for Town ward in 1882 and it was extended to cover Ripple ward in 1885. In 1888 Ilford and Chadwell were split off as a new parish of Ilford, leaving a residual parish of 3,814 acres (15.43 km2). The parish became Barking Town Urban District in 1894 and the local board became an urban district council. The urban district was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Barking in 1931. It was abolished in 1965 and split, with the majority merged with the former area of the Municipal Borough of Dagenham to form the London Borough of Barking. In 1980 the borough was renamed Barking and Dagenham.

The manor of Barking was the site of Barking Abbey, a nunnery founded in 666 by Eorcenwald, Bishop of London, destroyed by the Danes and reconstructed in 970 by King Edgar. The celebrated writer Marie de France may have been abbess of the nunnery in the late 12th century. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, Barking Abbey was demolished; the parish church of St Margaret, some walling and foundations are all that remain. The parish church is an example of Norman architecture; Captain James Cook married Elizabeth Batts of Shadwell there in 1762, and it is the burial place of many members of the Fanshawe family of Parsloes Manor.

A charter issued between 1175 and 1179 confirms the ancient market right. The market declined in the 18th century but has since been revived.

Dagenham first appeared in a document (as Dæccanhaam) in a charter of Barking Abbey dating from 666 AD. The name almost certainly originated with a small farmstead, the "ham" or farm of a man called Daecca, as Dæccan hamm in Old English means home of a man called Dæcca.

In 1205 Dagenham was large enough to have a chaplain – and the first incarnation of the parish church of St Peter and St Paul was probably built at that time. The main street, called Crown Street, ran east from the church and crossed the valley of the Wantz stream. For several hundred years the appearance of Dagenham village did not change significantly.

St Peter and St Paul’s tower collapsed onto the nave in 1800, and all the church except the 13th-century chancel and late-15th-century north chapel had to be rebuilt. William Ford school was founded in 1841 and continues to thrive despite the social difficulties of its catchment area. Dagenham Common survived longer than much of the heathland in the London area, but was enclosed after 1862.

After 1921 the village was rapidly hemmed in to the south by industrial development on Dagenham Marshes – notably in the form of the Ford Motor Company’s factory and then to the north and west by the huge Becontree estate. The residential area was very poorly served by rail connections until the extension of the electrified District Railway to Upminster in 1932. Dagenham’s population increased more than threefold between the wars.

After the Second World War the council began to pull down decaying buildings and by the early 1970s almost every vestige of the old village had been replaced by municipal housing, while cottages on Church Street were demolished to invent a village green. The only ancient structures are the parish church, 17th-century vicarage and Cross Keys public house, which began its existence as a hall house in the early 15th century.

With the exodus of heavy industry from swathes of the Dagenham Dock and Chequers Lane area, south Dagenham has the potential to become a major new township – but it may be some while before anything much happens on this brownest of brownfield sites.

Cemeteries (Civil)
Charlton Cemetery


 * Cemetery Lane
 * Charlton, SE7 8DZ
 * Phone: 020 8856 0100

Plumstead Cemetery


 * Cemetery Road, (off Wickham Lane)
 * Abbey Wood, SE2 0NS
 * Phone: 020 8856 0100

Eltham Cemetery and Crematorium


 * Crown Woods Way
 * Eltham, SE9 2RF
 * Phone: 020 8856 0100

Woolwich Cemetery


 * Kings Highway
 * Plumstead SE18 2DS
 * Phone: 020 8856 0100

Greenwich Cemetery

Phone: 020 8856 0100
 * (Shooters Hill) Well Hall Road
 * Eltham, SE9 6UA

Parishes
St Alphege'


 * Greenwich Church St
 * London SE10 9BJ
 * Phone: +44 20 8853 0687

Christ Church, East Greenwich


 * 179 Trafalgar Rd
 * London SE10 9EQ
 * Phone: +44 20 8853 3235

St John's Blackheath


 * Stratheden Rd
 * Blackheath, London SE3 7TH
 * Phone: +44 20 8305 0520

St Nicholas'


 * Deptford Green L
 * London SE8 3DQ
 * Phone: +44 20 8692 2749

Grace Church


 * King William Court
 * Old Royal Naval College
 * London SE10 9NN
 * Phone: +44 20 8692 5763

Non Conformists
Other Christian and non-christian groups follow:


 * Baptist
 * Christ Church
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * Emmanuel Church
 * First Church of Christ Scientist
 * Ichthus Christian Fellowship
 * Jehovah's Witness
 * Methodist
 * Presbyterian
 * Roman Catholic
 * Seventh Day Adventist
 * Unitarian

Non Christian groups that meet regularly in Bournemouth include:


 * Buddhist
 * Hindu
 * Jewish
 * Muslim
 * Sikh

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the UK government, from July 1837 to the present day.

Greewnwich has its own registry office. Information follows:


 * Woolwich Town Hall
 * Wellington Street
 * Woolwich SE18 6PW
 * Phone: 020 8921 5015

Other web sources for BMD information follow:


 * forebears.io: Greenwich


 * bmd-certificates: Greenwich


 * Kent County Council Parish Registers

Local Histories

 * local histories: Greenwich


 * royal Greewich: history


 * Lewisham history


 * Royal Greewich Throough Time by David Ramzan


 * The story of Greenwich by Clive Aslet

Maps and Gazetteers

 * visitlondon.com: Map of Greenwich


 * google maps: Greenwich


 * oldmapsonline: Greenwich


 * hiddenlondon: Woolwich


 * hiddenlondon: East Greenwich

Newspapers

 * Newshopper: Greenwich


 * London Evening Standard: Greenwich


 * londonlive: Greenwich


 * britishnewspapersarchive: Greenwich local newspapers

Occupations
Greenwich is one of the largest of the 33 London Boroughs with an area of 5,044 hectares, has 13 kilometres of Thames frontage and is one of 12 boroughs that make up the London Thames Gateway, the UK’s largest regeneration area. The borough has a rich heritage set in its maritime and military past, largely associated with the river and more recently as an industrial center at the Royal Arsenal. Woolwich served as a royal dock for 350 years, and was one of the world’s largest centers for arms manufacture. The dockyard and arms manufacture provides major employment for the local population.

Tourism is becoming an increasingly important factor in Greenwich's economy. In 2015, 18.5 million people are expected to visit the borough for a day or more, generating over £1.2 billion; this figure is expected to increase by more than 25% by 2018. Evidence of the tourism boom includes the construction of a 452-room InterContinental Hotel near the O2 Arena (opened in 2015) and London's first cruise ship terminal, at Enderby Wharf (opened 2017). Apart from the many museums and historic buildings in Greenwich town and Greenwich Park, the main tourist attractions are: the Cutty Sark, The O2 Arena, Emirates Air Line (cable car), Eltham Palace (which expected over 100,000 visitors in 2015), Charlton House and the Thames Barrier. In addition, the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich is starting to promote itself as a tourist attraction.

Greenwich has major opportunities for employment in the construction industry. The Council has granted planning permission for over 15,000 new homes in the past five years, with around 35% being affordable homes. Having delivered over 12,000 new homes since 2001, planning permissions are already in place for a further 18,000 new homes to be built in the next decade and capacity exists for further new housing proposals to come forward at strategic development locations such as Charlton Riverside.

Townships within the Borough also offer significant employment opportunities:

•Woolwich is a famous historic town and has tremendous potential to once again become a thriving center. It has an exceptional setting on the Thames with a stunning historic legacy of high quality buildings and is benefiting from major new transport infrastructure.

•Charlton Riverside is an Opportunity Area identified for intensification for mixed use development and with significant capacity for jobs and new homes. Charlton Riverside has potential to accommodate an exemplary new urban district, demonstrating the highest standards of design quality and sustainability and opening up a new section of the river bank as an attractive public space.

•Greenwich Peninsula remains largely undeveloped with a significant derelict area to the West of the Peninsula which has been held back by two century-old factors: the remnants of its industrial history and the southern approach to Blackwall tunnel. The huge potential of the site lies in its riverside location with spectacular views to the west over Canary Wharf and Greenwich, with its World Heritage site.

•Eltham needs to realize its potential to offer a th Eltham riving town centrelocation known for its retail and leisure offer combined with the rich history of Eltham Palace and its surrounds.

Societies

 * Woolwich Family History Society


 * Greenwich History Society


 * Family History Research; National Maritime Museum


 * Kent Family History Society


 * Northwest Kent Family History Society

Archives

 * The National Archives: Greenwich


 * Lewisdham Archives


 * Greenwich Heritage Org: Archives


 * Kent County Council Archives

Web Sites

 * Royal Borough of Greenwich Council


 * Kent County Council


 * Greenwich: wikipedia


 * Royal Borough of Greenwich: wikipedia