Whitechapel, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Whitechapel St James was created anciently as a chapel of ease (at least from) 1717, lying within Kirkham, Lancashire Ancient Parish.

Whitechapel is a tiny hamlet in the civil parish of Goosnargh in Lancashire, England. It lies on the border of the Forest of Bowland near the foot of Beacon Fell, and close to the neighbouring village of Inglewhite. Its name is marked as White Chapel on some maps.

The area was known as "Threlfall" in the Domesday Book. A tiny 27×13-foot private chapel was built for the Threlfall family in Elizabethan times, and was rebuilt as St James' Church about 1738. The churchyard contains a sundial dated 1745 which is a Grade II listed building.

The name "Whitechapel" came into use in the early nineteenth century, named after the church. It was originally a part of Goosnargh ecclesiastical parish, but acquired independent parish status in 1846.

The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created in 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The Diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and the cities of Lancaster, and Preston, as well as a large part of the Ribble Valley.

"WHITECHAPEL, a chapelry in Kirkham parish, Lancashire; 5 miles SSE of Garstang r. station. It was constituted in 1846.

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 of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Online Records
 Church of England 

Whitechapel chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Kirkham to which it is attached, have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

For a full list of all those chapels surrounding Whitechapel and comprising the whole ancient parish of Kirkham to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the KIRKHAM ST MICHAEL PARISH page.

Poor Law Unions
Fylde Poor Law Union, Lancashire

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