Leeds St Peter, Yorkshire Genealogy

England Yorkshire  Yorkshire Parishes, K-R  West Riding  Leeds St Peter

Parish History
Leeds, St Peter is an ancient parish, and now Cathedral. Within the limits of the parish are the chapelries (churches) of Armley, Beeston, Bramley, Farnley, Chapel-Allerton, Headingley with Burley, Holbeck, Wortley, and Hunslet; also the township of Potter-Newton, and part of the townships of Seacroft and Temple-Newsom. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £38. 0. 2½.; net income, £1257, with a good glebehouse; patrons, twenty-five Trustees; appropriators, the Dean and Canons of Christ-Church, Oxford. The Parochial church, dedicated to St. Peter, supposed to have been built on the site of a more ancient structure, in the reign of Edward III., and enlarged in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII., was entirely rebuilt by subscription in 1838-40, at an expense of £28,000, after a design by Mr. Chantrell. It is a spacious and handsome cruciform edifice, in the transitional style from the decorated into the later English, with a lofty square embattled tower rising from the north transept. The interior is finely arranged, and contains some ancient monuments preserved from the old church, and several of modern date, among which is one by Flaxman, in statuary marble, to the memory of Captains S. Walker and R. Beckett, who fell in the battle of Talavera. There is also a fine full-length monumental statue by Parke, raised by subscription, of Michael Thomas Sadler, Esq., M.P., an eminent linen merchant of this town, who introduced into parliament a bill for limiting the labour of children in factories to ten hours per day, and to whose exertions and example is owing the turn which legislation has taken in behalf of the industrious classes. At the close of the year 1843, a plan was proposed by the Rev. Dr. Hook, vicar of Leeds, for the division of the parish and vicarage into numerous distinct parishes and vicarages, under the authority of an act of parliament to be obtained by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; and at a meeting of the commissioners, held on the 9th of January, 1844, they assented to the principle of the intended arrangements. The plan, as settled by the act (7 & 8 Vict., c. 108), includes within its scope, the formation of new parishes for ecclesiastical purposes, the incumbent of each to be a vicar, and to receive all tithes, moduses, and similar payments, now received by the vicar of Leeds. Churchwardens, with the usual full powers, will be chosen in each new parish; marriages and all other offices will be performed in every church, as in ancient parish churches; parsonage-houses and schools will be provided; and the nave or body of each church will become free and unappropriated. Nearly all the patronage, also, now vested in the vicar, will be placed in the hands of the bishop of the diocese. The church dedicated to St. John the Evangelist was built in 1634, at the expense of John Harrison, Esq., who endowed it with a house and eighty-four acres of land, now producing £322. 10. per annum, of which he appropriated one-ninth part for the repair of the church, and the residue for the minister. It is in the later English style, with an embattled tower crowned by crocketed pinnacles; the walls, originally of perishable stone, have been rebuilt at an expense of £1500, with stone of more durable quality. The founder was buried in the church, under a monument of black marble. The living was made a vicarage under the new act in 1845, and is in the joint patronage of the Vicar of Leeds, the Mayor, and the three senior Aldermen; net income in 1843, £375. The church dedicated to the Holy Trinity was erected in 1721, at a cost of £4563, of which £1000 were given by Lady Elizabeth Hastings, and the remainder raised by subscription; it was endowed with £80 per annum, by the Rev. Henry Robinson, nephew of the founder of St. John's. The building is in the Grecian style, with a tower of two stages, of which one is of the Corinthian and the other of the Ionic order; there is a monument to Mr. Robinson, recording his benefactions. The living is at present a perpetual curacy; net income, £300; patrons, the Vicar, the Recorder of the borough, and the Minister of St. John's. The church dedicated to St. Paul was erected in 1793, chiefly through the exertions of the Rev. Miles Atkinson, vicar of Kippax, who, with the assistance of numerous friends, raised the structure at an expense of £10,000, on a site given by Dr. Wilson, Bishop of Bristol, who laid the first stone; it is a neat edifice of stone, with a handsome Ionic portico supporting an entablature and pediment. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £133; patron, the Vicar of Leeds. The church dedicated to St. James was formerly a place of worship belonging to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, but was purchased by two clergymen of the Established Church, and afterwards by a recent incumbent, and was consecrated by Archbishop Markham; it is a plain octagonal building. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Vicar of Leeds. The church on Quarry Hill, dedicated to St. Mary, was erected in 1824, at an expense of £10,456, by the Parliamentary Commissioners; it is a handsome structure in the later English style, with a square embattled tower, and contains 2000 sittings. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £45; patron, the Vicar of Leeds. Christ-Church, in Meadow-lane, was erected in the same year as St. Mary's, at an expense of £10,951, from the same fund; it is an elegant structure in the decorated English style, with a lofty embattled tower, strengthened by buttresses, and crowned with crocketed pinnacles, and contains about 2000 sittings. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £65; patron, the Vicar of Leeds. The church dedicated to St. Mark, in the populous suburb of Woodhouse, was erected in 1825, at an expense of £9000, parliamentary grant, and is in the later English style, with a square embattled tower: a district has been assigned, and the living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £140; patrons, the Trustees of Leeds vicarage. The church at Mount Pleasant, dedicated to St. George, was erected for the accommodation of the inhabitants of the north-western suburbs, in 1837, at an expense, including its endowment, of more than £12,000; it is a commodious structure in the early English style, with a tower surmounted by a lofty spire. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the gift of five Trustees. The church dedicated to St. Luke, in Northstreet, was erected in 1841, at a cost of £1300, raised by subscription; it is a neat structure in the early English style, and contains 450 sittings: underneath is a schoolroom. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Vicar of Leeds. A benevolent individual having resolved to build a church at Leeds through the instrumentality of the Rev. Dr. Pusey, St. Saviour's church was completed at a cost of £20,000 in 1845, and the living made an independent vicarage under the act 7 & 8 Vict. in 1846; patrons, Trustees. St. Andrew's church, the first stone of which was laid Nov. 1843, was completed at an expense of £4090, and consecrated March 26th, 1845: the living is a district perpetual curacy in the gift of John Gott, Esq., with a net income of £150. Other churches are situated at Armley, Beeston, Bramley, Chapel-Allerton, Farnley, Hunslet, Headingley, Holbeck, Kirkstall, and Wortley, all of which are described in the articles on those townships; and under the act 6 & 7 Vict., c. 37, "to make better provision for populous parishes," two districts have been endowed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, named St. Philip's, and St. Matthew's Little London: both of the livings are in the gift of the Crown and the Bishop, alternately. A church for the former district or ecclesiastical parish was completed in 1847, at a cost of nearly £5000, half of which was defrayed by John Gott, Esq. There are also places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, Methodists of the New Connexion, members of the Scottish Church, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics; many of the buildings are spacious and elegant, and several of them possess organs of unusual tone and power

From: 'Leck - Leeds', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 46-55. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51100 Date accessed: 16 August 2011. Here is rest this 19th century historical perpsective of Leeds by the famous topographer, Samuel A. Lewis at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51100#s22.

Leeds St Peter

Civil Registration
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Church records
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Probate records
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