Pocklington, Yorkshire Genealogy

England Yorkshire Yorkshire Parishes K-R  East Riding  Pocklington

Parish History
This ancient parish (AP) was created before 1813. Church of England records began in 1559.

POCKLINGTON (All Saints), a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the Wilton-Beacon division of the wapentake of Harthill, E. riding ofYork, 13 miles (E. by S.) from York, and 195 (N. by W.) from London; containing, with the townships of Meltonby, Ousthorpe, and Yapham, 2552 inhabitants, of whom 2323 are in the town. This place, at the time of Edward the Confessor, formed part of the territories of Morcar, Earl of Northumbria, and after the Conquest was granted by William I. to Stephen Fitz-Odo, whom he created Earl of Albemarle and Holderness. In the reign of Edward I., the manor belonged to Lord Henry Percy, who obtained a charter for a weekly market on Saturday, and two annual fairs on the festivals of All Saints and St. Margaret, and whose son and successor, in the time of Edward II., procured a grant of two additional fairs. The lands have been subsequently divided among various families.

The town is pleasantly situated at the foot of the Wolds, on a small stream that flows into the river Derwent: the surrounding hills are well wooded, and command beautiful prospects. It consists chiefly of two streets, which are paved, and lighted with gas from works constructed in 1834 at an expense of £1600, raised in shares of £10 each. Considerable improvements have been made within the last thirty years: the marketplace has been rendered more commodious by the removal of the ancient shambles; and the rivulet, through whose bed the road from Malton and Driffield passed for more than fifty yards, has been arched over. Spacious and well-formed roads diverge from the town in several directions. Races are held annually on the 2nd of May. The town carries on a good trade in corn, flour, timber, and other articles of merchandise; and the neighbourhood is supplied with coal, lime, manure, and other necessaries by a canal constructed under the provisions of an act of parliament in 1814, and which is nine miles in length, communicating with the river Derwent. The market, which is abundantly furnished with corn and with provisions of all kinds, is on Saturday; and fairs, chiefly for cattle, are held on March 7th, May 6th, August 5th,and November 8th: on November 9th is a statute-fair.The powers of the county debt-court of Pocklington,established in 1847, extend over the registration districtof Pocklington.

The parish comprises about 4600 acres, of which 2520 are in the township of Pocklington; the surface, though generally level, is in some places pleasingly varied, and the soil is mostly a rich loam. The substratum is limestone, and Chapel hill, which overlooks the town, contains a shelly limestone rock, which has been used for the roads; oolite limestone, also, crops out on the hill. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £10. 1. 10½., and in the patronage of the Dean of York; net income, £131. The church is a venerable cruciform structure in the early English style, with a lofty embattled tower crowned by crocketed pinnacles. The nave is separated from the aisles by pointed arches, supported on circular columns with plain and grotesquely figured capitals alternately: the south transept appears to have been modernised, and the north transept has an east aisle; the chancel, which is the most ancient portion of the edifice, has several finely-carved stalls. Among the monuments are some to the Dowman family, and a mural monument to the memory of Robert Denison, Esq., and his lady, on the pedestals of which are representations, exquisitely carved in oak, of the Bearing of the Cross, the Crucifixion, and the Descent from the Cross. In digging a grave at the west end of the church, in 1835, a stone was found, on which was a sculptured representation of the Crucifixion, with an inscription in Latin partly obliterated, Orate pro anima Johannis Soteby: from this person Mr. Leigh Sotheby, of London, book auctioneer, traces the descent of his family, formerly lords of the manor. At Yapham is a separate incumbency. There are places of worship for Independents, Primitive Methodists, and Wesleyans, and a RomanCatholic chapel.

The free grammar school was founded in the 6th of Henry VIII., by John Dowman, LL.D., Archdeacon of Suffolk, who then obtained licence to institute and endow, in the parish church, a fraternity called the guild of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Nicholas the Bishop, for a master, two guardians, and a number of brethren and sisters. He granted to the guild some land of the yearly value of twenty marks, for the support of a learned man, to teach grammar to all boys resorting to Pocklington for instruction; and subsequently conveyed certain property in the counties of Derby and York to St. John's College, Cambridge, for the maintenance of five scholars in that college, to be nominated by the guild. After the Dissolution, the school was refounded, and the patronage vested in the college, the heads of which still choose the master, who,with the vicar and church wardens, appoints the usher, and nominates to the scholarships; the income of the school was augmented in the 5th of Queen Mary, by Thomas Dowman and the Rev. Thomas Mountfrith, and now amounts in the aggregate to about £1020 per annum. The school-house, and residence for the master, were taken down in 1819, and rebuilt. The poor-law union comprises 47 parishes or places, containing a population of 15,432 persons. Two large barrows ortumuli, probably of Druidical origin, were formerly conspicuous on the West Green, and a large tract of land in that direction, now inclosed, retains the name of the Barrow flat; at the commencement of the last century the barrows were occasionally repaired with turf by the parochial authorities.

From: Lewis, Samuel A., A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 578-586. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51217 Date accessed: 06 October 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
To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, nonconformist 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.

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