Colne Engaine, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes   Colne Engaine

Parish History
Colne Engaine or Little Colne, is a village and a parish in Halstead district, Essex. It is 1 1/2 miles WNW of Colne railway station, and 2 1/2 miles ESE of Halstead.

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
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Poor Law Unions
Halstead Poor Law Union, Essex

'In the earlier 18th century weekly allowances were paid to up to 18 paupers; occasional relief in kind, usually clothes or shoes, was also given. The numbers receiving regular relief rose to 26 in 1769 and to 31 in 1798; clothes and shoes continued to be bought, and a surgeon or apothecary was paid in the 1760s and 1770s. In 1761, 1762, and 1766 spinning wheels was bought for pauper women. The same system continued into the 19th century, and in addition some men were paid for work on the roads. A workhouse, whose inmates were employed in spinning and hop-picking, operated between c. 1750 and 1761 and again from c. 1777 to c. 1790 or perhaps to 1795 when the overseers settled affairs there. At other times the building seems to have been used as pauper housing. It was sold in 1839.

'The three unendowed almshouses reported in 1768 were probably also used for pauper housing. That on Buntings green may have been the house built there by the parish in the late 16th century for 'a most wicked and ungodly man'. The houses were presumably those sold by the parish in 1836.

'Expenditure on the poor more than doubled between 1776 and 1783-5, rising from £125 to an average of £266 a year, an increase comparable to that at Earls Colne and one of the largest in the hundred. By 1803 expenditure had risen to £422, and by 1813 to £607 or £1 4s. 2d. per head of population, one of the lower rates in the hundred. It fell to £427 in 1816 before rising to £734 in 1818. Expenditure per head remained slightly below average for the hundred until 1830 when total expenditure rose to £900, £1 9s. 2d. a head. Although expenditure fell to £601 in 1834, expenditure per head remained above average for the hundred.

'Eighteenth-century and early 19th-century vestry meetings were attended by the parish officers, the rector or curate, and 6-7 parishioners. Although in 1821 there was reported to be no select vestry, there seems to have been a distinction in the mid 18th century between the annual 'town' meeting and others. In the 1830s meetings were sometimes adjourned from the church to the Five Bells. In 1839 the vestry agreed to pay to vaccinate poor families; in 1845 money raised for poor relief paid for a soup kitchen.'

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