Manningtree, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes

Parish History
MANNINGTREE (St. Michael), a market-town and parish, in the union and hundred of Tendring, N. division of Essex, 9 miles (N. E. by E.) from Colchester, and 61 (N. E. by E.) from London; containing 1255 inhabitants. This place was anciently called Scidinghoo, or, as in Domesday book, Sciddinchou; and in the reign of Henry VIII. it had received the name of Many tree, of which the present appellation is an obvious corruption. Here was a guild, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, the revenue of which was £8. 5. 4.; and the importance of the place may be inferred from a certificate of the value of some chantry lands, in which it is termed "a great town and also a haven town, having in it to the number of 700 houseling people." The parish is extremely salubrious, and occupies the most pleasant situation in the hundred; it is bounded on the north by the river Stour. The town is on the southern bank of the river, on the road from London to Harwich, and is irregularly built; the streets are paved and lighted with oil, and the inhabitants are amply supplied with excellent water. The malt-trade is carried on to a great extent, and a brewery here produces annually 5000 barrels of strong ale. At spring tides, vessels drawing six feet of water come up to the quay, bringing corn, coal, deals, &amp;c. The Stour was made navigable from the town to Sudbury, by act of parliament in the 4th and 5th of the reign of Anne. A station here of the Ipswich and Colchester railway is about midway between the stations at those two towns. The market is on Thursday, for corn and cattle; and there is a fair for toys on the Thursday in Whitsun-week. The pettysessions for the division of Tendring take place on Mondays at Mistley and Thorpe alternately, when overseers, surveyors, and constables are appointed; and a court baron is held here annually by the lords of the manor of Mistley and Manningtree. The village of Mistley, about half a mile from the town, consists of several handsome houses; and a fair is held by permission on the green there, on the 8th and 9th of August. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Rector of Mistley. The church consists of a nave, with north and south aisles separated from the nave by ranges of massive pillars, and contains a monument on which is an inscription recording that a fuller, named Thomas Osmond, was burnt here for heresy, June 15th, 1555. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyans.

From: Samuel A. Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 247-251. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51131 Date accessed: 11 April 2011.

The name Manningtree is thought to derive from 'many trees'. The town grew around the wool trade from the 15th century under its decline in the 18th century and also had a thriving shipping trade in corn, timber and coal until this declined with the coming of the railway. Manningtree is known as the centre of the activities of Matthew Hopkins, the self-appointed Witchfinder General, who claimed to have overheard local women discussing their meetings with the devil in 1644 with his accusations leading to their execution as witches.

Many of the buildings in the centre of the town have Georgian facades which obscure their earlier origins. Notable buildings include the town's library, which was originally built as, 'a public hall for the purposes of corn exchange' and was later used around 1900 for public entertainment, and the oldest Methodist church in Essex, located on South Street.



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
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist 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

Online images are available Seax - Essex Archives Online From the Essex Record Office for St Michael and all Angels, Manningtree Wesleyan methodist Church, Manningtree Independent Chapel and Manningtree Preparative meeting

Census records
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Index for the Census may be searched at FamilySearch Historical Records

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Tendring Poor Law Union, Essex

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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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