Hockley, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Hockley St Peter and St Paul is an Ancient Parish in Essex with an octagonal Norman tower.

Hockley is an Anglo Saxon word meaning a small hill and today there is still a large wooded area named Hockley woods. Notable buildings in the village include the St Peter and Paul twelfth century church with octagonal tower and a Victorian spa pump room which is a listed building. It is also the site of the Bullwood Hall Men's prison (which was a women's prison until 2006).

HOCKLEY (St. Peter), a parish, in the union and hundred of Rochford, S. division of Essex, 2¼ miles (N. E. by N.) from Rayleigh; containing 850 inhabitants. This parish, which is bounded on the north by the navigable river Crouch, comprises by measurement 4419 acres, whereof 3550 are arable, 663 pasture, and 206 woodland. The surface is generally elevated, the soil heavy and richly productive, and the scenery embellished with luxuriant foliage. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £16. 3. 9.; net income, £163; patrons and impropriators, the Warden and Fellows of Wadham College, Oxford. The church, which is situated on a high hill, is of Norman architecture, with a massive octagonal tower surmounted by a shingled spire, and is supposed to have been erected by Canute and Turkil, in commemoration of their victory over Edmund Ironside. There is a very large barrow in the neighbourhood.

From: Samuel A. Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 521-524. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51035&amp;amp;strquery=Hockley Essex Date accessed: 31 January 2011.

Hockley is a large village and civil parish in Essex, England located between Chelmsford and Southend-on-Sea, which for adminstrative purposes is within Rochford District. More specifically it lies between Rayleigh and Rochford. It came to prominence during the coming of the railway in the 1890s.

The diocese of Chelmsford was created in 1914, prior to this Essex parishes were in the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London until 1845 when they transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The diocese of Chelmsford has 474 parishes and 600 churches and is the second largest region in the church of England outside London.

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

Census records
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

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
Rochford 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
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.