Barking, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
An early 19th century discripton by Samuel A. Lewis is:

BARKING (St. Margaret), a parish, and formerly a market-town, in the union of Romford, hundred of Becontree, S. division of Essex, 23 miles (S. W.) from Chelmsford, and 7 (N. E.) from London; containing 8718 inhabitants.

The [Independent, Quaker and Roman Catholic--St Patrick] dissenters have...places of worship.

From: Lewis, Samuel A., A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848).

Barking is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Essex. Other places in the parish include: Barking Town, Ripple, and Chadwell. Other churches under Barking Parish were erected at (Great) Ilford in 1831, now an ecclesiastical parish; and at Aldborough-Hatch (1846) and Barking-Side (1840), and a chapel attached to St. Mary's Hospital, Ilford.

The Ancient Parish church of St Margaret was built in the grounds of St Mary's Abbey, which was founded by Benedictine Nuns around 666, but dissolved by Henry VIII in 1541. Captain James Cook married Elizabeth Batts in the Church on 21 December 1762.

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.

Barking was a large ancient parish of 12,307 acres in the Becontree hundred of Essex. It was divided into the wards of Chadwell, Ilford, Ripple and Town. A local board was formed for Town ward in 1882 and it was extended to cover Ripple ward in 1885. In 1888 Ilford and Chadwell were split off as a new parish of Ilford, leaving a residual parish of 3,814 acres.The parish became Barking Town Urban District in 1894 and the local board became an urban district council. The urban district was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Barking in 1931. It was abolished in 1965 and split with the majority merged with the former area of the Municipal Borough of Dagenham to form the London Borough of Barking. Barking land that was west of the River Roding, which included part of Beckton, became part of the London Borough of Newham. In 1980 the London Borough of Barking was renamed Barking and Dagenham.

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 includes images for the town churches including St Margaret. See also

St Alban baptisms and Marriages,St Erkenwald, St Patrick (formerly the Church of the Ascension) St Paul

Barking Congregational Church, Barking Hospital Upney Lane,Barking meeting (Society of Friends) Bishop's Transcripts burials in parish churchyard, Shaftesbury Society Greatfields Hall, King Edward's Road marriages,

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
Romford 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.