East Finchley, Middlesex Genealogy

England   Middlesex   Middlesex Parishes   East Finchley

Parish History
FINCHLEY (proper), a village, a parish, and a sub-district, in Barnet district, Middlesex. The village stands 4¾ miles NNW of Finchley-Road r. station; and has two stations of Finchley-East-End and Finchley and Hendon on the London and Edgware railway, a post office‡ under London N, and a police-station. The parish includes also part of Whetstone village. Acres, 2, 899. Real property, £22, 571. Pop. in 1851, 4, 120; in 1861, 4, 937. Houses, 942. The property is much subdivided. Finchley common, a tract of upwards of 1, 000 acres, was long noted as a resort of highwaymen; and was also the place where Monk drew up his forces, in 1660, when approaching the metropolis for restoring Charles; was likewise the place of the mustering of the guards, in 1745, on their march to Scotland, -and in that connection is associated with Hogarth's humorous picture of the "March to Finchley;" but it is now, for the most part, enclosed, and is surrounded by neat villas of London merchants. The new cemeteries for St. Pancras, London, St. Mary, Islington, and St. Mary-le-Bone, are within the parish; the first and the second occupy 88 acres; and the third has buildings which cost £15, 000, and occupies 33 acres. The parochial living is a rectory, and another charge called Holy Trinity is a vicarage, in the diocese of -London-Value of the rectory, £417;* of the vicarage, £150.* Patron of both, the Bishop of London. The parish church is Norman. The churchyard has an obelisk to Major John Cartwright. Holy Trinity church was built in 1846. Another church was built in 1869. The vicarage of Whetstone is a separate charge. An Independent chapel was built in 1865, at a cost of £5, 500. There are two other dissenting chapels, national schools built at a cost of £2, 500, other national and industrial schools, an Independent school, and charities £333. The sub-district includes also Fryern-Barnet parish.

John Marius Wilson, “Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales,” (Edinburgh: A, Fullerton & Co., 1870). Online | here.

East Finchley had three pre-1900 district churches within itself, as part of the civil borough and parish of Finchley (proper). These churches included the following:


 * Holy Trinity Church Lane which commenced by about 1846
 * All Saints Durham Road, East Finchley which began by about 1891
 * St Paul Long Lane, East Finchley which was built and in service by about 1886

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.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Middlesex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Poor Law Unions
Contributor: Add information about the pertinent poor law unions in the area.

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.