Newham, London Borough Genealogy

Guide to London Borough of Newham history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
This new Greater London Borough was formed by merging the former area of the Essex county borough of East Ham and the county borough of West Ham as a borough of the newly formed Greater London, on 1 April 1965 - these in turn were successors to the ancient civil and ecclesiastical parishes of East Ham and West Ham. Green Street and Boundary Road mark the former boundary between the two. North Woolwich also became part of the borough (previously being in the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, south of the river Thames in the County of London) along with a small area west of the River Roding which had previously been part of the Municipal Borough of Barking. Newham was devised for the borough as an entirely new name.

The area of the modern borough was at one time occupied by a territory called 'Ham'.

The first known written use of the term, as 'Hamme', is in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 958, and again in the 1086 Domesday Book as Hame. It is formed from Old English 'hamm' and means 'a dry area of land between rivers or marshland', referring to the location of the settlement within boundaries formed by the rivers Lea, Thames and Roding and their marshes.

These natural boundaries suggest that Little Ilford, North Woolwich and areas of the parish of Barking west of the Roding are likely to have been part of Ham(me).

The territory was subdivided into the more familiar West and East Ham sometime in the 12th century, with the earliest recorded distinction being as 'Westhamma' in 1186. It could be speculated that the partition arose as a result of population increase resulting from economic prosperity delivered by the construction of Bow Bridge over the Lea and the creation of Stratford Langthorne Abbey.

North Woolwich was removed from Ham at an earlier date, in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest but it is unclear when Little Ilford and western Barking were transferred, and it is not known for sure that they were part of Ham.

The boundary between West and East Ham was drawn from the now lost Hamfrith Waste and Hamfrith Wood in the north (then the southernmost parts of Epping Forest which extended as far south as the Romford Road at that time), along Green Street down to the small, similarly lost, natural harbour known as Ham Creek.

The formation of the modern borough in 1965 saw the merger of West and East Ham, together with North Woolwich and Barking west of the River Roding (Little Ilford had become part of East Ham as part of earlier local government reorganizations). This reorganization effectively re-established the earlier territory of Ham.

As with the other newly formed London Boroughs, it would be wise for anyone seeking Genealogical data to also consider accessing all relevant information from the former county location of Essex.

Cemeteries (Civil)
City of London Cemetery and Crematorium Aldersbrook Rd Manor Park London E12 5DQ Phone: +44 20 8530 2151

East London Cemetery Grange Rd London E13 0HB Phone: +44 20 7476 5109

West Ham Cemetery Cemetery Rd Forest Gate E7 9DG Phone: +44 20 3373 1193

Woodgrange Park Cemetery 273 Sherrard Rd London E7 8AX, UK

Manor Park Cemetery and Crematorium Sebert Rd Forest Gate, London E7 0NP Phone: +44 20 8534 1486

East Ham Jewish Cemetery Marlow Rd East Ham, London E6 3QG Phone: +44 20 8950 7767

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery 10C N Birkbeck Rd London E11 4JG

Plashet Cemetery 338 Strone Rd London E12 6TN

Rippleside Cemetery 3 Meadow Cl Barking IG11 9QE Phone: +44 20 8270 4740

Parishes
St John's Church address: Broadway London E15 1NG Phone: +44 20 8503 1913

All Saints Church address: Church St London E15 3HU Phone: +44 20 8519 0764

St Matthias' Church address: Kimberley Rd London E16 4NT Phone: +44 20 7474 0709

Emmanuel's Parish Church Church address: Romford Rd London E7 8BD Phone: +44 20 8522 1900

St Mark's Church address: Lorne R<br London E7 0LJ Phone: +44 20 8519 8206

St Barnabas' Church address: Browning Rd London E12 6PB Phone: +44 20 8472 2777

Non Conformists
Other Christian and non-christian groups follow:


 * Baptist
 * Christ Church
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * Elim Christian Center
 * Ethiopian Christian Fellowship
 * First Church of Christ Scientist
 * Jehovah's Witness
 * London Riverside Church
 * Methodist
 * Presbyterian
 * Roman Catholic
 * Stratford Unitarian Church

Non Christian groups that meet regularly in Bournemouth include:


 * Bah'ai
 * Buddhist
 * Hindu
 * Jewish
 * Muslim
 * Sikh

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the UK government, from July 1837 to the present day.

Newham does have a dedicated Records office as listed below:

Newham Register Office Newham Town Hall Barking Road East Ham, E6 2RP

Other sources for BMD information follow:


 * Newham Council Historical BMD searches


 * BMD Certificates: Newham


 * Essex County FHS research page

Local Histories

 * Newham Council: Local history


 * British History Online: West Ham


 * British History Online: East Ham


 * Ham and Petersham Through Time by Paul Howard Lang


 * History of the Parishes of East and West Ham by Katharine Fry and G Pagenstecher

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Oldmapsonline: Newham


 * Google Maps: Newham


 * Newham Borough street maps


 * VisionofBritain: Newham gazetteer

Newspapers

 * The Newham Recorder


 * The Independent, Newham Edition


 * The London Evening Standard, Newham Edition

Societies

 * East of London Family History Society


 * Essex Society for Family History


 * Essex Family History

Archives

 * Newham Council Archives


 * National Archives: Newham


 * Community Archives: Newham


 * Essex County Archives


 * London Metropolitan Archives

Websites

 * Wikipedia: London Borough of Newham


 * Newham UK Council


 * Essex County Council


 * Greater London Council


 * Wikipedia: County Borough of West Ham


 * Wikipedia: County Borough of East Ham