Bickerstaffe, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
BICKERSTAFFE, a township and ecclesiastical district, in the parish and union of Ormskirk, hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 3½ miles (S. E.) from Ormskirk; containing 1579 inhabitants. This was very early the seat of a family of the same name, from whom it passed to the Athertons and the Stanleys: the Earl of Derby is now proprietor of the entire township. It comprises 6291 acres, whereof 3550 are arable, 2250 pasture, 41 wood, and 450 common or waste. The soil is a sandy loam, part inclining to moor, and part to clay, with a red sandstone formation, beneath which is abundance of coal; the surface is elevated, presenting distant views of the Welsh hills and the sea. There is a quarry of a hard blueish stone; and two excellent collieries are in operation. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Earl of Derby; income, £150, with a house: the impropriate tithes have been commuted for £750. The church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and erected in 1843 at an expense of £2500, is in the early English style, with an apse at the east end, and a square tower surmounted by a graceful spire of great height, forming a conspicuous object in the surrounding scenery. The cost of the church, the endowment, and parsonage-house, with most of the cost of the schools, was defrayed by the noble patron. Bickerstaffe Hall, now a farmhouse, was the seat of the Stanley family. The present earl, in the lifetime of his father, the late earl, in 1832, was created a peer by the title of Lord Stanley, of Bickerstaffe; and his son, the present Lord Stanley, was, under the same circumstances, summoned to the upper house, in 1844, as Baron Stanley, also of this place.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 228-233. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50796 Date accessed: 25 June 2010.

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

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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
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Web sites
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