West Tilbury, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
West Tilbury St James was an Ancient Parish in Essex.

Bede's History of the English Church talks of a minster church established by St Cedd at Tilaburg. A case has been made that this was West Tilbury, however, majority opinion favours East Tilbury. The West Tilbury parish church was dedicated to St James. Most of the windows appear to be 14th century. It is now a private dwelling follwing the church being decalred redundant and deconsecrated.. William Laud, later Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed rector of West Tilbury in 1609.

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.

The original part of the village, around the old church of St. James, has been a site of human habitation for many hundreds if not thousands of years. Further inland a settlement was formed in 1257 when a market charter was granted to Richard de Tilleburi and a 'fair green' was laid out for use as a market. Part of Tilbury Fort is in West Tilbury.

Queen Elizabeth I reviewed her troops here in 1588, delivering her Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (Many have mistakenly assumed that the Tilbury mentioned as the site of the speech refers to the town around the docks about a mile and a half to the south west. This is not the case as Tilbury town was not built until the docks were constructed in the late 1800s on what was open marshland.) It is believed that the main Spanish attack was expected in Essex, but ships were used to construct a bridge allowing troops to cross the river and prevent the attacking Spanish army from capturing London if it landed in Kent.

In the eighteenth century, water from West Tilbury was bottled and sold for its medicinal properties. Unusually for south Essex, West Tilbury continued to operate some open field farming well into the 19th century. Although they were in the open field, individual holdings were freehold. There were occasional disputes as to the location of these holdings. In due course, the two institutional land owners - the Sir John Cass Foundation and the town of Henley on Thames - erected markers to define their holdings.

West Tilbury is in the unitary authority of Thurrock, Essex, England. West Tilbury is one of seven conservation areas in Thurrock.

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 for marriage registers for West Tibury St James. See also images for West Tilbury Methodist church baptisms.

Essex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

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
Orsett 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.