St Nicholas Hospital, Kent Genealogy

England   Kent



Parish History
At Harbledown the extra parochial area of St Nicholas Hospital grew from the foundation of the ancient St Nicholas Hospital. This was founded as a leper hospital to the west of Canterbury about 1084 by Archbishop Lanfranc. When leprosy disappeared from England the Hospital site was developed as alms housing.

See Victoria County History A History of the County of Kent: Volume 2 (1926), pp. 219-220 at British History Online and Kent Churches website

The Land Tax records make no reference to this part of Harbledown but refer to the parish Harbledown, Kent and Borough of Harbledown; see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments (FamilySearch Historical Records)

See also kent Resources website and Historic Canterbury website

Civil Registration
Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

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
Family History Library film number Family History Library BRITISH Film 1786506 Item 5

Bishop's Transcripts 1814-1892

Canterbury Cathedral Archives, The Precinct,Canterbury, Kent. Canterbury Cathedral Archives reference: DCb/BT2/135 Baptisms, 1841, 1847, 1849, 1892; Burials, 1814, 1816, 1818-1821, 1823, 1827-1828, 1830, 1832-1836, 1840-1841, 1843-1844, 1846, 1848, 1883-1891.

The records contain only baptisms and burials for the brothers and sisters of the hospital; there is no evidence of marraige and the chapel appears not to have been licensed ecclesiastically for this.

See also England, Kent, Parish Registers and Bishop's Transcripts (FamilySearch Historical Records) for St Nicholas Hospital Bishop's Transcripts.

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.

Census records
FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal: Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

to locate local Family History Centres in UK

to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search. Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions
Bridge Poor Law Union, Kent

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent 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.