Kelvedon Hatch, Essex Genealogy

England Essex  Essex Parishes  Kelvedon Hatch

Guide to Kelvedon Hatch, Essex family history and genealogy. Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Kelvedon Hatch, is a parish in Ongar district, Essex; on the river Roding, 2 miles SE of Chipping Ongar railway station, and 5 miles NNW of Brentwood. A Roman Catholic chapel is attached to Kelvedon Hall.

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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Poor Law Unions
Ongar Poor Law Union, Essex

Vestry minute-books for Kelvedon Hatch survive for the periods 1736-60 and 1835-81. During the period 1736-60 vestry meetings usually seem to have been held only at Easter in each year. In only one year during this period was more than one meeting recorded. The minutes were brief but were always signed. The Revd. C. Wragg, rector of the parish from 1731 until 1758, seems never to have attended the meetings. His successor, the Revd. N. Griffinhoeff (1758-60) attended the only Easter vestry held during his incumbency and was the first to sign the minutes. The number of parishioners who attended the meetings varied between 3 and 6. Members of the Wright family, lords of the manor of Kelvedon Hatch, always attended and usually signed first. The minutes rarely did more than record the ap-pointment of officers and the balances remaining in officers' hands at the end of each year. In the period 1736-60 there was only one office of churchwarden and one office of overseer. George Wright was churchwarden throughout the period. Until 1744 the overseers served for two years consecutively, but after that date they served for one year only. As late as 1835 there was an illiterate overseer. In 1614 there were two constables, but in the period 1736-60 there was only one office of constable. These officers usually served for several years consecutively. The appointment of surveyors was not recorded in the minute-book, but there appears to have been one office of surveyor. The rateable value of the parish was £700 in 1738 and £1,676 in 1835. Until 1751 the overseers, churchwarden, and constables were each granted separate rates for which they were directly responsible to the parish. Occasionally one officer was ordered to pay another officer's deficit out of his surplus. In April 1751 it was decided that the constable's charges for the ensuing year should be paid by the churchwarden. In March 1752 the same constable was reappointed, but on this occasion it was resolved that his charges should be paid by the overseer. No further resolutions were recorded on this matter and it is not clear how the charges of either the constable or the churchwarden were met in the years after 1753. By 1833, however, their expenditure was evidently met by the overseers who included it in their account. It is not clear what the practice was in regard to the surveyors' accounts. There was a poorhouse in Kelvedon Hatch, situated on Kelvedon Common, and in 1835 there were at least two male paupers in it. In most cases, however, poor relief was given outside the poorhouse. In each of the years 1813-15 there were thirteen adults on 'permanent' outdoor relief. Provision for the poor included the payment of weekly doles. In 1776 the cost of poor relief was £90. In 1783-5 it averaged £104 a year. (fn. 12) It reached £501 in 1800-1 and £538 in 1801-2, but in the next six years it was always between £300 and £400 a year. In the years 1808-17 the cost was usually above £400 and reached a maximum of £567 in 1812-13. In each of the years 1833 and 1834 it was £275 and in 1835 £250. In 1836 Kelvedon Hatch became part of the Ongar Poor Law Union.

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