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Wales Wales  Newport (Casnewydd)

Guide to Newport (Casnewydd) history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
Newport (Welsh: Casnewydd)  is a cathedral and university city and unitary authority area in south east Wales. It is located on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, approximately 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Cardiff. At the 2011 census it was listed as the third largest city in Wales, with a city population of 145,700 and an urban population of 306,844.

Bronze Age fishermen settled around the fertile estuary of the River Usk and later the Celtic Silures built hillforts overlooking it. In AD 75, on the very edge of their empire, the Roman legions built a Roman fort at Caerleon to defend the river crossing. According to legend, in the late 5th century Saint Woolos church was founded by Saint Gwynllyw, the patron saint of Newport and King of Gwynllwg. The church was certainly in existence by the 9th century and today has become Newport Cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of Monmouth. The Normans arrived from around 1088–1093 to build the first Newport Castle and river crossing downstream from Caerleon and the first Norman Lord of Newport was Robert Fitzhamon.

The settlement of 'Newport' is first mentioned as novo burgus established by Robert, Earl of Gloucester in 1126. The name was derived from the original Latin name Novus Burgus, meaning new borough or new town. The city can sometimes be found labelled as Newport-on-Usk on old maps.

The original Newport Castle was a small motte-and-bailey castle in the park opposite Newport Cathedral. It was buried in rubble excavated from the Hillfield railway tunnels that were dug under Stow Hill in the 1840s and no part of it is currently visible. Around the settlement, the new town grew to become Newport, obtaining its first charter in 1314 and was granted a second one, by Hugh Stafford, 2nd Earl of Stafford in 1385. In the 14th century friars came to Newport where they built an isolation hospital for infectious diseases. After its closure the hospital lived on in the place name "Spitty Fields" (a corruption of ysbyty, the Welsh for hospital). "Austin Friars" also remains a street name in the city.

A third charter, establishing the right of the town to run its own market and commerce came from Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham in 1426. By 1521, Newport was described as having "....a good haven coming into it, well occupied with small crays [merchant ships] where a very great ship may resort and have good harbor." Trade was thriving with the nearby ports of Bristol and Bridgwater and industries included leather tanning, soap making and starch making. The town's craftsmen included bakers, butchers, brewers, carpenters and blacksmiths. A further charter was granted by James I in 1623.

As the Industrial Revolution took off in Britain in the 19th century, the South Wales Valleys became key suppliers of coal from the South Wales Coalfield, and iron. These were transported down local rivers and the new canals to ports such as Newport, and Newport Docks grew rapidly as a result. Newport became one of the largest towns in Wales and the focus for the new industrial eastern valleys of South Wales. By 1830 Newport was Wales' leading coal port, and until the 1850s it was larger than Cardiff.

Newport probably had a Welsh-speaking majority until the 1830s, but with a large influx of migrants from England and Ireland over the following decades, the town and the rest of Monmouthshire came to be seen as "un-Welsh", a view compounded by ambiguity about the status of Monmouthshire.

The late 19th and early 20th century period was a boom time for Newport. The Alexandra Docks opened in 1875. The population was expanding rapidly and the town became a county borough in 1891. In 1892 the Alexandra South Dock was opened and was the largest masonry dock in the world. Although coal exports from Newport were by now modest compared to the Port of Cardiff (which included Cardiff, Penarth and Barry), Newport was the place where the Miners' Federation of Great Britain was founded in 1889, and international trade was sufficiently large for 8 consuls and 14 vice-consuls to be based in the town.

From 1893 the town was served by the paddle steamers of P & A Campbell Ltd. (the "White Funnel Line"), which was based in Bristol. The company had been originally set up, by the Scottish brothers Alex and Peter Campbell, on the River Clyde, but was re-located to the Severn Estuary. Departing steamers would face south on Davis Wharf, with the Art College to its left and the town bridge behind. The boats gave rise to the name of the short street which led to the quayside - Screwpacket Road. By 1955 steamers had stopped calling at Newport and P&A Campbell went into receivership in 1959. It was taken over by the firm which would become the Townsend Ferry group.

Compared to many Welsh towns, Newport's economy had a broad base, with foundries, engineering works, a cattle market and shops that served much of Monmouthshire. The post-war years saw renewed prosperity, with Saint Woolos Cathedral (now Newport Cathedral) attaining full cathedral status in 1949, the opening of the modern integrated Llanwern steelworks in 1962, and the construction of the Severn Bridge and local sections of the M4 motorway in the late 1960s, making Newport the best-connected place in Wales.

Although employment at Llanwern steelworks declined in the 1980s, the town acquired a range of new public sector employers, and a Richard Rogers-designed Inmos microprocessor factory helped to establish Newport as being extant for technology companies.[14] A flourishing local music scene in the early 1990s led to claims that the town was "a new Seattle".[3][15]

The county borough of Newport was granted city status in 2002 to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. In the same year, an unusually large merchant ship, referred to locally as the Newport Ship, was uncovered and rescued from the west bank of the River Usk during the construction of the Riverfront Arts Center. The ship has been dated to some time between 1445 and 1469 and it remains the only vessel of its type from this period yet discovered anywhere in the world.

Cemeteries (Civil)
Tonge Cemetery


 * Cemetery Rd
 * Bolton BL2 6AQ
 * Phone: +44 1204 334499

Overdale Crematorium


 * Overdale Dr
 * Bolton BL1 5BU
 * Phone: +44 1204 334499

Heaton Cemetery


 * Gilnow Road
 * Bolton BL1 4LH
 * Phone: +44 1204 334499

Astley Bridge Cemetery


 * Eden St
 * Bolton BL1 6NU

Ridgemont Cemetery


 * Co Operative St
 * Rossendale
 * 4 Chorley Old Rd
 * Horwich, Bolton BL6 6AU

Parishes
St Peter's


 * Churchgate
 * Bolton BL1 1PS

St Mathew's


 * Market St
 * Little Lever, Bolton BL3 1HH
 * Phone: +44 1204 700936

St Augustine of Canterbury


 * Thicketford Road
 * Tonge Moor, Bolton BL2 2LP
 * Phone: +44 1204 523899

Christ's Church


 * Stitch-Mi-Lane
 * Bolton BL2 4HN
 * Phone: +44 1204 525196

St Maxentius'


 * Bolton Road
 * Bradshaw,, Bolton BL2 3EU
 * Phone: +44 1204 304240

Church of St Thomas and St John


 * Tempest Rd
 * Bolton BL6 4EL
 * Phone: +44 1204 654016

St Peter's


 * Church Rd
 * Bolton BL1 5RL
 * Phone: +44 1204 599900

St Aidan's


 * Crompton Way
 * Bolton BL1 8UP

St Catherine's


 * 5 Richmond St
 * Horwich, Bolton BL6 5QT
 * Phone: +44 1204 697162

St Paul with St Emanuel

1 Vicarage St
 * Bolton BL3 5LE
 * Phone: +44 1204 520837

To find the addresses of parishes in adjacent towns and villages, connect with the following web site: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Lancashire_Parishes

Non Conformists
Other Christian groups follow:


 * Baptists
 * Church of Christ
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * Claremont Church
 * Grace Church
 * Farnsworth Christian Fellowship
 * Jehovah's Witnesses
 * Kingdom Life
 * Methodist
 * Presbyterian
 * Roman Catholic
 * Salvation Army
 * Seventh Day Adventists

Non Christian faiths include the following:


 * Buddhist
 * Hindu
 * Jewish
 * Muslim
 * Sikh

Civil Registration

 * Bolton Gov. BMD records


 * Lancashire BMD Org.


 * Free BMD Org

Local Histories

 * Local Histories: Bolton


 * Vision of Britain: Bolton


 * Bolton Historic Tales by Hans DePold


 * Massacre: The Storming of Bolton by David Casserly

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Google maps: Bolton


 * Old Maps: Bolton


 * Bolton Street Map


 * genuki Bolton gazetteer

Newspapers

 * The Bolton News


 * Newspaper Archive: The Bolton Chronicle


 * The Manchester Evening News; Bolton section

Occupations
Almost all of the heavy industry that Bolton was known for over the years has passed, to be replaced with service industries.

In the last quarter of the 20th century heavy industry was replaced by service-based activities including data processing, call centers, hi-tech electronics and IT companies. The town retains some traditional industries employing people in paper-manufacturing, packaging, textiles, transportation, steel foundries and building materials. The Reebok brand's European headquarters are located at the Reebok Football Stadium. Bolton is also the home of the family bakery, Warburtons, established in 1876 on Blackburn Road.

Bolton attracts visitors to its shopping centers, markets, public houses, restaurants and cafes in the town center as well retail parks and leisure facilities close to the town center and in the surrounding towns and suburbs. Tourism plays a part in the economy, visitor attractions include Hall i' th' Wood, Smithills Hall and Country Park, Last Drop Village, Barrow Bridge and the Bolton Steam Museum.

IT companies, such as Avetco are among the fastest growth companies in the UK. Other companies in this field include Converge Technologies, Media Co and Call IT Ltd.

Finance is another major employer with such companies as: Accounting Solutions and Finance Ltd.

Societies

 * The Bolton Family History Society


 * Bolton Town Council Special History Collections


 * Bolton Historical Association


 * Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society

Archives

 * The National Archives: Bolton


 * Bolton Museum Archives


 * Lancashire County Council Archives

Web Sites

 * Lancashire County Council


 * Bolton Town Council


 * wikipedia: Bolton