Waterhead, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
Waterhead Holy Trinity was created a district chapelry in 1844 from, and lying within the boundaries of Prestwich St Mary, Lancashire Ecclesiastical Parish.

"WATERHEAD, a chapelry in Prestwich parish, Lancashire; 1½ mile SE of Oldham r. station. It was constituted in 1844; and it has a post-office, of the name of W. Mill, under Oldham. Rated property, £14,729. Pop., 3,941. Houses, 823. The property is much sub-divided. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester. Value, £150. Patron, alternately the Crown and the Bishop. The church is in the early English style. There are national schools."

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

"WATERHEAD, an ecclesiastical parish, in the parish of Prestwich cum Oldham, hundred of Salford, S. division of Lancashire, 2 miles (E. by N.) from Oldham; containing upwards of 4000 inhabitants. It is about a mile in length and two miles in breadth, of cold aspect, and rather sterile and rugged surface. Whatever part of the land has escaped conversion into stone-quarries and coal-mines, is occupied in grazing cattle. The village has grown into its present magnitude within the last twenty years: the population is employed in the mines and the cotton manufacture. The road from Manchester to Huddersfield passes through. The district of Waterhead was formed out of St. James's district, Oldham, in Nov. 1844, under the act 6th and 7th Victoria, cap. 37; and became a parish on the consecration of the church in July 1847. The edifice is dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, and is a beautiful structure in the style of the 13th century, containing accommodation for 800 persons. Of the cost, exceeding £3000, the sum of £1380 was contributed by Church-Building societies, and the remainder collected from the inhabitants of Waterhead and Oldham, and, through the exertions of the Rev. P. H. Reynolds, the first incumbent of the parish, from persons in other parts of England. It is proposed to erect a tower and spire, when funds are obtained for the purpose. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Crown and the Bishop of Manchester, alternately; net income, £150. The late A. R. Sidebottom, Esq., presented the sites for the church and schools. There is a place of worship for Independents."

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 484-486. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51381 Date accessed: 03 August 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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Church records
Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts 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

Parish registers, 1845-1980 Microreproduction of original records hosued at the Central Library, Oldham. Waterhead is a chapelry in the parish of Prestwich, but was formerley in the parish of Oldham.

Census records
http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Oldham Poor Law Union

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.

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
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.