Worthing Holy Trinity, Sussex Genealogy

Guide to Worthing Holy Trinity, Sussex ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



Parish History
Worthing Holy Trinity Shelley Road was formed in 1884 from parts of Broadwater, Sussex Ancient Parish and Worthing Christ Church, Sussex parish.

The Gratwicke estate was developed from 1877, and HOLY TRINITY church, Shelley Road, was consecrated in 1883 to serve it. In 1884 a parish was formed from Broadwater and Christ Church parishes. The vicarage has remained in the patronage of trustees, two of the original trustees being the rector of Broadwater and the vicar of Christ Church. In 1884 there was a temporary vicarage house in Shelley Road, where a permanent one was built in 1898.

There were two Sunday services in 1884. A mission room in Anglesea Street licensed for worship in that year was recorded until the 1930s. St. Matthew's church in Tarring Road was built as a chapel of ease to Holy Trinity in 1899 from designs by R. S. Hyde of Worthing, and a south aisle and vestries were added in 1911.

The church of Holy Trinity, of red brick in Gothic style, originally consisted of chancel, nave, and aisles, with an organ chamber and north porch. A tower with spire was built in 1888, in which eight tubular bells were hung in 1889, and a new vestry was built in 1894. The 17th-century pulpit from Broadwater church was installed in 1883.

From Worthing: Churches', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 1: Bramber Rape (Southern Part) (1980), pp. 119-122. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=18230&amp;strquery=Worthing

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

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Records are also available at the West Sussex Record Office and The Keep (which houses the collections of the East Sussex Record Office).

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. Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK Introduction to Family History Centers 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

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

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