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England London Boroughs  Camden Borough

Guide to London Borough of Camden history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
As with the other London Boroughs, the British Government action of 1965 destroyed all traces of the original settlements from the point of view of Family History. The borough was created from the former area of the metropolitan boroughs of Camden, Hampstead, Holborn, and St Pancras,. Researchers should instead consider researching Camden Borough in its original county of Essex.

EARLY HISTORY:

The earliest known settlement was on the high lands of Hampstead Heath and dates back to the Mesolithic age around 7000BC. For many centuries the area remained heavily forested, with fertile land drained by the Fleet, Tyburn and Westbourne rivers, and other streams.

From the Roman city of Londinium legions used a great highway leading to the west that is now High Holborn and Oxford Street. Watling Street, another Roman road leading to St Albans, forms the western boundary of the borough and is known today as Edgware Road, Kilburn High Road and other local names. Other Roman roads probably passed through Hampstead and Highgate.

The Saxons later built their city Ludenwic to the west of Londinium, on a site which excavations have recently confirmed as stretching from the Thames through Covent Garden to around the Kingsway and Holborn areas. Early charters from that period include boundaries that, over a thousand years later, still form part of the boundaries of the present borough.

In 959AD King Edgar granted to Westminster Abbey land that lay south of the 'wide army street' of High Holborn, including the old wooden church St Andrew on 'Holebourne'. The Anglo-Saxon name of burna, a stream, and hol, a hollow, provided the original name of Holborn, while the lower part was a tidal creek known in Anglo-Saxon as a fleot which later became the Fleet River.

The Domesday Survey of 1086 was the first systematic attempt to describe the communities; who owned them, their value and how many people worked the land. The manors of Tothele [Tottenham Court], Rugmere, St Pancras, Hampstead, and Holborn are recorded as small hamlets where the inhabitants ploughed the land and kept pigs in the forests.

The spread of London continued outside the city walls, along High Holborn and to the south towards the river Thames. John de Kirkby built a house and chapel in the 13th century, which later became the London palace of the Bishops of Ely. John of Gaunt, Elizabeth I, Richard III and Henry IV were among the many famous visitors and guests.

HOLBORN:

Around Holborn, London's legal quarter developed from the 14th century, lawyers often gathering together in 'Inns' for training and support, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn are examples which still exist.

To the west, the leper hospital of St Giles was established in 1117 by Queen Matilda and remained as a hospital until the 16th century on a site that is bounded by today's St Giles High Street, Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. The present St Giles in the Fields Church, built in 1734, is probably the third on the site and its parish was once one of the most overcrowded and insanitary in London. The first outbreak of the Great Plague of 1665 occurred nearby and the parish was one of the worst affected.

BLOOMSBURY:

Blemundsbury, now Bloomsbury, was named after William de Blemund who acquired land there in 1201. The manor passed to Lord Southampton and later to the Duke of Bedford who began to develop a series of graceful squares and streets for the fashionable and wealthy. Bedford Square 1775-1783 remains one of the most attractive and complete 18th-century squares in London.

Authors and artists later settled here including Virginia Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury Group. Famous buildings in the area include the British Museum, the University of London and some of its colleges.

The village around the manor house of Tottenham Court disappeared under 19th and 20th-century developments around Euston Road and Hampstead Road, leaving only the name of the road leading to it. To the west Fitzrovia grew piecemeal from the mid-18th century onwards although only gaining its current name in the 1940s. An area of craftsmen, writers and artists, it shared with Soho a very bohemian atmosphere.

KING'S CROSS:

King's Cross was previously known as Battle Bridge until 1830, when a short-lived monument to George IV was erected at the junction of Euston, Gray's Inn and Pentonville Roads. Euston Road, initially called the New Road from Paddington to Islington and London's first by-pass road, was opened in 1756. Lord Somers was a landowner who took advantage of its construction to develop his fields as Somers Town.

The area later became home for many refugees from the French Revolution and people fleeing from Spanish-ruled lands, particularly from South America. It is now home to the new British Library on Euston Road, opened in 1998.

ST PANCRAS:

A little to the north of King's Cross is one of the borough's oldest buildings, St Pancras Old Church in Pancras Gardens. Its exact origin is unknown but parts of it date from the 13th and 14th centuries, although older Roman tiles and bricks have been used in its construction. The church and the former borough were named after Pancratius, a young boy martyred in Rome for his religious beliefs in 303. Much of its churchyard now lies under the railway lines into St Pancras Station.

CAMDEN TOWN:

At the heart of the borough lies Camden Town. Named after Charles Pratt, the first Earl Camden, who started its development in 1791, Camden Town began life as little more than a handful of buildings beside a main road. Camden Town's expansion as a major centre came with the opening of the Regent's Canal to traffic in 1820

Improvements to transport provided employment for the local population, which, by the end of the 19th century, had grown significantly. Many streets were changed when new housing developments and schemes were introduced in the 1960s. The conversion of Camden Lock's wharves and warehouses on the Regent's Canal to craft markets in the 1970s ensured Camden Town's future as one of London's top tourist attractions.

Chalk Farm was originally a farmhouse and later a tavern set in fields. Soon after 1840 housing and shops were developed in Regent's Park Road but the building still survives as a restaurant.

Cemeteries (Civil)
Borough Cemetery


 * Powder Mill Ln
 * Whitton TW2 6EJ
 * Phone: +44 845 456 2853

Hounslow Cemetery Chapel


 * 631 Hanworth Rd
 * Hounslow TW4 5NH

Twickenham Cemetery


 * 139 Hospital Bridge Rd
 * Whitton, Twickenham TW2 6LE
 * Phone: +44 20 8876 4511

Chiswick Cemetery


 * 22 Staveley Gardens
 * Chiswick, London W4 2SA
 * Phone: +44 845 456 2853

New Brentford Cemetery Chapel


 * 17 Harte Rd
 * Hounslow TW3 4LD

Parishes
Holy Trinity


 * 6 High St
 * Hounslow TW3 1HG
 * Phone: +44 20 8577 9048

St Paul's


 * 287 Bath Rd
 * Hounslow TW3 3DB
 * Phone: +44 20 8581 5537

St Stephen's


 * Parkside Rd
 * Hounslow TW3 2BP
 * Phone: +44 20 8570 3056

St Phillip's and St James'


 * Hounslow Rd
 * Twickenham TW2 7DY
 * Phone: +44 20 8898 2694

St John the Baptist


 * 2 Nottingham Rd
 * Isleworth TW7 6PB

St Mary the Virgin


 * Worton Rd
 * Isleworth TW7 6ER
 * Phone: +44 20 8577 9048

Non Conformists

 * Baptist
 * Christ Church
 * Evangelical
 * Jubilee Church
 * Living Hope
 * Methodist
 * Pentecostal
 * Salvation Army
 * Seventh Day Adventist
 * Unified body of Christ

Additionally the following non-Christian groups have assemblies in Hounslow Borough:


 * Baha'i
 * Buddhist
 * Hindu
 * Jewish
 * Muslim
 * Sikh

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths records have been kept by the UK government since July 1837 to the present day. Prior to that, local parishes of the Episcopal Church, and other religious organizations, were the only repositories of this information.


 * Hounslow Borough BMD records


 * ukbmd.org: Hounslow BMD records


 * ukofficialrecords.co: Hounslow BMD


 * ukbmd.org: Middlesex Parish records

Local Histories

 * London Borough of Hounslow Council: History


 * hiddenlondon: Hounslow


 * Barnes and Noble: Voices of Ealing and Hounslow by Sue McAlpine


 * Wordery.com: Chiswick through Time by Peter Hammond and Carolyn Hammond


 * Wordery.com: Brentford through Time by Gilliam Clegg


 * Jet.com: Twickenham, a village in Isleworth


 * Feltham, Hanworth and Bedfont: A Pictorial History by Andrea Cameron

Maps and Gazetteers

 * google maps: London Borough of Hounslwo


 * openstreetmap: Hounslow Borough


 * oldmapsonline: Hounslow


 * francisfrith: old map of Chiswick


 * francisfrith: old map of Brentford


 * francisfrith: old map of Isleworth


 * francisfrith: old map of Feltham


 * hidden-london: Hounslow Heath gazetteer


 * hidden-london: Chiswick gazetteer


 * hidden-london: Isleworth gazetteer

Newspapers
All the major London papers are available in Hounslow Borough. For local news, the following might be helpful:


 * get west london: Hounslow news


 * The London Evening Standard,: Hounslow

Occupations
Due to its proximity to London's Heathrow Airport, the seventh busiest in the world rankings based on passenger numbers, much of the Borough's employment opportunities are related to air traffic. Associated with the airport are such enterprises as: auto rental companies, hotels, bus and underground rail transportation, and security companies. Additionally the Borough has two thriving Business Parks, one in Chiswick and one in Hounslow itself.

The borough is home to the headquarters of such major companies as GlaxoSmithKline and Sky plc, both based in Brentford's 'Golden Mile' stretch of the A4 Great West Road, once known across the globe for its cluster of factories and offices, and is currently going under extensive re-development in the form of new apartment blocks and offices. Fuller's Griffin Brewery is also in the borough, in Chiswick.

DHL Air UK has its head office in Hounslow.

Air France-KLM's head office for United Kingdom and Ireland operations, which includes facilities for Air France and KLM, is located in Plesman House in Hatton Cross in the borough. The Plesman House, outside of Terminal 4 of London Heathrow Airport, has the UK commercial team, sales team, and support team. Sega Europe has its head office in Brentford. Menzies Aviation has its head office by the airport in Feltham. JCDecaux UK has its head office in Brentford.

Societies

 * West Middlesex FHS


 * Hounslow and District History Society


 * Londoppn, Westminster, and Middlesex FHS

Archives

 * hounslow Borough Archives


 * The National Archives: Hounslow


 * Historical Newspapers: Hounslow


 * The National Archives: Chiswick and Brentford


 * City of London: Middlesex County Archives

Web Sites

 * Borough of Hounslow Council


 * London Borough of Hounslow: wikipedia


 * Hounslow: wikipedia


 * Chiswick: wikipedia


 * Brentford: wikipedia


 * Isleworth: wikipedia


 * Feltham: wikipedia