Maghull, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Maghull St Andrew was created a chapel of ease in 1748 from, and lying within the boundaries of Halsall, Lancashire Ancient Parish. See also List of Chapelries Lying within Halsall Parish

St Andrews Parish Church. Damfield Lane Maghull wasconsecrated 1880, architect J F Doyle. The ancient chapel stands in the churchyard.



Today, Maghull is a town lying within the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in Merseyside, England. It is north of the city of Liverpool and south of Ormskirk in West Lancashire.

The name Maghull may have been derived from the Celtic word 'magos', the old Irish 'Magh' and the Old English 'halh', meaning 'flat land in a bend of the river'. Another theorized origin is Anglo-Saxon mægðehalh = "nook of land where mayweed grows".

"MAGHULL, a chapelry [as of 1610], in the parish of Halsall, union of Ormskirk, hundred of West Derby, S. division of Lancashire, 8 miles (N. by E.) from Liverpool, on the road to Ormskirk; containing 1032 inhabitants. The family of Maghull, which derived its name from this place, were for many ages connected with it; the Hulmes, originally of the Fylde, were afterwards proprietors. The chapelry comprises 2073 acres of good land, chiefly arable; it stands elevated, is of level surface, and is separated from Sefton by the river Alt. Here is a station on the Preston, Ormskirk, and Liverpool railway; and the Leeds and Liverpool canal passes through. Maghull Hall, built in 1760, a large mansion of brick, with bay-windows, is the seat of Gillibrand Unsworth, Esq. Moss-Side House, with forty acres of land, is the property of Thomas Harrison, Esq. Bank House belongs to Mrs. Matthew Ford, and is the residence of her mother, Mrs. Massey; Woodland Mount is the residence of Peter Bretherton, Esq., and Maghull Cottage that of R. P. Collison, Esq. The chapel, which contains a Norman arch, has been repaired and enlarged: the living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of £155, and a parsonage-house; patron, the Vicar of Halsall, whose tithes here have been commuted for £630. A school is endowed with £12 per annum; the premises were rebuilt in 1839."

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 208-216. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51128 Date accessed: 19 July 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

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

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

Poor Law Unions
Ormskirk Poor Law Union, Lancashire

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
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