Dudley St Thomas, Worcestershire Genealogy

England Worcestershire



Parish History
Dudley St Thomas is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Worcestershire. Other places in the parish include: Darby-end.

Dudley formerly comprised the parishes of St. Thomas and St. Edmund, now united, the church of the former being parochial. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 18. 6½.; net income, £1000; patron and impropriator, Lord Ward: the tithes were commuted for land and money payments in 1784. The church was rebuilt in 1819, at an expense of £23,000, of which sum, £7600, including £2000 contributed by the Earl of Dudley, were raised by subscription, and the remainder by a rate; it is a handsome structure in the later English style, with an elegant and lofty spire, and from its elevated situation forms a fine feature in the landscape. The church of St. Edmund, at the lower extremity of the town, having been demolished during the parliamentary war, was rebuilt, chiefly at the expense of two brothers of the name of Bradley, assisted by a subscription among the parishioners, about the commencement of the last century; it is now a district church, in the gift of the Vicar, with a net income of £200 a year. Churches at Evehill and Freebodies, in the parish, have been built on sites given by Lord Ward's trustees, by subscription, aided by a grant of £1000 from the Incorporated Society; they are neat edifices, and contain 1500 free sittings; the living of each is in the gift of the Vicar, and has an income of £200. A church has also been erected at Netherton, upon a site presented by the Earl of Dudley, who died in 1833; it is dedicated to St. Andrew: the income is £220, and the Vicar presents to this living also. There are places of worship for Primitive, Kilhamite, and Wesleyan Methodists, for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Roman Catholics, and Unitarians.

From: 'Duddon - Duncton', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 96-102. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50929 Date accessed: 24 March 2011.

Known locally as the "Top Church" due to its position at the top of Dudley High Street.

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
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Census records
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Poor Law Unions
Dudley Poor Law Union, Staffordshire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Worcestershire 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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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