Brighouse, Yorkshire Genealogy

England Yorkshire Yorkshire Parishes  West Riding  Brighouse

Chapel History
BRIGHOUSE, a village and a chapelry in Hipperholme-cum-Brighouse township, Halifax parish, and a subdistrict in Halifax district, W. R. Yorkshire. The village stands on the river Calder, adjacent to the Manchester and Leeds railway, 3½ miles ESE of Halifax; and has a station with telegraph on the railway, a post office‡ under Normanton, and fairs on 13 May and 12 Oct. Trade is carried on in cotton, woollen, and worsted manufactures, in malt-making and card-making, and in the working and exporting of building-stone. Fixby Hall, the seat of the Thornhills, is in the vicinity. The chapelry includes the village; and was constituted in 1842. Rated property, £11,660. Pop., 4,562. Houses, 947. The property is much subdivided. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Ripon. Value, £250.* Patron, the Vicar of Halifax. The church is a modern Gothic edifice, built at a cost of £3,515. There are a chapel of ease, two Methodist chapels, and an endowed grammar school with £119 a year.-The subdistrict consists of parts of the parishes of Halifax and Dewsbury. Acres, 5,514. Pop., 9,992. Houses, 2,105.

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

BRIGHOUSE, an ecclesiastical district, in the township of Hipperholme-cum-Brighouse, parish and union of Halifax, Upper division of the wapentake of Morley, W. riding of York, 4 miles (E. by N.) from Halifax; containing 3200 inhabitants. This flourishing and rapidly increasing place, which has grown into some importance within a comparatively recent period, is beautifully situated on the road from Bradford to Huddersfield, and in the fertile valley of the Calder; the village is spacious and well built, and contains many handsome houses. An act for lighting and otherwise improving the place, was passed in 1843. In the immediate vicinity are pleasing villas and detached ranges of building, forming a considerable appendage to the village, and adding much to the appearance of the surrounding scenery. The manufacture of worsted and cotton goods is carried on, several large mills being in full operation; the manufacture of cards used in the woollen, flax, and cotton trades, is also carried on to a great extent, and there are some flour-mills, and tanneries. In the neighbourhood are the valuable quarries called Cromwell Bottom, from which large quantities of building and flag stone are sent to various parts of the kingdom, by the Calder and Hebble navigation. The river Calder forms the southern boundary of the township, and at the village is a station on the old Leeds and Manchester railway, with a spacious depôt for merchandise. A fair for cattle and pigs is held on the day after the festival of St. Martin. The church, dedicated to St. Martin, was erected at an expense of £3200, principally a grant from Her Majesty's Commissioners, and was consecrated in 1830; it is a good edifice in the later English style, with a square embattled tower crowned by pinnacles, and contains 1150 sittings, of which 500 are free. The living is a perpetual curacy, at present in the patronage of the Vicar of Halifax, with an income of £150, and a handsome parsonage-house erected at a cost of £1600.— See Hipperholme.

From: Lewis, Samuel A., New', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 369-375. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50829 Date accessed: 14 September 2011..

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

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, nonconformist 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.

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