Betley, Staffordshire Genealogy

England Staffordshire



Parish History
Betley is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Staffordshire, created in 1717 from Audley, Staffordshire Ancient Parish.

BETLEY (St. Margaret), a parish, in the union of Newcastle-under-Lyme, N. division of the hundred of Pirehill and of the county of Stafford, 7½ miles (W. by N.) from Newcastle; containing 884 inhabitants. It is situated on the road from Newcastle to Nantwich, and near the confines of Cheshire, the boundary line between the two counties extending here through the middle of a fine lake of 80 acres, called Betley Mere. The parish comprises by measurement 1381 acres of fertile land: red sandstone of fine quality for building is wrought; and facility for the conveyance of produce is afforded by the Liverpool and Birmingham railway, which passes near the village. The village is uncommonly neat, and is greatly ornamented by two very handsome seats in its immediate vicinity, Betley Hall and Betley Court. A fair for cattle takes place on the 31st of July: a market, on Friday, has long been of such trivial consequence, that it may be said to be obsolete. Within a mile to the south of Betley is WrineHill, a scattered village on an eminence, partly in this parish and partly in that of Wybunbury in Cheshire. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £150; patron and impropriator, G. Tollet, Esq.: the glebe comprises 60 acres; and a good parsonage-house has been built by the present incumbent. The tithes have been commuted for £270. The church is an ancient halftimbered edifice, of which the chancel was rebuilt in 1610, and the tower in 1713; it affords a specimen of the earliest attempts at Gothic architecture, on which account, though inferior to many churches in the neighbourhood, it deserves notice: the building was restored in 1842. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans; also a national school for boys and girls, with a small endowment.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 223-228. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50795 Date accessed: 11 April 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.

See also Staffordshire BMD

Church records
Betley St Margaret was formed in 1796

Deposited parish registers at Staffordshire Record Office Bap 1538-1992 Mar 1538-1999 Bur 1538-1985 Lichfield Record Office holdings of Bishop's Transcripts Bap 1673-1989 Mar 1673-1847 Bur 1873- 1859 missing Bap/Bur 1849-1850

Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts 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

Poor Law Unions
Newcastle under Lyme 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 Staffordshire 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
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.