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England Coventry

Guide to Coventry history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



HISTORY
Coventry is an ancient city that predates Birmingham and Leicester. It is likely that Coventry grew from a settlement of the Bronze Age near the present-day city center where Coventry's bowl-shaped topography and, at that time large flowing river and lakes, created the ideal settlement area, with mild weather and thick woods: food, water and shelter would have been easily found.

The Romans founded another settlement in Baginton and another formed around a Saxon nunnery in about 700 AD.

Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva built on the remains of the nunnery and founded a Benedictine monastery in 1043 dedicated to St Mary. In time, a market was established at the abbey gates and the settlement expanded.

By the 14th century, Coventry was an important center of the cloth trade, and throughout the Middle Ages was one of the largest and most important cities in England. Coventry claimed the status of a city by ancient prescriptive usage, was granted a charter of incorporation in 1345, and in 1451 became a county in its own right

LOCATION
Coventry's central location on the fertile midland plain made it a natural area for development. It is largely flatland, with few natural hills. The area is ideal for the construction of the first canals at the start of the industrial age, and then railways and highways as development proceeded.

RELIGION
Preston has a strong Roman Catholic Christian history and tradition, recently noted by Archbishop Vincent Nichols in his Guild 2012 Mass Homily: "The history of the Christian and Catholic faith is long and deep here in Preston."

Built in 1826 for the Calvinistic Methodists of Lady Huntington, the Carey Baptist church, on Pole Street, was formerly known as St Paul's Chapel. It was purchased by the Baptists in 1855. The church survives today and remains very active in the community.

St. John's Minster, formerly the Church of St John the Evangelist and prior to the reformation; St Wilfrid's Parish Church, is located on Church Street, in the center of the city.

Preston was the location of the world's first foreign mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly known as the Mormons). As early as 1837 the first Mormon missionaries to Great Britain began preaching in Preston and, in particular, other small towns situated along the River Ribble.

INDUSTRY
The 19th century saw a transformation in Preston from a small market town to a much larger industrial one, as the innovations of the latter half of the previous century such as Richard Arkwright's water frame (invented in Preston) brought cotton mills to many northern English towns. With industrialization came examples of both oppression and enlightenment.

The town's forward-looking spirit is typified by it being the first English town outside London to be lit by gas. The Preston Gas Company was established in 1815 by, amongst others, a Catholic priest: Rev. Joseph "Daddy" Dunn of the Society of Jesus.

Preston was one of only a few industrial towns in Lancashire to have a functioning corporation (local council) in 1835 (its charter dating to 1685), and was reformed as a municipal borough by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.

For some 20 years after 1948, Preston became home to a significant number of Asian and Caribbean Commonwealth immigrants, who mostly worked in the manufacturing industry. However, an economic decline hit the town once again in the 1970s, capped by the closure of the Courtaulds factory in 1979 (nearly 3,000 job losses) and the decline of the docks on the River Ribble, which finally shut down in 1981.

CEMETERIES AND GRAVEYARDS
UK Cemsearch

Preston Government offices

Findagrave

Genuki

GENEALOGY SOCIETIES
Preston Historical Society

Preston Branch, Lancashire Historical Society

Lancashire BMD organization