Bootle St Mary, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Bootle St Mary was a chapelry of Walton on the Hill St Mary, Lancashire Ancient Parish in Lancashire.The church was founded in 1827 and after wartime bombing the church was demolished.

"BOOTLE with Linacre,[St Mary; built by 1827] a township and a chapelry, in the parish of Walton-on-the-Hill, union and hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 4 miles north from Liverpool. There are places of worship for Wesleyan Methodists, Baptists Roman Catholics chapel, dedicated to St. James.

The name Bootle derives from the Anglo Saxon Bold or Botle meaning a dwelling. It was recorded as Boltelai in the Domesday Book in 1086. By 1212 the spelling had been recorded as Botle. The spellings Botull, Bothull and Bothell are recorded in the 14th century.

Bootle was originally a small hamlet built near the 'sand hills' or dunes of the river estuary. The settlement began to grow as a bathing resort for wealthy residents of Liverpool in the early 19th century. Some remaining large villas which housed well-to-do commuters to Liverpool are located in the area known locally as 'Bootle Village'.Bootle is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in England, and a 'Post town' in the L postcode area. It is close to Liverpool, but has never been a part of Liverpool. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) to the north of Liverpool city centre.

The modern parish of St Matthew Bootle with St Mary in the Bootle Team Ministry benefice in the Bootle deanery of the Diocese of Liverpool serves in place of the former parish.

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/

Online Records
 Church of England 

Bootle chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Walton on the Hill to which it is attached, have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

For a full list of all those chapels surrounding Bootle and comprising the whole ancient parish of Walton on the Hill to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the WALTON ON THE HILL PARISH page.

Deposited registers are held at Liverpool Record Office. 283 BOO Title St. Mary's Church, Bootle. Date 1827 - 1956

Description Parish records. The collection comprises, Baptism registers, 1827 - 1940, Marriage registers, 1848 - 1962, Burial register, 1827 - 1956, Banns registers, 1913 - 1955, Confirmation registers, 1923 - 1947 and Service registers, 1895 - 1922. St. Mary's, parish church for Bootle, was consecrated in July 1827 and its first incumbent was a member of the Gladstone family. The 'substantial Church' was built at the expense of the '...eccentric but capable' William Spurstow Miller, described in the Directories as an Attorney of Bootle, who had also built himself a castellated house on the Bootle Shore, known as 'Millers Castle' subsequently demolished to make way for dock expansion. St. Mary's Church and churchyard were situated on Church Street, at an angle between the present Strand Road and Irlam Road, leading into Merton Road, not far from that part of the shore on which Alexandra Dock opened in 1881. The church was built with town towers, possibly as a navigational aid for shipping approaching the Mersey, but these were replaced at a later date with a spire. Early in the Second World War this spire was seriously damaged when the trailing cable from a barrage balloon became wound around it and the top of the spire dropped through the church roof. In 1940 St. Mary's was wrecked '...by enemy bombs and the resultant fires'. The congregation continued to worship in temporary accommodation and on the 20th March 1949 the Bishop of Liverpool dedicated the '..austerity parish church, the new St. Mary's, Derby Road, Bootle'. The congregation subsequently moved again to premises dedicated in 1981 and the parish is now united with that of the former parish of St. Paul's, North Shore, (St. Paul's, Kirkdale) to form the parish of St. Mary with St. Paul, Bootle (see 'Diocese of Liverpool Year Book, 1996 - 1997, page 51, number 523.).

Poor Law Unions
West Derby, Lancashire Poor Law Union

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
British History online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41285 Bootle

parish information