Chelsea Christ Church, Middlesex Genealogy

England Middlesex   Middlesex Parishes   Chelsea Christ Church

Parish History
Christ Church was consecrated on 26th June 1839. It was originally a ‘Chapel of Ease’ to the parish church of St. Luke, Sydney Street, but was given its own parish in 1860.

In 1839 Chelsea was still an independent village separated from London by open countryside; however, there was pressure for development, particularly for the construction of streets of small cottages to house the numerous servants who were employed in the grand houses on Cheyne Walk and in the newly constructed streets and squares of Belgravia and Hans Town.

Christ Church was built as a church for these working class people and was designed to accommodate the maximum number of people at minimum cost. The construction cost was just over £4,000. (St. Luke’s Church, built 15 years earlier cost ten times this sum.)

The site for the new church was part of an extensive area of land used for market-gardening, just off Flood Street, which was then one of Chelsea’s main shopping streets.

(See this | church's website for more historical background.)

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 Middlesex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Poor Law Unions
Contributor: Add information about the pertinent poor law unions in the area.

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