Dunston, Staffordshire Genealogy

England Staffordshire



Parish History
Dunston is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Staffordshire, created in 1824 from chapelry in Penkridge, Staffordshire Ancient Parish.

DUNSTON, a chapelry, in the parish and union of Penkridge, E. division of the hundred of Cuttlestone, S. division of the county of Stafford, 2 miles (N. by E.) from Penkridge; containing 250 inhabitants. It is intersected by the Liverpool and Birmingham railway, and comprises by admeasurement 1357 acres, three-fourths of which are arable. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £67; patron and impropriator, Lord Hatherton, whose tithes have been commuted for £253; there is a glebe of 1½ acre. The chapel, dedicated to St. Leonard, is supposed to have been built about a century ago.

From: 'Dunsfold - Dunwood', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 105-110. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50931 Date accessed: 22 March 2011.

The former chapel of ST. LEONARD was probably of early-15th-century date, rebuilt, except for the tower, in the 18th century. Drawings of 1838 and 1841 (fn. 187) show that the original tower had singlelight windows to the belfry stage and a larger medieval window, then blocked, below. On its north and south faces the tower had a high double-chamfered basement course, and a Georgian doorway had been inserted in the west wall. The body of the church, rebuilt or refaced with brickwork, had roundheaded 18th-century windows. In 1843 it was recorded that there were no monuments and that there was no means of reaching the belfry from the interior. (fn. 188)

Between 1876 and 1878 the chapel was demolished and a new church erected on the same site at the sole expense of Frederick C. Perry and his mother, brothers, and sisters. It is a stone building in 14thcentury style and consists of nave, chancel, transepts, vestry, and a spired west tower. At this period the churchyard was not consecrated. In 1887 a new churchyard, given by the family of a former parishioner, was consecrated, previous burials having been at Penkridge. In 1907 the vestry was added and a new organ installed. The church contains memorial tablets to Thomas Perry (d. 1861), in whose memory the church was built, to his widow Mary (d. 1881), and to later members of the family. There are memorial windows and a tablet to members of the Hand family including Charles Frederic Hand (d. 1900), also tablets to John Taylor Duce (d. 1886), Albert Pickstock (d. 1926), and three members of the Thorneycroft family (d. 1913, 1924, and 1943).

In 1553 the plate consisted of one chalice. In 1955 the plate included a silver chalice, paten, and paten on foot; a pewter chalice, paten on foot, and alms dish; and an electro-plated chalice and paten given in 1861 to the Revd. E. Price by his friends. There were two bells in the ancient chapel in 1553. ( There was one bell in the new church by 1889. There is now a carillon of eight tubular bells, rung from a keyboard, given by Mrs. Perry of Dunston Hall in 1890.

The registers are partly included in those of Penkridge which date from 1572. Dunston has a separate register of baptisms from 1853 and of marriages from 1878 when the church was first licensed.

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
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Census records
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Poor Law Unions
Penkridge 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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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