Bedford Leigh, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Bedford Leigh St Thomas is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Lancashire, created in 1843 from Leigh, Lancashire Ancient Parish.

St Thomas church in Bedford was consecrated in 1840 and replaced by the present church in 1909. The church is built of Accrington red brick with Runcorn red sandstone facings, it was designed by J. S. Crowther.

BEDFORD, a district chapelry, in the parish and union of Leigh, hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster, ½ a mile (E. S. E.) from Leigh; containing 4187 inhabitants. It lies on the road from Leigh to Warrington, and is of level surface; the soil is of various qualities. The Messrs. Bickham and Pownall have a very large silk power-loom mill on the banks of the Bridgewater canal, established in 1844, and in connexion with which they employ, in and out of doors, more than 1000 persons. There are four cotton-mills, an iron-wire and machine mill, and a brewery: four collieries, also, are in operation. The church, dedicated to St. Thomas, was erected in 1840, at an expense of £3000, and is a neat structure of brick, with a tower. The living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of £150; patron, the Vicar of Leigh. There are places of worship for Wesleyans and Roman Catholics.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 188-194. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50788 Date accessed: 25 June 2010.

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/

Church records
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

Census records
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http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Leigh, 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
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