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England Hampshire  Portsmouth

England Portsmouth

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



History
Portsmouth is a port city and unitary authority in the ceremonial English county of Hampshire and is located 70 miles (110 km) south-west of London and 19 miles (31 km) south-east of Southampton. Portsmouth is mainly built upon on Portsea Island and is the United Kingdom's only island city.

The Romans built Portus Adurni, a fort, at nearby Portchester in the late third century. The city's Old English name "Portesmuða" is derived from port, meaning a haven, and muða, the mouth of a large river or estuary. It was mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 501.

The south coast was vulnerable to Danish Viking invasions during the 8th and 9th centuries. In 787, it was assaulted and conquered by Danish pirates, and then during the reign of Æthelwulf, King of Wessex in 838, a Danish fleet landed between Portsmouth and Southampton and the surrounding area was plundered. In response, Æthelwulf sent Wulfherd and the governor of Dorsetshire to confront the Danes at Portsmouth, where most of their ships were docked. They were successful although Wulfherd was killed. In 1001, the Danes returned and pillaged Portsmouth and surrounding locations, threatening the English with extinction. The Danes were massacred by the survivors the following year and rebuilding began, although the town suffered further attacks until 1066.

When Richard the Lion Heart returned from captivity in Austria in May 1194, he summoned a fleet of 100 ships and an army to the port. He granted the town a Royal charter, giving permission for an annual fifteen-day free market fair, weekly markets, and a local court to deal with minor matters, and exempted its inhabitants from paying an annual tax of £18.

Henry V built the first permanent fortifications of Portsmouth. In 1416, a number of French ships blockaded Portsmouth, which housed ships that were set to invade Normandy. Instead, Henry gathered a fleet at Southampton and invaded the Norman coast in August of that year. Recognizing the town's growing importance, he ordered a wooden Round Tower to be built at the mouth of the harbour, which was completed in 1426.

n 1539, Henry VIII built Southsea Castle, financed by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in anticipation of a French invasion.[39][40] He also invested large sums of money into the town's dockyard, and expanded its boundaries to 8 acres (3.2 ha). Around this time a Tudor defensive boom stretched from the Round Tower to Fort Blockhouse in Gosport, as a protection to Portsmouth Harbor.

Over the years, Portsmouth's fortifications were rebuilt and improved by successive monarchs. In 1563, Portsmouth suffered from an outbreak of a plague, resulting in about 300 deaths out of the town's population of 2000.

In 1805, Admiral Nelson left Portsmouth to command the fleet that defeated the Franco-Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar. Before departing, Nelson told the crew of the HMS Victory and workers in the dockyard that "England expects every man will do his duty". The Royal Navy's reliance on Portsmouth led to it becoming the most fortified city in the world.

At the turn of the 20th century, Portsmouth was considered "the world's greatest naval port" when the British Empire was at its height of power, covering a quarter of Earth's total land area and 458 million people. In 1900, Portsmouth Dockyard employed 8000 men – a figure which more than doubled to 23,000 people during the First World War.

During the Second World War, the city, particularly the port, was bombed extensively by the Luftwaffe in the Portsmouth Blitz. Between July 1940 and May 1944, the city was hit by 67 air raids which destroyed 6625 houses and severely damaged 6549 of them. The air raids caused 930 deaths and wounded almost 3000 people, many of them in the dockyard and military establishments.

Portsmouth was affected by the British Empire's decline in the latter half of the 20th century. Shipbuilding jobs fell from 46% of workforce in 1951 to 14% in 1966, drastically reducing the manpower in the dockyard. In the early 1980s, then Defense Secretary John Nott concluded that of the four home dockyards, both Portsmouth and Chatham would be closed. However, Portsmouth City Council won a concession, and rather than face closure, the dockyard was downgraded to a naval base. Shipping has always been, and will continue to be, a major part of the history and economy of Portsmouth.

Cemeteries (Civil)
Portsmouth has 3 active cemeteries.

Kingston Cemetery:


 * Douglas Road
 * Portsmouth PO1 5RR

Milton Cemetery:


 * Milton Road
 * Milton PO4 8RS

Highland Cemetery


 * Highland Road
 * Southsea PO$ 9AH

Parishes
Because of the way Belfast was originally settled, there is a large Anglican community. The Diocese website has much information:


 * Connor Anglican Diocese

Specific parishes follow:

St. Thomas' Church


 * 1A Eglantine Avenue
 * Belfast BT9 6DW

St. George's Church


 * 105 High Street
 * Belfast BT1 2AG

Non Conformists
Belfast's other major Christian Fellowship is the Roman Catholic Church.

St. Peter's Cathedral


 * 8 St. Peters Square South
 * Belfast BT12 4BU

St. Patrick's Church


 * 199 Donegall Street
 * Belfast BT1 2FL

St. Mary's


 * Chapel Lane
 * Belfast

Other Christian Groups represented in Belfast follow:


 * Antioch Orthodox Church
 * Baptist
 * Church of Christ
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * First Church of Christ Scientist
 * Methodist
 * Seventh Day Adventist

Non Christian Groups include:


 * Belfast has an Islamic Center
 * Hare Krishna
 * Hindu
 * Sikh

Civil Registration
Civil registration is the recording of births, marriages, and deaths, in England, and began in 1837. Civil registration records were recorded at the local registration office and the National registration offices. If you cannot find the civil registration in one index, search the other index as they are different indexes.
 * Belfast City BMD records office


 * Irish Statutory BMD records


 * Family Ulster BMD records

Local Histories

 * Local Histories: Belfast


 * Inyourpocket: Belfast History


 * Barnes and Noble: Belfast, a Brief History, by William A. McGuire


 * Amazon.com: The Belfast Troubles

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Google maps: Belfast


 * oldmapsonline: Belfast


 * visitbelfast.com: maps


 * Culturenorthernireland: Belfast Historical Gazetteer


 * Amazon.com Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer by Marcus Patton

Newspapers

 * The Belfast Telegraph


 * The Irish News


 * The Belfast Newsletter

Occupations
As Northern Ireland's capital city, Belfast is host to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, the site of the devolved legislature for Northern Ireland. Belfast is divided into four Northern Ireland Assembly and UK parliamentary constituencies: Belfast North, Belfast West, Belfast South and Belfast East. The activities involved in the assembly means that employment is provided to a large part of the population.

In addition to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Belfast City Council offers many employment opportunities.

Belfast has been the fastest-growing economy of the thirty largest cities in the UK over the past decade. Today, Belfast is Northern Ireland's educational and commercial hub. Over the past 10 years employment has grown by 16.4 per cent, compared with 9.2 per cent for the UK as a whole. Belfast's unemployment rate stood at 4.2%, lower than both the Northern Ireland and the UK average of 5.5%.

The Harland and Wolff shipbuilding firm was created in 1861, and by the time the Titanic was built, in 1912, it had become the largest shipyard in the world. Short Brothers plc is a British aerospace company based in Belfast. It was the first aircraft manufacturing company in the world. The company began its association with Belfast in 1936, with Short & Harland Ltd, a venture jointly owned by Shorts and Harland and Wolff. Now known as Shorts Bombardier it works as an international aircraft manufacturer located near the Port of Belfast.

Societies

 * Northern Ireland Family History Society


 * Emerald Ancestors: Northern Ireland


 * Public Record Office of Northern Ireland: Family History


 * Belfast Family History

Archives

 * Public Record Office of Northern Ireland: Archives


 * Ulster Historical Foundation: Belfast Archives


 * Ancestry.com: Belfast

Web Sites

 * wikipedia: Belfast


 * Belfast City Council


 * Northern Ireland Executive