Billinge, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
BILLINGE, CHAPEL-END, a township and chapelry, in the parish and union of Wigan, hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 5½ miles (S. W.) from Wigan, on the road to St. Helen's; containing 1550 inhabitants. Billinge anciently gave name to a family the chief line of which terminated about the reign of Edward I., in a female heir, who married into the Heyton family. The estate was afterwards possessed by the Bisphams, Owens, and Leighs. The whole district comprehended in the name was formerly one township divided into two hamlets, which are now separate townships called respectively Billinge Chapel-End and Billinge Higher-End; the affix to this, the southern portion, being given to it because it contained the chapel. The township of Chapel-End comprises 1044 acres, of which 830 are arable, 174 pasture, 27 wood, and 13 common. The population are engaged in agriculture, hand-loom weaving, in quarrying stone, and in collieries, of which last the produce is abundant and of excellent quality. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Rector of Wigan; net income, £156: the tithes have been commuted for £189. 7. 6. The chapel was built in 1650, and rebuilt in 1718, and is in the early English style, with a campanile tower. At Birchley is a Roman Catholic chapel. A school is endowed with £40 per annum.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 237-241. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50798 Date accessed: 25 June 2010.

Civil Registration
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Church records
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Census records
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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.

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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
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Web sites
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