Fordham, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Fordham All Saints is an Ancient Parish in Essex

The diocese of Chelmsford was created in 1914, prior to this Essex parishes were in the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London until 1845 when they transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The diocese of Chelmsford has 474 parishes and 600 churches and is the second largest region in the church of England outside London.

The church of ALL SAINTS, Church Road, the invocation recorded in 1516, stands on high ground overlooking the Colne valley. It comprises a chancel, nave with north and south aisles, south porch, and west tower. The nave and chancel are built primarily of rubble, with small amounts of brick and flint mixed in, but the aisles and clerestorey have regular, alternat- ing bands of flint and brick. The nave is probably 11th or early 12th-century, but the church was largely rebuilt in the earlier 14th century, when the chancel was rebuilt, the three-bay nave arcades inserted, the aisles constructed, the porch and lower storeys of the tower built, and the chancel arch rebuilt. The arcades have two centred heads, two chamfered orders, and moulded capitals and octagonal piers very simi- lar to those at Langham. The matching chancel arch was built as a single unit with the eastern responds of the arcades, and the tower arch is similar, but not identical. The contemporary clerestorey has small, squat trefoil openings. The chancel, aisles, and porch retain parts of their 14th-century roofs. In 1547 the whole church was reroofed, all or partly of lead. A rood loft was mentioned in 1548. The church was whitened, and the windows mended and glazed in 1549, but in 1633 extensive repairs were needed, and the steeple was cracked. In 1684 the roof at the chancel end needed repair and the tower was so badly cracked it was in danger of collapsing. In 1705 the church floor needed levelling and there were cracks in the outside walls. The shingled spire, mentioned in 1768, fell down in 1796 damaging the west side of the tower, and was rebuilt in red brick. A conservative restoration by Joseph Grimes of Colchester was completed in 1861, providing seating for 242 adults and 88 children, financed partly by grants from the Incorporated Church Building Society and the Essex Church and Chapel Building Society. The plaster was removed from the outer walls, the windows reglazed, and the floors tiled. The former rood screen fixings remained visible after the restoration. The chancel walls were cracked in 1869 after the drought of 1868. Alterations in 1907 included the provision of an oak reredos and a chancel screen. Seventeenth-century panelling is incorporated into the 19th-century pulpit. A monument in the chancel to Capt. John Pulley (d. 1715) has a bust and frieze of sailing ships. A chalice of parcel gilt recorded in 1552 was probably made from the girdle of Alice Creffield, in accordance with her will of 1522. In 1684 there was a small silver chalice and cover, and a pewter flagon and paten. Charles Onley, rector, gave a flagon, paten, and shell, apparently of silver, before 1804, and an old chalice was exchanged. All the silver plate was sold and electro-plate had been substituted by 1925. In 1552 there were three bells. The three bells in 1684 included one of 1637 by Miles Gray, the three in 1768 included one of 1723 by John Damion. In 1859 there were only two bells, Damion's and Gray's, and in 1862 one was cracked. The Hanoverian coat of arms, made at Joseph Wallis's iron foundry, Col- chester, was hanging over the north door in 1997.

From: 'Fordham: Church', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 215-217. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15245&amp;amp;strquery=fordham Date accessed: 12 February 2011.

Fordham is a village and a civil parish which for administrative purposes is in the Colchester District.

There is the hamlet of Fordham Heath nearby. The parish also includes the hamlet of Hemp's Green.

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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Online images are available Seax - Essex Archives Online From the Essex Record Office All Saints See also Countess of Huntingon's Connexion

By the 1690s Fordham had enough dissenters to raise £12 a year to obtain preaching on Sundays as well as weekdays. Their families were probably among those which frequently in that decade, and occasionally from the 1730s to the 1770s provided members for the then Independent chapel nearby in Isleham. In Fordham itself houses were registered for worship in 1712 by a tailor from Bury St. Edmunds (Suff.), in 1731 by a local yeoman, also a barn on Carter Street in 1770. The vicar reported in 1806 a few dissenters, then and in 1813 supposedly Baptists, but quiet and orderly, taught by Robert Fyson, a local farmer, who had registered a house for them in 1805, and whose family was long prominent in Fordham dissent. Another house on Carter Street was registered by a minister from Bury in 1815 and two different barns were registered in 1815-16. In 1818 a congregation, still small, by 1820 styled Independents, registered a meeting house, presumably the Congregational chapel which still stands east of the north end of Mill Lane. Of grey brick, it has a plain three-bayed west front with round-headed windows above a gabled porch. Inside are original furnishings in pine with a gallery railed in cast iron. Probably completed in 1820, it could seat c. 385 people, with standing room for over 80 more, in 1851. A smaller building at the rear then accommodated a vestry and school. The minister, who held three Sunday services, claimed in 1851 an average attendance rising in the afternoon and evening to 170-200, besides up to 120 Sundayschool children, from a Sunday school started in 1844 by Philip Smith, promoter of Fordham British school. From the 1880s the chapel supported local Temperance societies. After the 1820s it had, probably for a century, a regular series of resident ministers, also dwelling by 1860 on Mill Lane, who occupied as a manse a house of 1848. The Congregationalists' full membership gradually declined from 70 in 1905 to 40-45 in the mid 20th century, when for a time the chapel was served from Soham, and below 40 by the 1960s when it was served with Burwell. Still maintaining its Sunday school, along with a youth club, in the 1970s, when it adhered to the United Reformed Church, and still with a minister in the 1980s, the chapel remained in use in the 1990s. Methodism also flourished in Fordham by the mid 19th century. In 1849, to replace an old meeting house that was proving too small, the Wesleyans built, off Sharmans lane at the west end of the village, a chapel in Early English style, seating 266, but with only 76 places free, and standing room for 140 more. Besides the 88 children from its Sunday school, it had in 1851 attendances averaging 170, that might rise in the evening to 300. It then provided three Sunday services, like the Primitive Methodist chapel built in 1850 on New Path. That chapel, seating 200, only 30 places being free, was attended in 1851 by up to 100 people. It occasionally held 'camp meetings' in summer. Both Methodist chapels remained open into the 1930s. The Wesleyan chapel, a plain greybrick building with three bays to the front, four at the sides, was still open in the 1990s. The smaller Primitive one with only two bays at the side, likewise of brick and minimally Gothic, had probably closed by 1960 (fn. 99) and was converted into a house in 1989.

From: 'Fordham: Nonconformity', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10: Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (north-eastern Cambridgeshire) (2002), pp. 417-418. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=18924&amp;amp;strquery=fordham Date accessed: 12 February 2011.

Census records
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Index for the Census may be searched at FamilySearch Historical Records

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

Poor Law Unions
Lexden and Winstree Poor Law Union, Essex

Incomplete Mount Bures manor records sur- vive from 1393 indicating that courts baron and leet met annually for the Fordham part of the manor until 1649; 2 to 9 men were sworn. Four night watchmen served Fordham and Aldham in 1587. Two constables were appointed for the Fordham part of Mount Bures manor from 1625. By 1912 there was a village police constable. There were two unendowed almshouses. In 1775 two parishioners obtained Tyburn tickets. In 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, Fordham was combined with six neighbouring parishes to provide three men to serve in the navy. The parish owned Heath meadow in 1838, which was apparently used for the benefit of the poor. Fordham's poor relief costs per head of popu- lation were about average for the hundred. Net expenditure in 1776 was £220 and over the period 1783-5 averaged £228. Costs were exceptionally high in 1802 at £896 and then between 1803 and 1808 increased from £225 to £591. In the period 1809-17 they ranged between £684 and £950, except for 1813 when they were £1,193, equivalent to 39s. 3d. a head. Expenditure ranged between £1,137, or 32s. 8d. a head, and £711, or 19s. 7d. a head, between 1818 and 1832, showing a downward trend, and averaged £677 in 1833-5. Fordham parish council was established in 1894 with seven members, including one woman, responsible for allotments, footpaths, footbridges, and the administration of Love's charity. Between 1907 and 1921 a technical sub- committee provided classes in arithmetic, draw- ing, citizenship, and carpentry, and organized at least one ploughing match. The council encour- aged residents to find odd jobs for the unem- ployed in 1933, a time of economic depression. From 1936 there were quarterly refuse disposal collections. An invasion sub-committee met during the Second World War concerned with the home guard, emergency food rations, casu- alties, informing the public about anti-gas meas- ures, and listing all tractors and motors. After the formation of Eight Ash Green parish council in 1949 the number of Fordham parish council- lors was reduced to five, together with a rural district councillor.

From: 'Fordham: Local government', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 214-215. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15244&amp;amp;strquery=fordham Date accessed: 12 February 2011.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Essex 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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Web sites
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