Prestwich St Mary, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Parish History
PRESTWICH (St. Mary), a parish, in the hundred of Salford, S. division of Lancashire; comprising the parochial chapelry of Oldham (in which are the townships of Oldham, Chadderton, Crompton, and Royton), and the townships of Alkrington, Great and Little Heaton, Pilkington, and Tonge; the whole containing 78,548 inhabitants, of whom 3180 are in the township of Prestwich, 4 miles (N. W. by W.) from Manchester, on the road to Bury. The founder of the knightly family of Prestwich, Adam de Prestwych, held lands here in the reign of Henry III.; and the family appear to have been proprietors until they removed to Hulme, on acquiring that manor, previous to the 12th of Henry VI. About the same time, the estate of Prestwich came by marriage to the Langleys. Sir Robert Langley died seised of the manor of Prestwich in 1561: his eldest daughter married Alexander Reddish, of Reddish, a coheiress of whom brought the manor to a son of Sir Edward Coke, the celebrated lawyer; and it continued with the Cokes of Norfolk, until Mr. Coke, afterwards Earl of Leicester, wishing to increase his landed property in Norfolk, sold his estates in Lancashire, and with them this manor, to the father of Thomas Drinkwater, Esq., of Irwell House. The parish is about fifteen miles in length, and four in breadth; much of the land is in pasture, and laid out for dairy-farming, the produce affording to the inhabitants of Manchester a large portion of their daily supplies. Within the last century, the number of families in the parish, even exclusively of Oldham, has immensely increased; and manufactures, spreading in this direction from Manchester, have made considerable progress, though less generally than in the chapelry of Oldham. A large portion of the population is employed in the weaving of cotton and silk, in spinning, calicoprinting, &c. In Prestwich township, the inhabitants are principally engaged in hand-loom weaving and in the dye-houses of the vicinity, and to some extent in agricultural pursuits. Its elevated position, the salubrity of the air, and its contiguity to Manchester, have led to the erection of numerous handsome mansions and villas, occupied by the bankers and merchants of that town. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £46. 4. 9.; net income, £1230; patron, the Earl of Wilton. The tithes of the township have been commuted for £160, and the glebe consists of 116 acres. The church is a stately structure in the pointed style, with a lofty tower, that forms a fine object in the landscape: it was rebuilt in the 16th century. The rectoryhouse was rebuilt in 1837. There are churches at Ringley, Stand, and Unsworth, all in Pilkington township; a church at Tonge, and numerous incumbencies in the parochial chapelry of Oldham. In the parish are also numerous places of worship for dissenters; in Prestwich township is one for Wesleyans.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 616-618. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51224 Date accessed: 20 July 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.

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.

Maps and Gazetteers
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=53001 British History Online