Richmond, Yorkshire Genealogy

England Yorkshire  North Riding  Richmond

Parish History
Richmond is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Yorkshire. The church of St Mary the Virgin is the Ancient Parish church and Richmond Holy Trinity was formed as a chapelry and later a parish within the town. The parish comprises by admeasurement 2341 acres,of which 425 are arable, 1618 meadow and pasture, and298 woodland. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £15. 5. 7½., and in the patronage of the Crown: the tithes have been commuted for £470, and there is an acre and a half of glebe. The church is thought to have been erected about the time of Henry III.,but the variety of additions and alterations it has undergone has left little trace of its original architecture; it contains a few handsome monuments and armorial bearings, a beautiful font, and an excellent organ. The chapel of the Holy Trinity, in the centre of the town,belonged to the abbey of St. Mary at York, but was suffered to become ruinous, and no service was performed in it from the year 1712 until 1740, at which period it was repaired by the corporation. The living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of about £108: the patronage, formerly in the corporation, has been purchased by L. Cooke, Esq., of Richmond. There are places of worship for Baptists and Wesleyans, and a Roman Catholic chapel: in a window of the last is a fine painting of the Crucifixion. The free grammar school, which is in considerable repute, was founded and endowed by the burgesses in the reign of Elizabeth,who granted letters-patent authorising its institution;the produce of the endowment is £300 per annum. A rent-charge of £8 was bequeathed by Dr. Bathurst, in1659, towards the maintenance of scholars going from the school to the university of Cambridge; and in 1730,Dr. William Allen left his estate at Bures St. Mary, in Suffolk, for founding two scholarships at Trinity Hall,Cambridge, with preference to his next of kin, and afterwards to scholars of Richmond school. The Rev. Matthew Hutchinson's fund, bequeathed in 1704, and now producing about £68 per annum, is appropriated chiefly to the education of boys, and the relief of widows. The poor-law union of Richmond comprises 46 parishes or places, and contains a population of 20,233.

The ruins in and near Richmond possess extreme interest. Of these, the principal is the castle, the site of which comprises nearly six acres; the remains show the great strength of the building when entire, and the square tower, or keep, supposed to have been built at a rather more recent period than the other parts, and which was repaired in 1761 by the Duke of Richmond,is in good preservation. To the north of the town wasa house of Grey friars, of which the tower is remaining;it is a beautiful structure in the richest English style,ornamented with buttresses and pinnacles, and was erected but shortly before the Dissolution, at which time the society consisted of a master and fourteen brethren. The establishment itself was founded so early as 1258, by Ralph Fitz-Randal, Lord of Middleham. St. Nicholas, hospital, for sick and infirm people,and pilgrims, a short distance from the town, is of uncertain origin, but is mentioned in the 18th of Henry II.; the present building is supposed to have been erected soon after the dissolution of religious houses,and contains little of the original edifice. Nearly opposite the castle, on the other side of the river Swale, are the ruins of the priory of St. Martin, founded in 1100,which was granted to the abbey of St. Mary, York,and richly endowed by Whyomar, lord of Aske, chief steward to the Earl of Richmond: some fine Norman arches yet remain. Richmond gives the title of Duke to the family of Lennox.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 659-665. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51236 Date accessed: 30 April 2011.

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
To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, nonconformist 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
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

Poor Law Unions
Richmond Poor Law Union, Yorkshire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Yorkshire 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
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.