King’s Lynn St Margaret, Norfolk Genealogy

History

King's Lynn St Margaret is an Ancient parish in the Diocese of Norwich.

The name "Lynn" has an ancient derivation, perhaps from a Celtic term meaning "pool" or from an Anglo-Saxon word for "torrent" both references to the estuary lake which emptied into the Wash. By the 14th century, the town ranked as the third port of England and is considered as important to England in Medieval times as Liverpool was during the Industrial Revolution. It retains two buildings that were warehouses of the Hanseatic League that were in use between the 15th and 17th centuries. They are the only remaining building structures of the Hanseatic League in England.

The town now known as King's Lynn was, in medieval times, rather Bishop's Lynn. This is because it was taken under the wing of the Bishop of Norwich in the late eleventh century, one of the earliest of numerous deliberate seigneurial foundations of "new towns" that took place between that time and the mid-thirteenth century. When Henry VIII took over the lordship of the town it was renamed King's Lynn However it is still referred to as Lynn locally and records often refer to it as Lynn Bishop's Lynn, Lynn Regis and later as King's Lynn.

However, it was apparently traders who were tenants of the Bishop's nearby manor of Gaywood (where many other saltpans were located) who in about 1095 requested that he found a town endowed with commercial privileges and with its own parish church. Probably they were already holding an unofficial market there by the waterside, and some may even have been residing there. The industry producing salt, which was important for the curing of meat and fish, would itself have attracted traders; and the reclaimed fenland was suitable for sheep-farming and agriculture, which made for trade in wool and grain, while fishing was also likely an early source of trade goods. The Bishop complied with this request, at the same time founding St. Margaret's church to serve the community; attached to St. Margaret's was a small priory and a marketplace. The Bishop's foundation may have been motivated by a wish to capitalize on the growth of trade using the Wash, and perhaps to try to make Lynn the focus of that trade. The chapel of St Nicholas was created to serve the northern section of Lynn see King's Lynn St Nicholas.

Church Records
The parish registers from 1559 onward are held at Norfolk Record Office and are generally catalogued under Kings Lynn St Margaret although individual registers may refer to Lynn or Lynn Regis in the early register series. The parish reference PD39 is used in the Norfolk Record Office records.

Images of the records are available on Record Search by agreement with the Norfolk Record Office. These images are currently waypointed as Lynn St Margaret.

Registration Districts

 * King's Lynn

Probate Jurisdictions
Norfolk Probate Jurisdictions Parishes I through N

Poor Law Unions

 * King's Lynn     http://www.institutions.org.uk/workhouses/england/norf/kings_lynn_workhouse.htm

Maps
England Jurisdictions 1851