Stepney St Dunstan, Middlesex Genealogy

England   Middlesex   Middlesex Parishes

See A List of District Churches and Chapels of Ease In Stepney Parish

Parish History
"St Dunstan Stepney, the church of is situated between Whitehorse Lane, Commercial Road, and Stepney Green. Stepney is a very ancient village, and was formerly a considerable distance from London. Stow mentions, that in 1299 a parliament was held at the house of Henry Wallies, Mayor of London, who resided in this village, and here Edward I confirmed the great charter of liberty. It was originally one of the largest parishes in England, and contained within its boundaries, what are now the parishes of St Marylebone, at Stratford, St Mary, Whitechapel, St Anne, Limehouse, St John Wapping, St Paul, Shadwell, St George, Ratcliffe Highway, Christ Church, Spitalfields, and St Matthew, Bethnal Green. All these parishes have been sparated from it, yet it still remains one of the largest within the Bills of Mortality, as it still contains the hamlets of Mile-End Old and New, Ratcliffe and Poplar.

"At what period this ancient church was built is not at present known, but it appears to be a relic of the architecture of the fourteenth century. There was a church here so long ago as the time of the Saxons, when it was called the church of All Saints, and we read of the Manor of Stiben-Heath, under the reign of William the Norman; when the church changed its name does not appear. it is a large structure, consisting of a chancel, a nave, and two aisles. At the west end is a plain tower, containing a peal of twelve bells.

"To this church formerly belonged a rectory and a vicarage, the former was a sincure, and in the gift of the Bishop of London, and the latter in the gift of the rector, till Redley, Bishop of London gave the manor of Stepney, and the advowson of the church to Edward VI, who granted them to Sir Thomas Wentworth, the Lord Chamberlain of his Household. The advowson was afterwards purchased by the principal and scholars of King's Hall and Brasnose College, oxford; they presented two persons to the rectory and vicarage, by the name of the portionists of Ratcliffe and Spitalfields, till the year 1744, when the hamlet of Bethnal Green, being spearated and made a new parish by act of parliament, Stepney became possessed by only one rector... It is a rectory, in the county of Middlesex, in the diocese of London, is exempt from any archdeaconry... There are numerous additional chapels attached to this parish (see the link above--"A List of District Churches and Chapels...)"¹

"STEPNEY St. Dunstan and All Saints,a parish, and the head of a union, in the Tower division of the hundred of Ossulstone, county of Middlesex, 2½ miles east of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. The parish includes also the hamlets of Mile-End New Town, Mile-End Old Town, and Ratcliffe.

Places of worship were built for the Quakers (the Society of Friends), the New Connexion of the Countess of Huntingdon, Calvinistic Methodists, for Baptists, Roman Catholics, and three meeting-houses for Independents.²

James Elmes, M.R. I. A., Architect. In “A Topographical Dictionary of London and its Envirions,” (London: Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot, 1831).

Samuel Lewis, ed. A Topographical Dictionary of England 200-205. (London: S. Lewis and Co., 1848), Online | here, (accessed: 05 May 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
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.

1666 Hearth Tax

 * Stepney, courtesy: British History Online

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Middlesex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Poor Law Unions
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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
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