Worsthorne, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
Worsthorne St John is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Lancashire, created in 1837 Burnley_St_Peter,_Lancashire Ecclesiastical Parish.Other places in the parish include: Hurstwood.

The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created in 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The Diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and the cities of Lancaster, and Preston, as well as a large part of the Ribble Valley.

WORSTHORN, a township, in the parochial chapelry and poor-law union of Burnley, parish of Whalley, Higherdivision of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of Lancashire, 2¼ miles (E.) from Burnley; containing 817 inhabitants. Worsthorn, or Wrdest, belonged to Henry de Wrdest in the reign of Stephen or Henry II.; and was granted in that of Edward II., by Henry de Lacy, to the Stansfield family. It afterwards became the property of the Halsteads, a branch from High Halstead: the House bears the date 1593. Hurstwood is a hamlet in the township. Hurstwood Hall, a well-built mansion, has in front the name of "Barnard Townley," who died in 1602. The estate attached to it eventually passed to Richard Chamberlain, by whose representative it was sold to William Sutcliffe, Esq., of Burnley and Leeds: in 1803 it was sold to Charles Townley, Esq. The township lies on the borders of Yorkshire, and comprises 2127 acres. On Worsthorn moor are some valuable flag and slate quarries, principally belonging to C. Townley, Esq., and leased to Messrs. Thomas and Benjamin Chaffer, who have large depots in Manchester and Liverpool: the stone obtained from them has been used in many public and other buildings both at home and in the colonies. The common itself is now being inclosed. The foundation stone of a district church was laid in Sept. 1834, and the church was consecrated in Sept. 1835; it is dedicated to St. John, and contains 650 sittings, 450 of which are free. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of Hulme's Trustees; net income, £150.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 687-692. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51431 Date accessed: 03 August 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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