Colne Engaine, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Colne Engaine or Little Colne, is a village and a parish in Halstead district, Essex. It is 1 1/2 miles WNW of Colne railway station, and 2 1/2 miles ESE of Halstead.

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
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist 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

Online images are available Seax - Essex Archives Online From the Essex Record Office

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.

Index for the Census may be searched at FamilySearch Historical Records

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Halstead Poor Law Union, Essex

In the earlier 18th century weekly allowances were paid to up to 18 paupers; occasional relief in kind, usually clothes or shoes, was also given. The numbers receiving regular relief rose to 26 in 1769 and to 31 in 1798; clothes and shoes continued to be bought, and a surgeon or apothecary was paid in the 1760s and 1770s. In 1761, 1762, and 1766 spinning wheels was bought for pauper women. The same system continued into the 19th century, and in addition some men were paid for work on the roads. A workhouse, whose inmates were employed in spinning and hop-picking, operated between c. 1750 and 1761 and again from c. 1777 to c. 1790 or perhaps to 1795 when the overseers settled affairs there. At other times the building seems to have been used as pauper housing. It was sold in 1839. The three unendowed almshouses reported in 1768 were probably also used for pauper housing. That on Buntings green may have been the house built there by the parish in the late 16th century for 'a most wicked and ungodly man'. The houses were presumbly those sold by the parish in 1836. Expenditure on the poor more than doubled between 1776 and 1783-5, rising from £125 to an average of £266 a year, an increase comparable to that at Earls Colne and one of the largest in the hundred. By 1803 expenditure had risen to £422, and by 1813 to £607 or £1 4s. 2d. per head of population, one of the lower rates in the hundred. It fell to £427 in 1816 before rising to £734 in 1818. Expenditure per head remained slightly below average for the hundred until 1830 when total expenditure rose to £900, £1 9s. 2d. a head. Although expenditure fell to £601 in 1834, expenditure per head remained above average for the hundred. Eighteenth-century and early 19th-century vestry meetings were attended by the parish officers, the rector or curate, and 6-7 parishioners. Although in 1821 there was reported to be no select vestry, there seems to have been a distinction in the mid 18th century between the annual 'town' meeting and others. In the 1830s meetings were sometimes adjourned from the church to the Five Bells. In 1839 the vestry agreed to pay to vaccinate poor families; in 1845 money raised for poor relief paid for a soup kitchen.

From: 'Colne Engaine: Local government', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10: Lexden Hundred (Part) including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe (2001), pp. 113-114. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15189&amp;amp;strquery=colne engaine Date accessed: 16 February 2011.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Essex 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.