King Cross, Yorkshire Genealogy

Guide to King Cross, Yorkshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Chapelry History
King Cross; originally the site of an ancient stone cross is an Ecclesiastical parish created in 1845 in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. Part of the Diocese of Wakefield. It is located along the top of a ridge above the town of Halifax. The A58 road into Lancashire divides here, with one fork, the A646, branching off towards Burnley via Hebden Bridge and the other going to Littleborough via Sowerby Bridge. During the English Civil War, when Halifax was a Royalist stronghold, King Cross was a key outpost, with the Parliamentarians holding parts of the Calder Valley.

During the First English Civil War (1642–1646) Halifax was a Royalist stronghold, with King Cross as a key outpost, on the roads between Lancashire and West Yorkshire, with the Parliamentarians holding parts of the Calder Valley. Prior to 1850 the area consisted of small hamlets and agricultural fields, in the parish of Halifax. With the onset of the industrial revolution, through the 18th and 19th centuries, the population steadily grew and King Cross was made a separate parish in 1845. A Commissioners' church, St. Paul's, designed by Robert Chantrell in 1845,[3] was built in 1847, with seating for 450 people. By the end of the 19th century, with a population of some 17,000 people, the older church of St. Paul's, built in 1847, had eventually run out of space for burials. A decision was made in 1909 to build a new church designed by Sir Charles Nicholson, with seating for 1,000, nearby. Except for the tower it was completed in 1912. Following a fire in the old St. Pauls in 1930, during which the roof was destroyed, the building was demolished in 1931, leaving only the tower and spire standing. With the increased space burials continued in the graveyard until 1969. With some 1,737 graves in the graveyard the church asked the local council to take over the maintenance of the grounds. The area was eventually designated as a 'rest garden' in 1973, though with some considerable controversy. The current church of St. Paul's is notable for its acoustics and an unusual and highly colorful west window, dedicated in 1937 in memory of Canon Hugh Bright and designed by Hugh Easton of Cambridge, who had also designed windows for Canterbury Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral and Durham Cathedral. The window depicts an apocalyptic vision of the Holy City descending upon the smoky mills and railway viaducts of Halifax. The church was built from locally sourced stone, the inside walls being made of ashlar from the quarries at Sowerby, and the external walls of stone from the quarries of Northowram and Hipperholme. The first vicar of the old St. Paul's church Reverend Samuel Danby, from 1847-1859, married Mary Dorothy Wainhouse, the daughter of Edward Wainhouse, the local dye works owner, who partly funded the building of the church. The stained glass east window, designed by H.W. Bryans, in the new St. Pauls is dedicated in Edward Wainhouse's memory. in 1905 the Reverend H.S. Footman, a curate of the old St. Paul's church became the Curate of the nearby St. Hilda's Mission Church, built in 1898[10]

The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales by John M. Wilson provides this important jurisdictional perspective on King Cross:

KINGCROSS, a village and a chapelry in Skircoat and South Owram townships, Halifax St John the Baptist Parish, W. R. Yorkshire. The village stands near the river Aire, 1 mile E of Halifax. The chapelry was constituted in 1845. See also HALIFAX.

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.

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