Donnington Wood, Shropshire Genealogy

England   Shropshire

Parish History
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A chapel of ease at Donnington Wood, dedicated to ST. MATTHEW and intended to serve the surrounding colliery district, was licensed in 1845. The site was provided by the 2nd duke of Sutherland, who also met the cost of erection and furnishing, some £1,700. The church was consecrated in 1850 and was designed to provide 500 seats, all free. There were baptisms there from 1845, burials from 1850, and marriages from 1851. In 1845 the chapel was intended to be served by the vicar of Lilleshall or his curate (fn. 35) but in 1850 it was assigned a district within Lilleshall ecclesiastical parish. In 1850 patronage of the living, a perpetual curacy until 1868 when it became a titular vicarage, was vested in the 2nd duke. The advowson descended with Lilleshall manor until c. 1920 and was then acquired by Sir John Leigh. By 1925 Sir Offley Wakeman was patron; he then conveyed it to the bishop of Lichfield, still the patron in 1979.

In 1850 the 2nd duke endowed the living with £1,000, and in 1851 the fees arising at the chapel, until then reserved to the vicar of Lilleshall, became payable to the perpetual curate of Donnington Wood. In 1851 the incumbent's annual income was £45 from endowment, £1 10s. in fees, and £50 from unspecified sources. A further endowment of £600 was given in 1853, and in 1860 endowments of £400 by the duke of Sutherland and £200 by the Diocesan Society were made, matched by £200 from Queen Anne's Bounty. By 1870 the annual value of the living was £218. In 1884 the vicar was receiving £171 10s. net, and £9 out of the tithe rent charge of Lilleshall parish; there was no glebe, and no fees were taken for churchings, marriages, or funerals. Until 1917 the dukes of Sutherland contributed £20 to the vicar's stipend but, with the sale of most of the 5th duke's Lilleshall property, it was decided in 1918 to reconsider the payment annually.

The vicarage, an ancient timber-framed house, stood outside Donnington Wood ecclesiastical parish, on the north side of the Newport-Wellington road. It was not held as glebe but belonged to the successive patrons. In 1983 a new vicarage was under construction in St. George's Road.

In 1851 average Sunday attendance was sixty in the morning, three hundred in the evening. The first incumbent, Thomas O'Regan, held the living until 1900. Well respected, he influenced striking miners to return to work and to improve their conditions at home and at the pit. He began to employ an assistant curate in the 1890s and later went to live in Surrey. None of his successors had an assistant curate, except in the years 1953-5 and 1961-5. By 1953 weekday services were being held in a Lady chapel made in 1950 in the south transept. In 1962 the church sustained a Sunday school, a youth club (ceased by 1979), scouting groups, and a Mother's Union branch.

The church, designed in the Early English style by George Gilbert Scott, consisted of chancel, transepts, and nave with west gallery, south porch, and west bellcot. A north choir vestry and west baptistery were added c. 1965 in the Grinshill sandstone of the original building. In 1964 the plate consisted of a silver chalice and paten of 1851, a silver gilt chalice and paten of 1960, and several pieces of modern silver. The single bell (1953) replaced an earlier one. The registers begin in 1845 and are complete.

From Lilleshall: Churches', A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 11: Telford (1985), pp. 166-172. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=18114 Date accessed: 12 May 2011.

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
Bishop's transcripts held at Lichfield Record Office Bap 1813-1864 Marr none Bur 1813-1864

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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 Shropshire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

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Web sites
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