Hastings St Mary in the Castle, Sussex Genealogy

England   Sussex     Hastings St Mary in the Castle



Parish History
Hastings St Mary in the Castle is an Ancient Parish in the Cinque port town of Hastings Sussex. An integral part of the curved Pelham Crescent the church has a giant Ionic portico overlooking the sea and is a grade II listed building. It was built in 1828 by the Architect Joseph Kay.

The parish was merged into Hastings Emmanuel, Sussex

A history of the old and new churches of St Mary in the castle may be found at Hastings St Mary in the Castle

Hastings St Mary in the Castle Sussex Online Parish Clerks(OPC)

The OPC for Hastings Chris Swarbrooke Web site:Hastings OPC

see also Hastings Places of worship Wikipedia Hastings Wikipedia and  A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 435-441. Date accessed: 27 September 2013 here

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.

Link to the Family History Library Catalogue showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records
FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

to locate local Family History Centres in UK

to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

The 1821 and 1831 census for this parish of St Mary in the Castle, Hastings is available as a transcript on CD at The Family History Library and on the website www.familysearch.org and also in book form.

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search. 

Poor Law Unions
Hastings Poor Law Union, Sussex

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