Didsbury, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Church History
Didsbury Christ Church was created a chapel of ease in 1603 from, and lying within the boundaries of Manchester ancient parish.

William Roberts was a brewer in Manchester and owned the Crown Brewery in Hulme in 1851. In the 1870s he employed 62 men and lived at Oaks Farm which occupied the site which is now St. Ambrose's Church.

During the 1860s and 70s the area between Palatine Road and Burton Road was developed and St. Luke’s Church was built as a chapel-of-ease for Didsbury St James, Lancashire. Plans were in hand for the creation of a new parish and a group of residents obtained an option of a site at the corner of Burton Road and Barlow Moor Road (the site of the Burton Road Mosque). At this point Mr. Roberts offered to build a church and rectory at his own expense but insisted on the present site, the corner of Darley Avenue and Princess Road. In 1881 he was still living on the Chorlton/Didsbury boarder and would have watched the building of the Church and Rectory,

"DIDSBURY, a parochial chapelry, in the parish of Manchester, union of Chorlton, hundred of Salford, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 5½ miles (S.) from Manchester. This chapelry, which is separated from Cheshire by the river Mersey, consists of the townships of Didsbury, Heaton-Norris, Burnage, and Withington. The chapel is dedicated to St James. At Heaton-Norris is the old living of St Thomas'. A church has lately been erected at Withington (which see), to which the townships of Withington and Burnage have been assigned as a district; and another church has just been built at Heaton-Mersey, to which that part of the township of Heaton-Norris has been attached.

The Wesleyans have a place of worship at Withington. The Independents built a place of worship at Heaton-Mersey.

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church records
Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts 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

Didsbury- Christ Church Banns-1882-1955- MFPR 2174 Baptisms-1882-1931- MFPR 2173 Baptisms-1905-1930- MFPR 2173 (St Mary's Chapel) Baptisms-1931-1959- Archives M652 Marriages-1882-1931- MFPR 2173 Marriages-1931-1954- MFPR 2174 Marriages-1954-1984- Archives M652

The Manchester Room and Greater Manchester County Record Office Email: archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk

The Manchester Room@City Library (Local Studies)

Parish registers for Christ Church, Didsbury, 1882-1956 Microfilm of original records formerly held at the Manchester Archives Central Library in Manchester, England. Didsbury was a chapelry in Manchester parish.Manchester Archives Central Library call nos.: M652/DRO 1-2, 4-5, 10-11.

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

Poor Law Unions
Chorlton Poor Law Union,Lancashire

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
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
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.