West Wickham, Kent Genealogy

Guide to West Wickham, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
West Wickham St John the Baptist is an Ancient Parish.

The church at West Wickham was mentioned in the Domesday survey and the present church was built on the site of that original in the 15th century.

The church of St John the Baptist Layhams Road West Wickham has been designated as a grade II* listed building British listed building

See Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 2 (1797), pp. 29-37. Date accessed: 2 December 2013.

at British History Online and Kent Churches website

West Wickham developed from the village prior to the 1882 arrival of the railway into a twentieth century expanding suburb.

The 1963 London Government Act meant that from 1965 West Wickham was absorbed into the London Borough of Bromley.West Wickham Wikipedia

The London Borough of Bromley Archives reference 601/1 contains a valuable history of Bromley, Beckenham and Penge deposited as part Mother Mary Baptist (formerly Bessie Taylor) of Coloma College, West Wickham, for a London University Ph.D. thesis (1967) entitled Bromley, Beckenham, and Penge, Kent since 1750.

The Heydon family history is referred to in The London Borough of Bromley Archives reference 601/2 16 chapter "the Hey-day of the Heydons of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, and West Wickham, Kent which forms part of the papers of Sister Mary Gregory (Cater) (formerly Barbara Batten) deposited at Bromley Library and Archive.

Civil Registration
See Bromley Registration district

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
West Wickham parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Kent Online Parish Clerks has indexes available for select parishes. Records are also available at the Kent Archives.

Census records
Census returns for West Wickham 1841-1841

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition 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. Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK Introduction to Family History Centers 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.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

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

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Poor Law Unions
Bromley Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

See England, Kent, Wills and Probate - FamilySearch Historical Records

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

Local Family History Centre
Orpington Family History Centre, Kent is within the London Borough of Bromley, located adjacent to Orpington Station and on major bus routes through the borough.


 * FHC Portal This centre has access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access in the centre to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.
 * Publication of the restricted access images England, Kent, Wills and Probate - FamilySearch Historical Records and England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records means that it is advisable to telephone the centre to reserve a computer if you wish to view these collections using the portal.