Place:Hesketh with Becconsall, Lancashire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

From 1894 until 1974 Hesketh with Becconsall (WL 9 on the map) was a civil parish within the West Lancashire Rural District. Following the nationwide reorganization of municipalities in 1974 it is now located in the West Lancashire District of Lancashire. It became an independent parish in 1821. Prior to that it was a township in the ancient parish of Croston in the Leyland Hundred. As noted by Wilson in his Gazetteer (below), the parish is made up of three communities: Hesketh, Hesketh Bank which had port facilities, and Becconsall (all redirected here). A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Hesketh from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72: "HESKETH, a village and a parish in Ormskirk [registration] district, Lancashire. The village stands on the coast of the Ribble estuary, near the influx of the Douglas river, 4 miles NW of Croston [railway] station, and 8 SW of Preston. The parish contains also the seaport village of Hesketh Bank, and the village of Becconsall. Post town: Croston, under Preston. Acres: 4,735; of which 1,685 are water. Real property: £4,499. Population in 1851: 692; in 1861: 804. Houses: 153. The increase of population arose from the erection of cottages, and from the presence of labourers in reclaiming marsh land. "The property is divided among a few. The manor belongs to Sir Thomas G. Hesketh, Bart. A large tract, between Hesketh and Cockerham, was overwhelmed by the sea in 1720. The Ribble estuary here was once 2½ miles wide, and fordable at low water; but during the five years ending in 1865, a vast tract of valuable marsh land was reclaimed from it by deepening and narrowing the river's bed, and by forming an embankment several miles long. The living is a rectory, united with the [perpetual] curacy of Becconsall, in the diocese of Manchester. Value, £300. Patron, Sir T. G. Hesketh, Bart. The church is a brick edifice, and consists of nave, aisle, and chancel. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel." A Vision of Britain through Time also provides a 19th-century map of large scale which illustrates the area very well. The family of Hesketh are found back to the 13th century in the area; the main family home was in the parish of Rufford to the south. They are traced here in WeRelate, but the tree is worth more investigation. the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Hesketh Bank is a small agricultural village in Lancashire, England. It lies to the northeast of the town of Southport on the Irish Sea estuary of the River Ribble. The area falls under West Lancashire Borough Council for administrative purposes, and Hesketh with Becconsall Parish Council for parochial matters. It is in the South Ribble parliamentary constituency. Wikipedia reports a population of 4,041 in the UK census of 2011. It is not clear whether this is for the town or the parish.

Research Tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes (known as ancient parishes) were ecclesiastical, under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
• Rural districts were groups of geographically close civil parishes in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish. Inspecting the archives of a rural district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
• Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
• Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
• FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
• Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
• GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
• The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
• A description of the township of Hesketh with Becconsall from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911