Place:Hawkshead, Lancashire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Hawkshead (#14 on the map) is a village and civil parish in Cumbria, England, which attracts tourists to the South Lakeland area. Prior to 1974 it was located in the county of Lancashire. The parish includes the hamlets of Hawkshead Hill 1.2 miles (1.9 km) to the northwest of the main village, and Outgate, a similar distance directly north. The population of the parish in the 2011 UK census was 519. [edit] History The township of Hawkshead was originally owned by the monks of Furness Abbey; the village of Colthouse derives its name from the stables owned by the Abbey. Hawkshead grew to be an important wool market in medieval times and later as a market town after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1532. It was granted its first market charter by King James I in 1608. In 1585, Hawkshead Grammar School was established by Archbishop Edwin Sandys of York after he successfully petitioned Queen Elizabeth I for a charter to establish a governing body. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Hawkshead became a village of important local stature. The poet William Wordsworth was educated at Hawkshead Grammar School, whilst at the turn of the 20th century, the children's writer, Beatrix Potter, lived nearby, marrying William Heelis, a local solicitor, and establishing a farm which still exists on part of the Monk Coniston estate. With the formation of the Lake District National Park in 1951, tourism grew in importance, though traditional farming still continues around the village. Hawkshead has a timeless atmosphere and consists of a characterful warren of alleys, overhanging gables and a series of mediaeval squares. It is eloquently described in William Wordsworth's poem The Prelude. Much of the land in and around the village is now owned by the National Trust as a property named Hawkshead and Claife.

For code for numbered places, see the page for Ulverston Rural District. The smaller urban disticts are Ulverston and Grange over Sands

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"HAWKSHEAD, a small town, a township, a parish, and a [registration] sub-district, in Ulverston [registration] district, Lancashire. The town stands in a sheltered valley, at the head of Esthwaite water, 2 miles W of Windermere lake, 4 E by N of Coniston [railway] station, and 5 SW by S of Ambleside; is surrounded by a picturesque country, with many of the finest features of the Lake region; dates from very ancient times; was long the capital of Furness, and a seat of the courts of justice of Furness abbey; has a compact form, with a rather spacious market place; contains a number of old, quaint, picturesque houses; is a seat of petty sessions, and a polling place; and has a post office‡ under Windermere, a good inn, a modern town hall, a church, a Baptist chapel, a grammar school, a national school, and some charities. The church was founded about the time of the Conquest; retains the piers and arches of its original masonry; was rebuilt, in the time of Elizabeth, by Archbishop Sandys; has a massive square tower; contains effigies of Archbishop Sandys' parents; and stands on an elevation, with a fine view. The churchyard contains the grave of the distinguished Miss Elizabeth Smith. The grammar school was founded by Archbishop Sandys; has an endowed income of £210, and a good library; and numbers, among its pupils, Dr. Walker, Dr. Wordsworth, the poet Wordsworth, Lord Abinger, Sir Frederick Pollock, and Dr. King. A weekly market is held on Monday; and fairs, on Easter Monday, the Monday before Holy Thursday, and 2 Oct.

"The township bears the name of Hawkshead-with-Monk-Coniston and Skelwith; and includes the hamlets of Borwick, Henakin, and Gallowbarrow. Acres: 9,152. Real property: £6,720. Population: 1,144. Houses: 234. The manor belonged formerly to Furness abbey; and belongs now to the Duke of Buccleuch.

"The [ancient] parish [Hawkshead] contains also the townships of Claife and Satterthwaite, and comprises 19,252 acres. Real property: £13,219. Population in 1851: 2,283; in 1861: 2,081. Houses: 415. The property, in many parts, is subdivided. Much of the land is hilly pasture. Slate and building stone are quarried; copper ore is worked; and iron ore and other useful minerals occur. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Carlisle. Value: £150. Patron: the Duchy of Lancaster. The chapelries of Satterthwaite, Brathay, and Low Wray are separate benefices. There are chapels of ease in Skelwith and Claife, and a Quakers' chapel at Colthouse."

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 Hawkshead from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914