Place:Chafford Hundred, Essex, England

Watchers
NameChafford Hundred
TypeHundred
Coordinates51.483°N 0.283°E
Located inEssex, England
See alsoHavering (London Borough), Greater London, EnglandLondon borough which now covers part of the hundred
Brentwood District, Essex, EnglandEssex district municipality which now covers part of the hundred
Thurrock District, Essex, EnglandEssex district municipality which now covers part of the hundred
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
From Wikipedia
"A hundred is a geographic division formerly used in England, Wales, South Australia and some parts of the United States, to divide a larger region into smaller administrative divisions; similar divisions were made in Denmark, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Norway."

Hundreds were replaced by Registration Districts or Poor Law Unions between 1837 and 1850, and then by Rural and Urban Districts and Municipal Boroughs in 1894.

A map of the hundreds of Essex is available on Wikipedia.

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

The Hundred of Chafford was an ancient hundred in the southwest of the county of Essex, England. Its area has been partly absorbed by the growth of London; with its name reused for the modern housing development of "Chafford Hundred" (a different article in Wikipedia). Its former area now corresponds to part of the London Borough of Havering in Greater London and parts of the districts of Brentwood and Thurrock in Essex.

Hundred meetings are thought to have taken place in Chafford Heath in the southern part of the ecclesiastical parish of Upminster.

The hundred bordered Ongar Hundred to the north, Barstable Hundred to the east and Havering Liberty to the west. The River Thames formed a 7-mile (11 km) boundary with Kent to the south. The hundred covered a narrow area stretching 12 miles (19 km) northwards from the river.

Parish Description
Aveley Ancient parish/Civil parish
Brentwood Township/Chapelry/Civil parish
Childerditch Ancient parish/Civil parish
Cranham Ancient parish/Civil parish
Grays Thurrock Ancient parish/Civil parish
Great Warley Ancient parish/Civil parish
Little Warley Ancient parish/Civil parish
North Ockendon Ancient parish/Civil parish
Rainham Ancient parish/Civil parish
South Ockendon Ancient parish/Civil parish
South Weald Ancient parish/Civil parish
Stifford Ancient parish/Civil parish
Upminster Ancient parish/Civil parish
Wennington Ancient parish/Civil parish
West Thurrock Ancient parish/Civil parish

Research tips

  • Essex Record Office handles Essex archives within the county. The address is Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6YT.
  • The Essex Society for Family History covers topics of genealogical interest throughout the present County of Essex (i.e. excluding the western area now in Greater London). Subscription necessary.
  • GENUKI provides a list of towns and parishes leading to pages for individual parishes with useful local information for genealogists and family historians.
  • Wikimedia Commons has a set of maps of the old hundreds of Essex. These do not show the individual parishes within the hundreds.
  • For very detailed investigation Wikimedia Commons also has a series of 176 part maps of the Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10560, Map of Essex
  • FamilySearch lists its collections of church records and vital records along with those provided by other organizations, both commercial and voluntary.
  • The commercial website FindMyPast also has a collection of wills and newspaper transcriptions, as well as the "1939 Register" (an equivalent to the census gathered at the beginning of World War 2).
  • A Vision of Britain through Time is a website produced by the Department of Geography of the University of Portsmouth. It outlines all parishes as they were in the 19th century.
  • British History Online has transcribed eight volumes of the Victoria County History project for Essex. Seven of these cover the history of parts of the county in great detail, although the project is incomplete for Essex as a whole. Ownership of land through the centuries can often be traced here. The volumes of note are as follows:
Volume 4, Ongar Hundred, including Chipping and High Ongar, Chigwell, Stondon Massey and Theydon Bois (26 parishes in all).
Volume 5, Becontree Hundred outside Greater London. A thematic account of the growth of metropolitan Essex since 1850. Also contains topographical accounts of Barking, Ilford, Dagenham and other areas of Essex now within Greater London.
Volume 6, parishes of Becontree Hundred now within the London boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge. These include West and East Ham, Walthamstow and Wanstead.
Volume 7, Covers the ancient parishes, formerly within the Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower and now within the London borough of Havering, and those in Chafford hundred in western Essex now bordering London. It includes accounts of Hornchurch, Romford, Havering.
Volume 8, accounts of the parishes of Chafford and Harlow Hundreds, including Brentwood, Harlow and Thurrock.
Volume 9, the Borough of Colchester, describes the life of the oldest and for long the largest town in Essex from the Iron Age to 1990.
Volume 10, Lexden Hundred (part), includes Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe and other parishes to the north and west of Colchester.
  • As of June 2019 Ancestry (Worldwide subscription required) includes Essex, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, these early records are from parish registers of baptisms and burials during the years 1538–1812, and marriages during the years 1538-1754. These are in addition to their previous holdings:
  • Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1918: 3,937,941 records
  • Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1935: 1,968,439 records
  • Essex, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1994: 730,118 records