Place:Coventry, Warwickshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

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

Coventry is 19 miles (31 km) east-southeast of the centre of Birmingham, 24 miles (39 km) southwest of Leicester, 11 miles (18 km) north of Warwick and 95 miles (153 km) northwest of the centre of London.

The current Coventry Cathedral was built after the majority of the 14th century cathedral church of Saint Michael was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in the Coventry Blitz of 14 November 1940. The new cathedral was completed in 1962.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Coventry motor companies have contributed significantly to the British motor industry.

History

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

• The Romans founded a settlement in Baginton and another around a Saxon nunnery, founded c.  AD 700 by St Osburga, left in ruins by King Canute's invading Danish army in 1016.
• Earl Leofric of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva founded a Benedictine monastery on the remains of the nunnery dedicated to St Mary in 1043. In time, a market was established at the abbey gates and the settlement expanded.
• 14th century, Coventry was an important centre of the cloth trade
• Coventry claimed the status of a city by ancient prescriptive usage, was granted a charter of incorporation in 1345, and in 1451 became a county in its own right.
• 18th and 19th centuries, Coventry became one of the three main British centres of watch and clock manufacture and ranked alongside Prescot, in Lancashire and Clerkenwell in London.
• With the decline in the watch and clock industry the skilled pool of workers proved crucial to the setting up of bicycle and eventually the car, machine tool and aircraft industries. By the late 19th century, Coventry became a major centre of bicycle manufacture.
• The invention by James Starley and his nephew John Kemp Starley of the Rover safety bicycle. The company became the Rover Motor Company.
• The design headquarters of Jaguar Cars remains in the city at their Whitley plant and although ownership of the company has changed twice since 1990.

Outlying Districts and Suburbs

Like any large city, Coventry was absorbed a number of towns and villages on its outskirts as it grew. Some of the areas which were expanded in this development included Binley Woods, Coundon, Exhall (near Coventry), Foleshill, Stivichall, Stoke Heath, Walsgrave on Sowe, Willenhall and Wyken. Other settlements created during the 20th century include Radford, Canley and Cheylesmore. There is a longer list in Wikipedia.

Research Tips

• GENUKI main page for Warwickshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
• Warwickshire and West Midland family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Warwickshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
• The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.

• Map of Warwickshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown.
• Map of Warwickshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were a number of changes to urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.

• A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. It shows the detached sections of Warwickshire as they were in 1832. These detached sections have now been moved into the counties that surrounded them.
• As of October 2016 Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1535-1984 are available to search online on FamilySearch
• As of September 2018 TheGenealogist has added over 1.5 million individuals to its Warwickshire Parish Record Collection and so increases the coverage of this Midland county for family researchers to find their ancestors baptisms, marriages and burials. These records are released in association with Warwickshire County Record Office and have the benefit of high quality images to complement the transcripts, making them a valuable resource for those with ancestors from this area. These are available to Genealogist Diamond Subscription holders.
• The website British History Online provides seven volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Warwickshire. The first (Vol 2) covers the religious houses of the county; Volumes 3 through 6 provide articles the settlements in each of the hundreds in turn, and Volumes 7 and 8 deal with Birmingham and Coventry respectively. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.