Place:Toxteth Park, Lancashire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Toxteth is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England, and is a Liverpool City Council ward. Before 1974 it was in the county of Lancashire. Toxteth is located in the southern of the city and is bordered by on the north by Liverpool itself and West Derby, Wavertree to the east and Garston to the south. Canning, Dingle,Prince's Park, Sefton Park and Smithdown are neighbourhoods within Toxteth; Aigburth is more in Garston and Edge Hill in West Derby. The district lies within the borders of the township of Toxteth Park in the ancient parish of Walton on the Hill. Industry and commerce are confined to the several docks on its western border and a few streets running off Parliament Street. Toxteth is primarily residential, with a mixture of old terraced housing, post-World War II social housing and a legacy of large Victorian houses.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, as Liverpool expanded the ancient park of Toxteth was gradually urbanised. Large Georgian houses were built in the Canning area, followed in the Victorian era by more grand houses, especially along the tree-lined Prince's Road/Avenue boulevard and around Prince's Park. The district quickly became home to the wealthy merchants of Liverpool, alongside a much larger poor population in modest Victorian terraces. Now, some of these streets of terraces are boarded up, awaiting demolition.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Toxteth.

From Picture of Liverpool: Strangers' Guide written in 1834

"Toxteth Park forms the southern boundary to Liverpool, and was a Royal forest until the second year of the reign of James Ist, when it was conferred with a grant of the crown on two citizens of London, Ralph Willey, merchant tailor, and Thomas Dodd grocer, who on the 6th March 1605 bestowed it on Richard Molyneux, an ancestor of the present Earl of Sefton. This mode of conveyance is supposed to have then been adopted in consequence of the grantee being a Catholic.

"Toxteth Park is cited in the Doomsday Book as being one virgate of land and half a carracute, then valued at four shillings, and held by Stainulf.

"In 1346 it was let to the Molyneux family for £17 per annum. And subsequently, in the year 1593 Queen Elizabeth conferred this park on Henry Earl of Derby, and his heirs male: but it afterwards reverted to the crown, in consequence, it is supposed of a failure of such heirs.

"The old chapel which has long been in the possession of the Presbyterians, is mentioned in a survey made by order of the parliament during the Commonwealth: and a Mr Huggin an episcopal minister is stated to have been the incumbent at that time, and that he received the tithes of the park, which were then valued at £45 per annum, besides £10 per year which were allowed him by the rector of Walton.

"In the year 1815 a church was erected here in the Gothic style of architecture and was dedicated to St Michael. It stands in a delightful situation, and is a pleasing and picturesque object, being seen to advantage from different places on the Cheshire coast as well as from various parts of the river.

"This district but particularly that part of it called Harrington is now become very populous. Many new buildings have lately been erected and the population according to the last census in 1831 was 24,067."

Research Tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes were ecclesiastical (described as ancient parishes), 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.
• An urban district was a type of municipality in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish and were used for urban areas usually with populations of under 30,000. Inspecting the archives of a urban 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.
• The terms municipal borough and county borough were adopted in 1835 replacing the historic "boroughs". Municipal boroughs generally had populations between 30,000 and 50,000; while county boroughs usually had populations of over 50,000. County boroughs had local governments independent of the county in which they were located, but municipal boroughs worked in tandem with the county administration. Wikipedia explains these terms in much greater detail.
• 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 Toxteth Park from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1907
• A list of cemeteries in Liverpool giving the locality, type of burial ground, the denomination, and information on whether inscriptions exist and where they might be found.
• FindAGrave has investigated 47 cemeteries in Liverpool.