Place:Harby, Leicestershire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Harby is an English village and a former civil parish that is now in the parish of Clawson, Hose and Harby. It is in the Borough of Melton and the county of Leicestershire. It lies in the Vale of Belvoir, 9.4 miles (15.1 km) north of Melton Mowbray and 13.9 miles (22.4 km) west-south-west of Grantham. Although in Leicestershire, the county town of Leicester is further – – than Nottingham – . The village lies on the south side of the Grantham Canal. Belvoir Castle, to the north-east, is conspicuous on the horizon.

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Harby was one of three civil parishes which joined together in 1936 to make the single parish of Clawson and Harby which exists today. It was an ancient or ecclesiastical parish as well as, after 1866, a civil parish in its own right.

Local Administration

The parish was part of Melton Mowbray Rural District from 1894 until 1935 when the rural district was abolished and replaced by the Melton and Belvoir Rural District which covered a larger area. A year after the introduction of the new rural district its parishes were reorganized and reduced in number from 68 to 25.

In 1974 a new nationwide organization of local government was introduced in which rural and urban districts were replaced by "non-metropolitan" districts. In the northeast of Leicestershire this meant little save for the fact that the principal town of Melton Mowbray, formerly a separate urban district, was now governed by the same body (Melton District or Borough) as the rural area that surrounded it.

Research Tips

• The map on the place-page for Melton Mowbray Rural District illustrates the location of the various parishes and the geographical and administrative changes that occurred in 1936.
• From this Findmypast page you can browse the Leicestershire parishes which have parish register transcripts online.
• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Leicestershire parishes which have parish register transcripts online.
• For both of the above sites, a subscription is charged. Transcriptions of these records may also be available free of charge on the FamilySearch website.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Leicestershire.