Place:Melcombe Regis, Dorset, England

the text in this article is based on an article in Wikipedia Melcombe Regis is now an area of Weymouth in Dorset, England. The former parish is situated on the north shore of Weymouth Harbour and was originally part of the waste of Radipole, it seems only to have developed as a significant settlement and seaport in the 13th century. It received a charter as a borough in 1268. Melcombe was one of the first points of entry of the Black Death into England in the summer of 1348. (The disease was possibly carried there by infected soldiers and sailors returning from the Hundred Years' War, or from a visiting ship carrying spices. The two boroughs, Melcombe on the north shore and Weymouth on the south, were joined as a double borough in 1571, after which time the name Weymouth came to serve for them both. Nevertheless Melcombe Regis remained a separate parish and became a civil parish in 1866. In 1920 the civil parish was abolished and merged with Weymouth.

After two centuries of decline, in the 1780s, the town's fortunes were dramatically revived by the patronage of the Duke of Gloucester, brother of King George III and then of the King himself, who regularly used the town as a holiday resort between 1789 and 1811. He is commemorated by the descriptive "Regis" added to the town name, by a prominent statue on the Esplanade, or sea-front, recording the gratitude of the inhabitants, and by anotherr statue, the White Horse of Osmington, which by an oversight showed the King riding out of the town, not into it, and which is said to have angered him so much that he never returned. The well-known terraces of large late Georgian town houses on the Esplanade date from this period, with additional building later in the 19th century.

The town was well established as a successful resort by the time that George's visits ceased, and has continued as such to the present day.

Weymouth & Melcombe Regis was used as a base for Allied troops in the D-Day landings of World War II, and has since operated on and off as a cross-channel ferry terminus.

Governance

Melcombe was originally a chapelry in the parish of Radipole in the Culliford Tree Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. With the development of its seaport in the 13th century it was made a borough in 1268. In 1571 it joined with Weymouth on the south side of the River Wey, to become a double municipal borough which eventually came to be known simply as Weymouth. However, Melcombe Regis remained a separate parish and became a civil parish in 1866. In 1920 the civil parish was formally abolished and the two towns merged under the name Weymouth as a single civil parish.

In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts and all boroughs across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. Melcombe Regis joined the metropolitan Weymouth and Portland District which extended southward to include the Isle of Portland.

Under another set of local government reforms adopted on 1 April 2019, Weymouth and Portland District was abolished, and the County of Dorset (excluding Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole) became a single unitary authority. The area is now administered by Dorset Council.

Dorset Research Tips

One of the many maps available on the website A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Dorset at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. The internal boundaries on this map are the rural districts which are indicated in WeRelate's "See Also" box for the place concerned (unless it is an urban parish).

The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases. Some are linked to Ancestry.

• Repository:Dorset History Centre
• Repository:Dorset Online Parish Clerks (free online transcriptions for many parishes)
• Repository:UK Genealogy Archives
• Repository:Dorset Family History Society (England)
• Repository:Somerset and Dorset Family History Society
• Repository:Dorset Genealogy Resources
• Repository:FreeBMD.org.uk for the GRO civil registration index
• Repository:FreeCEN - UK Census Online Project
• Repository:FreeREG - UK parish register indexes

• GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Dorset, but it has left the 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes to UK Genealogy Archives which presents facts differently. Neither GENUKI or UK Genealogy Archives deal with the more modern civil parishes.
• FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date, but UK Genealogy Archives may prove more helpful.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has

1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts up to 1974
2. excerpts from gazetteers of the late 19th century outlining individual towns and parishes
3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960

• The contents of the Victoria County History is provided by British History Online for many English counties, but not for Dorset. Instead they have provided the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England (RCHME Inventory Volumes) published in 1972 in five volumes covering the county in geographical areas. Thes articles describe buildings rather than towns and villages, but may be of use in researching a manor-owning family.
• More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.

Censuses

UK censuses are taken every ten years in the years ending in "1". There was no census in 1941. Details are not made available for 100 years after a census. A number of online databases (both paid and free) provide transcriptions of censuses up to 1911. Most of these provide information for an individual or a family. Many also provide images of the originals and thus allow browsing of a page or perhaps a whole enumeration district. The 1921 census was published in January 2022. It is available at FindMyPast with a charge additional to the usual subscrition to view the manuscript entries (there is no extra charge to view the index).

The Dorset Online Parish Clerks provides a good number of 19th century census transcriptions as well as lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded in the parish. The formal Home Office Numbers (those starting with HO used in 1841 and 1851), the Registrar General Numbers (starting with RG in later decades, and the Enumeration District Numbers are included. There is an illustrated article to introduce each parish.

The 1841 census differed from the later ones in two different ways.

• The question "where born" was to be answered either with the words "in county" (or "y") or "out of county" (or "n") with perhaps a more specific place in the case of those born abroad.
• Ages for adults (usually those over 15, though some enumerators gave specific ages up to 20) were rounded down to the nearest 5 years. (i.e., for persons aged 15 years and under 20 write 15; 20 years and under 25 write 20; 25 years and under 30 write 25; and so on up to the eldest interval.

From 1851 onwards people were asked for the county and civil parish in which they were born whether in or out of the county, and ages were expressed exactly (in months for infants).