Place:Staveley, Derbyshire, England

Watchers
NameStaveley
Alt namesStaveliesource: Domesday Book (1985) p 70
Stavelysource: Domesday Book (1985) p 70
Barrow Hillsource: settlement in parish
Beighton Fieldssource: settlement in parish
Mastin Moorsource: settlement in parish
Poolsbrooksource: settlement in parish
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates53.269°N 1.348°W
Located inDerbyshire, England
See alsoChesterfield, Derbyshire, Englandancient parish of which it was part
Scarsdale Hundred, Derbyshire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Chesterfield Rural, Derbyshire, Englandrural district 1894-1935
Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Englandmunicipal borough into which it was merged in 1935
Chesterfield District, Derbyshire, Englandunitary authority covering the area since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Staveley is a former mining town in the Chesterfield District unitary authority, alongside the River Rother, between Eckington to the north, Barlborough to the east, Sutton cum Duckmanton to the south and Brimington to the west. According to the UK census of 2011 it had a population of 18,247. (This figure included Barrow Hill, Beighton Fields, Mastin Moor and Poolsbrook.) The civil parish is large, covering more than 6,500 acres (10.16 sq mi).

Staveley was formerly a mining town with several large coal mines in and around the area, the closest being Ireland Pit. The large majority of pits closed in the 1980s in England.

Charles Paxton Markham played a large role in the industrial development of the area around Staveley. For a time he was the owner of Markham & Co. Through his company and its successor Staveley Coal and Iron Company, Markham owned ironstone quarries, several coal mines (including Markham Colliery), chemical works, ironworks and an engineering works specialising in mining and tunnelling equipment.

Other major local industries in recent history have included the Staveley Works foundry and Staveley Chemicals. These have now almost entirely closed, due to the nationwide decline in industry. One of the products produced at Staveley was paracetomol. The closure of these plants marked the end of over 100 years of chemical production at Staveley.

Staveley was an ancient parish in the Scarsdale Hundred. It became a civil parish in 1866 and from 1894 until 1935 was part of Chesterfield Rural District. In 1935 it was absorbed into Chesterfield municipal borough. In 1974 Chesterfield and its environs became the Chesterfield District unitary authority.

Image:Derbyshire NE Chesterfield 100px B.png

Research tips

  • Derbyshire Record Office website
  • British History Online (Victoria County Histories) does not appear to cover Derbyshire geographically. A History of the County of Derby: Volume 2, edited by William Page is a part-volume covering the religious houses of the county. No further volumes have been found.
  • GENUKI main page for Derbyshire which 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.
  • 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 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time, Derbyshire, 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.
  • For a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from the following 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. Sections of the 1900 map showing parish boundaries only have been reproduced on some (but not all) parish pages here in WeRelate.
  • Map of Derbyshire 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 Derbyshire 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 some changes in urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.
  • Ordnance Survey map of Derbyshire for 1967 This is the last in this series and was made while Derbyshire was experimenting with the non-metropolitan district structure adopted in 1974. It is a much cleaner map for reading the names of the civil parishes, but the smaller villages are no longer visible.
These are only three of the series of maps to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Staveley, Derbyshire. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.