Place:Wantage Rural, Berkshire, England

Watchers
NameWantage Rural
TypeRural district
Located inBerkshire, England     (1894 - 1974)
See alsoNewbury District, Berkshire, Englandadministrative district into which part of Wantage Rural merged in 1974
Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England|administrative district into which remainder of Wantage Rural merged in 1974
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Wantage Rural District was located in Berkshire, England from 1894 to 1974.

It was created in 1894 as a successor to the Wantage rural sanitary district. It took its name from the town of Wantage, which formed a separate urban district entirely surrounded by the rural district. The rural district had its headquarters in Belmont, Wantage.

The district was abolished in 1974 (as were all other rural districts, under the Local Government Act 1972). Its area was split, with the majority of the parishes becoming part of the Vale of White Horse District in Oxfordshire, and the rest becoming part of the Newbury district of Berkshire. This latter group became part of the unitary authority of West Berkshire in 1998.

List of Parishes

ParishDescriptionDurationNotes
Aldworth ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Ardington ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Beedon chapelry, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Blewbury ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Brightwalton ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Catmore ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Chaddleworth ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Charlton hamlet, civil parish 1894 - 1934 abolished in 1934 and area divided between Grove, Lockinge and Wantage.
Childrey ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Chilton ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Compton ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Denchworth ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
East Challow township, chapelry, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
East Hanney township, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
East Hendred ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
East Ilsley ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
East Lockinge ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 absorbed into Lockinge
Farnborough ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Fawley ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Goosey chapelry, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Grove chapelry, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Hampstead Norreys ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Harwell ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Hermitage extraparochial, civil parish 1948 - 1969 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Letcombe Bassett ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Letcombe Regis ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Lockinge civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Peasemore ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
Sparsholt ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
Upton chapelry, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
West Challow chapelry, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
West Hanney ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
West Hendred ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Vale of White Horse District, Oxfordshire in 1974
West Ilsley ancient parish, civil parish 1894 - 1974 to Newbury District, Berkshire in 1974
West Lockinge hamlet, civil parish 1894 - 1974 absorbed into Lockinge
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Wantage Rural District. 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.

Research Tips

Maps

  • GENUKI's collection of maps for Berkshire. For basic reference are the two online maps Berkshire Parishes (highly recommended) and Berkshire Poor Law Union areas. These locate the individual parishes and indicate the urban and rural districts to which each belonged. There are many other maps listed, some covering specific parts of the county.
  • Wikipedia's outline map of the unitary authorities, shown on many of their Berkshire pages, shows how the new divisions of government relate to the former districts. It has to be remembered that the county was reshaped in 1974 with the urban and rural districts of Abingdon and Faringdon and part of Wantage going to Oxfordshire, and the Borough of Slough (with Eton) coming in from Buckinghamshire. Every attempt is being made to indicate here in WeRelate the civil parishes, towns and villages for which these transfers occurred. Currently there are maps to be found on place pages that deal with civil parishes that transferred from Buckinghamshire into Berkshire. It is planned to provide maps within WeRelate for places that transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire--a much wider geographical area.
  • The extensive collection provided by Genmaps is provided free of charge online (currently offline, March 2016).
  • The Ordnance Survey has produced an up-to-date map of the boundaries of all the post-1974 districts throughout the country. This also shows the electoral constituency boundaries which are destined to change before 2020.

Online Historical References

  • Berkshire Record Office. The Berkshire Record Office [BRO] was established in 1948 to locate and preserve records relating to the county of Berkshire and its people, and anyone who is interested in the county's past. As well as original documents, catalogues and indexes, there is a library at the Record Office.
  • Berkshire Family History Society Research Centre. "The Berks FHS Centre can help you - wherever your ancestors came from. There is a Research Centre Library open to all."
  • West Berkshire Museum, Newbury, is housed in a building with an interesting past, but is currently closed for redevelopment. No information on their collections.
  • The GENUKI provision for Berkshire has been updated more recently than that for some of the other counties. A member of the Berkshire Family History Society is credited with this revision.
  • The FamilySearch Wiki on Berkshire explains the jurisdictions relating to civil affairs, parishes and probate (wills and testaments) for each parish in the county and also outlines when these jurisdictions were in existence. Alterations required to cover the post-1974 period have not been carried out for every parish concerned.
  • Brett Langston's list of Registration Districts in Berkshire will lead to specific parishes with dates.
  • Local History Online is a compilation of websites from Berkshire local history clubs, societies and associations.
  • The Berkshire section of The Victoria History of the Counties of England, in four volumes, is provided by British History Online. Volumes 3 and 4 provide an extensive history of the county, parish by parish, up to the end of the 19th century. There are local maps illustrating the text. Manors and their owners are discussed. Parishes are arranged in their original "hundreds"; the hundred for each placename in the Berkshire section of WeRelate will eventually be available.

Nineteenth Century Local Administration

English Jurisdictions is a webpage provided by FamilySearch which analyses every ecclesiastical parish in England at the year 1851. It provides, with the aid of outline maps, the date at which parish records and bishops transcripts begin, non-conformist denominations with a chapel within the parish, the names of the jurisdictions in charge: county, civil registration district, probate court, diocese, rural deanery, poor law union, hundred, church province; and links to FamilySearch historical records, FamilySearch Catalog and the FamilySearch Wiki. Two limitations: only England, and at the year 1851.

During the 19th century two bodies, the Poor Law Union and the Sanitary District, had responsibility for governmental functions at a level immediately above that covered by the civil parish. In 1894 these were replace by Rural and Urban Districts. These were elected bodies, responsible for setting local property assessments and taxes as well as for carrying out their specified duties. Thses districts continued in operation until 1974. Urban districts for larger municipalities were called "Municipal Boroughs" and had additional powers and obligations.

Poor Law Unions, established nationally in 1834, combined parishes together for the purpose of providing relief for the needy who had no family support. This led to the building of '"union poorhouses" or "workhouses" funded by all the parishes in the union. The geographical boundaries established for the individual Poor Law Unions were employed again when Registration Districts were formed three years later. In 1875 Sanitary Districts were formed to provide services such as clean water supply, sewage systems, street cleaning, and the clearance of slum housing. These also tended to follow the same geographical boundaries, although there were local alterations caused by changes in population distribution.