Place:Cranfield, Bedfordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Cranfield is a village and civil parish in northwest Bedfordshire, England, between Bedford and Milton Keynes. It had a population of 4,909 at the 2001 UK census, increasing to 5,369 at the 2011 census. Since 2009 it has been located in the Central Bedfordshire District.

The hamlet of Bourne End (one of a number of hamlets and villages of this name in this part of England) is located just north of Cranfield, and is part of the civil parish. Wharley End is also in the parish and was a separate settlement, but now forms the northern part of Cranfield village, by the university.

Cranfield University is a British postgraduate and research-based public university specialising in science, engineering, technology and management. The main campus is at Cranfield and was founded as the College of Aeronautics in 1946, and became a university in its own right as the Cranfield Institute of Technology in 1969. RAF Cranfield was the forerunner of the College of Aeronautics.

Surnames in Cranfield

WHEELER: A large number of Wheelers who originated in Cranfield in the early 1600s emigrated to the American colonies and were early settlers of Concord, MA and Fairfield, CT.

Research Tips

• The website British History Online provides three chapters of the Victoria County History Series on Bedfordshire. The first covers the religious houses of the county; the second and third provides articles on the parishes of the county. The parishes are arranged within their "hundreds".
• GENUKI main page for Bedfordshire 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.
• Bedfordshire family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
• 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. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Bedfordshire, 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.
• These two maps indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this 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.

• Map of Bedfordshire 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 Bedfordshire 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.

• Wikimedia Commons map of the post-1974 districts of Bedfordshire. The numbers will be linked to the districts on the WeRelate district pages.
• A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is provided on each of the pages for the hundreds in Bedfordshire.
• Cranfield, Bedfordshire in A Vision of Britain Through Time