Place:Wyke Regis, Dorset, England

Watchers
NameWyke Regis
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish, Suburb
Coordinates50.592°N 2.475°W
Located inDorset, England     ( - 1933)
See alsoWimborne St. Giles Hundred, Dorset, Englandhundred in which it was located
Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, Dorset, Englandmunicipal borough of which it was part 1835-1894
Weymouth Rural, Dorset, Englandrural district 1894-1933
Weymouth, Dorset, Englandcivil parish into which it was part absorbed in 1933
Chickerell, Dorset, Englandcivil parish into which it was part absorbed in 1933
Weymouth and Portland District, Dorset, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area 1974-2019
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Wyke Regis (#14 on map) is a civil parish anda village in south Dorset, England. The village is now part of the southwestern suburbs of Weymouth, on the northern shore of Portland Harbour and the southeastern end of Chesil Beach. Wyke is 15 kilometres (9 mi) south of the county town of Dorchester and, since the millenium, has a population of around 5,500.

All Saints' Church in the village is known to have been frequented by King George III during his summer visits to Weymouth between 1790 and 1805. Construction of the church started around 1451; it took four years to build and was dedicated on 19 October 1455. The church is constructed of local stone brought from quarries on Portland and at the local village of Upwey. The church was the main place of worship for Weymouth citizens until the first sizeable church was built in the main part of the town in the 19th century.

Image:Weymouth at 1900 small.png

The victims of the 1805 sinking in Weymouth Harbour of the East Indiamen ship Earl of Abergavenny, including its captain John Wordsworth, brother of poet William Wordsworth, are buried in the churchyard, as are bodies recovered from Alexander, a merchant vessel shipwrecked in 1815 two miles (3 km) from the Isle of Portland. Because of the treacherous local currents and the long sweep of Chesil Beach on which many ships ran aground, the village, as well as the neighbouring Isle of Portland gained a reputation for both smuggling and the looting of wrecks.

The major industry in the area was Whitehead Torpedo Works, which has now closed. As the major employer in the village, Whitehead's funded the building of two schools, which opened in 1897. Whitehead's expertise also led to the Royal Naval establishment at Portland becoming a major anti-submarine and torpedo warfare centre in both the First and Second World Wars.

Governance

Wyke Regis was originally a parish in the Wimborne St. Giles Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. It was absorbed into the municipal borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis from the latter's formation in 1835, but removed in 1894 to become part of the Weymouth Rural District.

Weymouth Rural District was abolished in 1933 and split between Dorchester Rural District which absorbed the more rural section and the civil parish of Weymouth which took the more built-up part. At this time Wyke Regis itself was split between the rural parish of Chickerell and Weymouth itself.

In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. Wyke Regis joined the non-metropolitan Weymouth and Portland District, Dorset, England.

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.

  • 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).

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Wyke Regis. 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.