Place:Bluntisham cum Earith, Huntingdonshire, England

Bluntisham cum Earith was a civil parish in Huntingdonshire, England, that existed from 1894 until 1948. In 1948 the two settlements of Bluntisham and Earith were established as separate civil parishes. Before and after the split the parishes were in St Ives Rural District. For the changes that occurred to this area following 1948, see the pages for the individual parishes. Before the advent of the rural district, Bluntisham was the ecclesiastical or ancient parish and Earith was a hamlet within it.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Bluntisham from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"BLUNTISHAM, a township and a parish in St. Ives district, Huntingdon. The township lies on the river Ouse, 3 miles SE of Somersham [railway] station, and 4½ NE of St. Ives; and has a post office under St. Ives. Real property: £4,961. The parish includes also the hamlet of Earith. Acres: 3,423. Real property: £9,747. Population: 1,351. Houses: 314. The property is much subdivided. The manor was given, in 1015, to Ely Abbey. Bluntisham House is the seat of the Tebbuts. Part of the land is fen.

"The living is a rectory in the diocese of Ely. Value: £1,010. Patron: the Bishop of Peterborough. The church is early English; terminates, in the east, in a half hexagon; and has a screen, a piscina, and an octagonal font. There are chapels for Independents, Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists, and Quakers. An endowed school has £88 a year; other charities £138. Dr. Knight, author of Lives of Erasmus and Dean Colet, was rector."

Research Tips

• Original historical documents relating to Huntingdonshire are now held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at Shire Hall, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4GS
• The Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Family History Society has transcribed the parish registers for all the ancient parishes of Huntingdonshire and these can be purchased from the Society as pdfs.
• A History of the County of Huntingdon in 3 volumes from British History Online (Victoria County Histories). This is by far the most complete history of the parishes of the county to be found online. The chapters are ordered by the divisions of the county called hundreds, but each chapter is linked to the volume's content page. Volume 2 (published 1932) covers Hurstingstone and Toseland hundreds (index of parishes); Leightonstone and Norman Cross Hundreds (index of parishes) are found in Volume 3 (published 1936). Volume 1 is a part-volume describing the religious houses of the county.
• GENUKI has a page on Huntingdonshire and pages for each of the ecclesiastical or ancient parishes in the county. These give references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, 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.
• Map of Huntingdonshire divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of Huntingdonshire divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time