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- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Chesterfield is a large market town and borough in Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby and south of Sheffield at the confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Including Whittington, Brimington and Staveley it had a population of about 103,800 in the UK census of 2011, making it the second largest town in the ceremonial county after Derby.
Archaeologists trace it back to a Roman fort built in the 1st century AD, but soon abandoned. Later an Anglo-Saxon village developed. The name derives from the Old English ceaster (a Roman fort) and feld (grazing land). It has a street market of some 250 stalls three days a week. The town sits on a coalfield, which was economically important until the 1980s. Little visual evidence of mining remains.
The best-known landmark is the Church of St Mary and All Saints with its crooked spire, originally built in the 14th century.
History
Chesterfield was in the Hundred of Scarsdale. The town received its market charter in 1204 from King John, which constituted the town as a free borough, granting the burgesses of Chesterfield the privileges of those of Nottingham and Derby. In 1266, the Battle of Chesterfield saw a band of rebel barons defeated by a royalist army.
Under Hundred of Scarsdale is a list of the subsidiary townships and chapelries to Chesterfield.
Elizabeth I in 1594 or 1598, granted a charter creating a corporation of a mayor, six aldermen, six brethren, and twelve capital burgesses. This remained its charter until the borough was reshaped under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. It originally consisted only of the township of Chesterfield, but absorbed some surrounding townships in 1892 (sections of the parishes of Brampton, Hasland, Newbold and Dunston, and Walton). There was a major extension in 1910 when the borough absorbed the following surrounding areas:
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and again in 1920
- part of Brampton, area: 173 acres, population in 1921: 44.
- part of Brimington, area: 60 acres, population in 1921: 10.
- part of Hasland, area: 159 acres, population in 1921: 117.
- the abolition of Newbold and Dunston, area: 2,583 acres, population in 1921: 8,124.
- the abolition of Tapton, area: 699 acres, population in 1921: 383.
- part of Walton, area: 576 acres, population in 1921: 129.
- the abolition of Whittington, area: 1,581 acres, population in 1921: 11,617.
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Chesterfield's current boundaries date from 1 April 1974, when the Borough or District of Chesterfield was formed under the Local Government Act 1972 by amalgamating
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Chesterfield benefited much from the building of the Chesterfield Line – part of the Derby to Leeds railway (North Midland Line) begun in 1837 by George Stephenson. During the work, a sizeable seam of coal was discovered while the Clay Cross Tunnel was constructed. This and the local ironstone were exploited by Stephenson, who set up a company in Clay Cross to trade in the minerals.
During his time in Chesterfield, Stephenson lived at Tapton House, remaining there until his death in 1848. He is interred in Trinity Church. A statue of him was erected outside Chesterfield railway station in 2006.
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.
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