Place:Childwall, Lancashire, England

Watchers
NameChildwall
Alt namesChildwallsource: from redirect
Belle Valesource: parish neighbourhood
Bowring Parksource: parish neighbourhood
Broadgreensource: parish neighbourhood
Gateacresource: parish neighbourhood
Netherleysource: parish neighbourhood
TypeAncient parish, Urban district
Coordinates53.395°N 2.881°W
Located inLancashire, England     ( - 1974)
See alsoWest Derby Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Liverpool, Lancashire, Englandcounty borough of which it was a part 1913-1974
Liverpool (metropolitan borough), Merseyside, Englandmetropolitan borough of which it has been a part since 1974
source: Family History Library Catalog
:the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Childwall is now a city district of the Metropolitan Borough of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England, and is a ward within Liverpool City Council. Before 1974 it was in Lancashire. It is located to the south of the city, bordered by the former parishes of Wavertree, Little Woolton and Huyton with Roby and includes the neighbourhoods of Gateacre, Belle Vale, Broadgreen, Bowring Park, and Netherley. In 2008 the population was recorded as 14,085.

Childwall was an urban district from the time of the Local Government Act 1894 until it was annexed to Liverpool County Borough in 1913. In 1922 it became part of the City of Liverpool (the original, but huge, civil parish).

Ancient parish

Childwall was an ancient parish of the West Derby Hundred from before the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is found in the Domesday Book of 1086. All Saints' Church, Childwall, is the oldest church in Liverpool and still maintains a lively and full congregation. Though Childwall still maintains a large Jewish community, since the 1980s this has been in gradual decline with some of those formerly of the Childwall Jewish community now living in Gateacre and Allerton.

Image:Liverpool 1917 revised.png

The townships of the ancient parish were

Childwallfully absorbed into Liverpool in 1922
Allertonfully absorbed into Liverpool in 1922
Garstonfully absorbed into Liverpool in 1922
Hale (near Widnes)in the Halton unitary authority in Cheshire since 1974
Halewoodpartly absorbed into Widnes, Lancashire in 1920, remainder transferred to Knowsley on the formation of Merseyside in 1974
Little Wooltonfully absorbed into Liverpool in 1922
Much Wooltonfully absorbed into Liverpool in 1922 (today known as Woolton)
Spekeabsorbed into Liverpool in 1932
Wavertreefully absorbed into Liverpool in 1922
Thingwall On the Wirral peninsula and part of Cheshire until 1974; now in the Wirral Metropolitan Borough of Merseyside

Research Tips

  • See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes were ecclesiastical (described as ancient parishes), under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
  • An urban district was a type of municipality in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish and were used for urban areas usually with populations of under 30,000. Inspecting the archives of a urban district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
  • Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
  • The terms municipal borough and county borough were adopted in 1835 replacing the historic "boroughs". Municipal boroughs generally had populations between 30,000 and 50,000; while county boroughs usually had populations of over 50,000. County boroughs had local governments independent of the county in which they were located, but municipal boroughs worked in tandem with the county administration. Wikipedia explains these terms in much greater detail.
  • Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
  • FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
  • Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
  • A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
  • A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
  • GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
  • The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
  • A description of the parish of Childwall from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1907
  • A description of the township of Childwall from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1907
  • A list of cemeteries in Liverpool giving the locality, type of burial ground, the denomination, and information on whether inscriptions exist and where they might be found.
  • FindAGrave has investigated 47 cemeteries in Liverpool.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Childwall. 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.