Place:Little Hale, Lincolnshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Little Hale is a hamlet and civil parish in the North Kesteven District of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 5 miles (8 km) southeast from the town of Sleaford, and directly south from the larger villages of Great Hale and Heckington. Adjacent villages include Burton Pedwardine, Great Hale and Helpringham. Little Hale, a village of approximately 60 houses, lies on the western edge of the Lincolnshire Fens.

Little Hale was originally a township in Great Hale ancient parish in the Kesteven part of Lincolnshire. It was made a separate civil parish in 1866. When a township, it was in Aswardhurn wapentake, and was in Sleaford poor law union and rural sanitary districts. From 1894 to 1931 it was in Sleaford Rural District, and from 1931 to 1974 it was in East Kesteven Rural District.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

In 1885 Kelly's Directory described Little Hale as a township with an 1881 population of 362, and land of some parts light loam, and some, clay. Chief crops grown were wheat, barley, oats, beans, seeds and turnips. The village contained a post office, and a National School for 130 children, with an average attendance of 90. The 3rd Marquess of Bristol was Lord of the Manor. Little Hale commercial occupations at the time were twelve farmers, publicans at the Nags Head and Bowling Green public houses, two shopkeepers, a grocer & draper, a wheelwright and a shoe maker. The settlement of Broadhurst existed south-east from Little Hale.

In 1933 Kelly's described a Little Hale township area of and of water, and a 1921 population of 264. Lord of the Manor was the 4th Marquess of Bristol MVO. No school was noted in the village. Little Hale commercial occupations were nineteen farmers, a wheelwright, two shopkeepers, one of whom ran the post office, and a publican at the Bowling Green public house. There was a bus service between the village and Sleaford. No mention was made of the settlement of Broadhurst.

Research Tips

Lincolnshire is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. The larger drainage channels, many of which are parallel to each other, became boundaries between parishes. Many parishes are long and thin for this reason.

There is much fenland in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Boston and Horncastle areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial before the mid 1850s, and although many sections were identified with names and given the title "civil parish", little information has been found about them. Many appear to be abolished in 1906, but the parish which adopts them is not given in A Vision of Britain through Time. Note the WR category Lincolnshire Fenland Settlements which is an attempt to organize them into one list.

From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were, nonetheless. In 1974 the northern section of Lindsey, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire, became the short-lived county of Humberside. In 1996 Humberside was abolished and the area previously in Lincolnshire was made into the two "unitary authorities" of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The remainder of Lincolnshire was divided into "non-metropolitan districts" or "district municipalities" in 1974. Towns, villages and parishes are all listed under Lincolnshire, but the present-day districts are also given so that places in this large county can more easily be located and linked to their wider neighbourhoods. See the WR placepage Lincolnshire, England and the smaller divisions for further explanation.

• Maps provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time show all the parishes and many villages and hamlets. (Small local reorganization of parishes took place in the 1930s led to differences between the latter two maps.):

• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map of 1888 with Poor Law Union divisions
• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map of 1900 with early Rural District divisions
• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map, revised 1937 with later Rural District divisions

• FindMyPast now has a large collection of Lincolnshire baptisms, banns, marriages and burials now available to search by name, year, place and parent's names. This is a pay website. (blog dated 16 Sep 2016)
• GENUKI's page on Lincolnshire's Archive Service gives addresses, phone numbers, webpages for all archive offices, museums and libraries in Lincolnshire which may store old records and also presents a list entitled "Hints for the new researcher" which may include details of which you are not aware. These suggestions are becoming more and more outdated, but there's no telling what may be expected in a small library.
• GENUKI also has pages of information on individual parishes, particularly ecclesiastical parishes. The author may just come up with morsels not supplied in other internet-available sources.
• Deceased Online now has records for 11 cemeteries and two crematoria in Lincolnshire. This includes Grimsby's Scartho Road cemetery, Scartho Road crematorium, and Cleethorpes cemetery, council records for the City of Lincoln and Gainsborough, and older church records from The National Archives for St Michael's in Stamford, and St Mark's in Lincoln, dating back to 1707. This is a pay website.