Place:Littleport, Isle of Ely, England

Watchers
NameLittleport
Alt namesLitelportsource: Domesday Book (1985) p 48
Redmeresource: small parish on edge of Norfolk, absorbed
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates52.467°N 0.317°E
Located inIsle of Ely, England     (1889 - 1965)
Also located inCambridgeshire, England     ( - 1889)
Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely, England     (1965 - 1974)
Cambridgeshire, England     (1974 - )
See alsoEly Hundred, Cambridgeshire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Ely Rural, Isle of Ely, Englandrural district 1894-1974
East Cambridgeshire District, Cambridgeshire, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974

NOTE: In 1889 Cambridgeshire was separated into two sections:

The existence of two counties was to last until 1965 when they came back together as Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely. But in 1974 the area, under a new type of administration, reverted to the name Cambridgeshire. For more discussion of this situation, see Isle of Ely, England. In keeping with the policies of WeRelate, all the places within the Isle of Ely during its existence include "Isle of Ely" in their placenames instead of "Cambridgeshire".

A process is built in so that the places can be redirected to the Isle of Ely if they are originally referred to as Cambridgeshire.


the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Littleport is the largest village and civil parish by area in the East Cambridgeshire District that is within the Isle of Ely. It lies about 6 miles (10 km) northeast of Ely and 6 miles (10 km) southeast of Welney (in Norfolk), on the Bedford Level South section of the River Great Ouse, close to Burnt Fen and Mare Fen.

It covers an area of 28.46 sq mi (73.7 km2). In the UK census of 2011 it had a population of 8,738.

History

Littleport was the site of the Littleport Riots of 1816 after war-weary veterans from the Battle of Waterloo had returned home, only to find that they could get no work and the grain prices had gone up. They took to the streets and smashed shops and other buildings until troops were brought in. The Littleport riots influenced the passage of the Vagrancy Act 1824.

St. George's church registers were destroyed during the riots. The remaining registers start from 1754 (marriages), 1756 (burials), and 1783 (baptisms). Some original documents relating to the riots are held in Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at the County Record Office which is now in Ely.

In 2003, a Harley-Davidson statue was unveiled in Littleport to commemorate the centenary of the motorcycle company. William Harley, father of the company's co-founder William Sylvester Harley, had been born in Victoria Street, Littleport, in 1835 and emigrated to the United States in 1859.

Research Tips

  • Original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire 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 many if not all the ancient parishes of Cambridgeshire and these can be purchased from the Society as separate pdfs.
  • A History of the County of Cambridge. Seven 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. From the numbering it would appear that some parts of the county are yet to be published online, but the first two volumes for any county are of little interest to the genealogist. The chapters are ordered by the divisions of the county called hundreds, but each parish is listed in the volume's content page.
  • GENUKI has a page on Cambridgeshire 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. Each parish page includes a map of the parish provided by Open Street Maps.
  • 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" for each parish and borough leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974.
  • Map of Cambridgeshire divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
  • Map of Cambridge divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Littleport, Cambridgeshire. 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.