Place:Morton by Bourne, Lincolnshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

NOTE: Wikipedia suggests that the former name of the parish was Morton by Bourne to distinguish it from Morton (near Gainsborough) located further north in Lincolnshire.

According to A Vision of Britain through Time Morton was, up until 1974, a civil parish in South Kesteven Rural District in Lincolnshire, England. In 1974 the parish became part of the South Kesteven District and subsequently has had its name changed to Morton and Hanthorpe (source:Wikipedia), Hanthorpe being the name of a hamlet within the parish.

The parish is situated 2 miles (3 km) north from Bourne, and 14 miles (23 km) southeast from Grantham. The parish has 921 households in Morton and 74 in Hanthorpe, but the population and the date of these figures is not given in Wikipedia. (GENUKI lists the populations for census years 1801-1931.)

History

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

The village is in two parts, one each side of the fen-edge road, the A15. To the fenward side is Morton and to the upland side is Hanthorpe. The earlier name is that of Morton which will come from the acid peat land which the Anglian settlers found in the fen in around the year 500. The name therefore indicates that the fen was to a significant extent better called the bog in modern terminology. They were Germanic speakers so they called it a moor. Hanthorpe is a name indicating a subsidiary settlement established in the period of the Danish settlements, probably in the tenth century.

The church and the later signs of the manorial centre are in Morton. The church is built in the Early English and Perpendicular styles, and was restored in 1860 and 1951. A Baptist chapel was built in 1875, and closed around a hundred years later.

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

"MORTON, a village and a parish in Bourne [registration] district, Lincoln. The village stands near Car dyke; 2½ miles N by E of Bourn [railway] station, and has a post office under Bourn. The parish contains also the hamlet of Hanthorpe. Acres: 3,390. Real property: £9,382. Population in 1851: 938; in 1861: 1,008. Houses: 203. The manor belongs to the Marquis of Exeter. Hanthorpe House is the seat of W. Parker, Esq. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Hacconby, in the diocese of Lincoln. Value: £400. Patron: the Bishop of Lincoln. The church is ancient; was restored in 1861; and consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with a tower. There are a Baptist chapel, a free school, and charities £33."

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.