Place:St. Sepulchre Middlesex, Middlesex, England

St. Sepulchre Middlesex or St. Sepulchre Holborn (or Middlesex St. Sepulchre or Holborn St. Sepulchre) was a civil parish located in the Holborn District of Middlesex on the north side of the City of London. It was separated from the civil parish of St. Sepulchre without Newgate which was formally in the City of London and which held the church known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was the local church which would have been attended by Anglicans (Church of England members) who lived in St. Sepulchre Middlesex. Holborn was a local government district in the metropolitan area of London to the northwest of the City of London from 1855 to 1900. (At this time the area including the City of London and the built up area beyond it was called "The Metropolis".) Although this area was less densely populated than the City to the east and south, it was still very urban in nature. In 1889 the Holborn District was wound up and became a local council under the London County Council.

The district was entirely abolished in 1900, when the County of London was divided into twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs. Holborn Metropolitan Borough was drawn up to contain civil parishes in the western part of the Holborn District plus others formerly in the St. Giles District, but St. Sepulchre Middlesex and its neighbour Glasshouse Yard were taken into the Finsbury Metropolitan Borough

In the reorganization of London that took place in 1965 and created Greater London, St. Sepulchre Middlesex was situated in the London Borough of Islington.

The boundary between the City of London and Holborn cut through Smithfield Market, the livestock market for London. Farringdon Tube Station is also in the area.

Research tips

• The FamilySearch Wiki article entitled St Sepulchre, London Genealogy leads to many sources connected with the church and its parish. The same page is also found under Middlesex parishes in their index. This page has a useful map (quite a way down the page) for placing the parish in relation to its neighbours. In this case the map shows the two civil parishes of St. Sepulchre.
• A boundary map for St. Sepulchre in the 19th century provided by A Vision of Britain through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography) shows how urban this area was in both London and Holborn.
• A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes , published 1985, from the Victoria County History Series provided online by British History Online. Follows the growth of this part of London in depth from 1740 forward almost to the present day. Includes a number of maps of different periods on the timeline. 225 pages plus index in the original book.

Middlesex Research Tips

Parts of Middlesex were absorbed into London in 1889 (Inner London), and some in 1965 (Outer London). Depending on the specific location and the year being investigated it may be necessary to check London records as well as those of Middlesex.

• See wiki.familysearch.org under "Middlesex" for key information about the jurisdictions and records of Middlesex, plus links to indexes, reference aids and Family History Library holdings. As at October 2019 FamilySearch has updated its listings of Parish Registers, 1538-1912 for Westminster.
• The London Metropolitan Archives (40 Northampton Road, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 0HB) holds records relating to the whole of Greater London. Ancestry (subscription necessary) has produced transcriptions and provides images of lists of baptisms, marriages, and burials in churches across Greater London. These lists start in 1813 and stretch into the 20th century.
• The Victoria History of the County of Middlesex is a series of volumes available online through British History Online. The volumes were written over the past hundred or so years by a number of authors and cover various sections of Middlesex. A list of the volumes and what each contains can be found under the source Victoria History of the County of Middlesex
• GENUKI has a long list of websites and archive holders in addition to London Metropolitan Archives above. (The list from GENUKI is not maintained so well that there is never a dead link in it. However, it is often worth googling the title given on the page just in case the contributor has reorganized their website.)
• GENUKI has a separate page for Middlesex references.
• GENUKI also has a list of the Archives and Local Studies Libraries for each of the boroughs of Greater London.
• Registration Districts in Middlesex and Registration Districts in London, are lists of the registration districts used for civil registration (births, marriages and deaths, as well as the censuses). There are linked supporting lists of the parishes which made up each registration district, the dates of formation and abolition of the districts, the General Register Office numbers, and the local archive-holding place. This work has been carried out by Brett Langston under the agency of GENUKI (Genealogy United Kingdom and Ireland) and UKBMD - Births, Marriages, Deaths & Censuses on the Internet.