|
|
- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Ulverston is a market town and civil parish in the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England. Prior to 1974 it was located in the county of Lancashire. The town is in the Furness area 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Barrow in Furness. It is close to the Lake District, and just north of Morecambe Bay. It is neighboured on the west by the parish of Pennington and its hamlet of Rosside. Within Ulverston are the settlements of Dragley Beck, Outcast, Rake Head and Swarthmoor.
Ulverston's most visible landmark is Hoad Monument, a concrete structure built in 1850 to commemorate statesman and local resident Sir John Barrow. The monument provides views of the surrounding area, including Morecambe Bay and parts of the Lake District.
Ulverston Canal, no longer navigable, was once a vital component of the town's economy.
Ulverston is a comparatively large civil parish with a population of 11,678 in the UK census of 2011. It is bounded in the east by the Leven estuary, the River Crake, Coniston Water and Yewdale Beck. To the west the boundary follows a chain of hills, and beyond that lie the parishes of Dalton in Furness and Kirkby Ireleth. To the south is relatively low land, which rises quickly. In the north are hills such as Coniston Old Man.
| 
For code for numbered places, see the page for Ulverston Rural District.
The smaller urban disticts are Ulverston and Grange over Sands
|
Ulverston was an ancient parish which included other chapelries or townships that later became separate civil parishes: Blawith, Church Coniston, Egton with Newland, Lowick, Mansriggs, Osmotherley, Subberthwaite and Torver.
From 1894 to 1974 the town served as an urban district in the administrative county of Lancashire. Under the Local Government Act 1972 it became a successor parish in the Cumbria district of South Lakeland.
Research Tips
- See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes (known as ancient parishes) were ecclesiastical, 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.
- Rural districts were groups of geographically close civil parishes in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish. Inspecting the archives of a rural 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.
- 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 township of Ulverston and a description of the ancient parish from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914
|
|
