Place:Walton on the Hill, Lancashire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

Walton on the Hill was an ancient parish of the West Derby Hundred of Lancashire, England. Its townships stretched all the way up the Irish Sea coast to Formby and included many places recognized today as parts of the county of Merseyside which was formed in 1974. The townships were West Derby, Everton, Walton, Fazakerley, Bootle, Kirkdale, Toxteth Park, Formby, Kirkby and Simonswood. the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Walton (its modern name) is an area of Liverpool, Lancashire (now Merseyside, England) north of Everton and east of Bootle and Orrell and Ford. It is now largely residential, but various industries operated there during the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. In 1200, King John gave Walton on the Hill to Richard de Meath, who left it to his brother, Henry de Walton. Henry's son William inherited the land, but died before his son Richard was of age, so Richard was made a ward of Nicholas de la Hose by the Earl of Derby and the estate was managed by nobles outside the family for a time. Walton was then held by the de Walton family until Roger de Walton's death in the 15th century, when it was split through marriage between the Crosse, Chorley and Fazakerley families. Walton Manor later passed through the Breres and Atherton families until it was sold in 1804 to Liverpool banker Thomas Leyland. Some of the Walton land also passed to the Earl of Derby and the Sefton family. Walton Hospital started life in the late 19th century as West Derby Union Workhouse and nearby Walton Parochial Cemetery contains many tens of thousands of unmarked and uncelebrated "common" graves of the poor who depended on the workhouse for sustenance. Walton became part of the county borough of Liverpool in 1895 and joined the civil parish of Liverpool in 1922. In 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, Liverpool became part of the new metropolitian county of Merseyside. The Merseyside County Council only existed until 1986 when many of its functions were transferred to other bodies, but geographically the area is still Merseyside.

Research Tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes were ecclesiastical (described as ancient parishes), 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.
• An urban district was a type of municipality in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish and were used for urban areas usually with populations of under 30,000. Inspecting the archives of a urban 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.
• The terms municipal borough and county borough were adopted in 1835 replacing the historic "boroughs". Municipal boroughs generally had populations between 30,000 and 50,000; while county boroughs usually had populations of over 50,000. County boroughs had local governments independent of the county in which they were located, but municipal boroughs worked in tandem with the county administration. Wikipedia explains these terms in much greater detail.
• 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 parish of Walton on the Hill from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1907
• A description of the township of Walton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1907