CHESTERFIELD, Derbyshire

Census

• The parish was in the Chesterfield sub-district of the Chesterfield Registration District.
  
  
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
  
  

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Church History

• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to All Saints.
  
  
• The church seats 250.
  
  
• Holy Trinity Church was built in 1837 to meet the expanding population of Chesterfield.
  
  
• Holy Trinity Church was refurbished in 1889 and again in 1994.
  
  
• You can tour the Holy Trinity Church website for more information.
  
  
• Starting construction in September, 1869, Christ Church opened one year later to serve the people in the Stonegravels district of Chesterfield.
  
  
• Christ Church became a separate ecclessiastical parish in 1913.
  

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Church Records

• We have a pop-up window of Parish Register burials in a text file for your review. Your additions are welcomed.
  
  
• The first surviving Chesterfield Parish Register dates from November 1558 until March 1635, and a printed copy is available as two volumes of Derbyshire Record Society Publications.
  
  These two volumes are based on a typescript prepared in 1936-8 by Miss Mary Walton, then archivist at Sheffield Central Library. The period she covered was up to 1600. The transcription project was continued in the 1960s, by Students at Sheffield University, and the combined transcripts, which continue until about 1800, are now lodged in the Derbyshire Record Office (information recorded in the first volume above).
  
  
• Here is a list of Chesterfield Parish Registers available on Microfilm from LDS Family History Libraries. Film Numbers are reproduced on GENUKI by kind permission of the Genealogical Society of Utah.
  
  

  Parish registers, 1558-1971.	Microfilm Number
  Baptisms, 1838-1886 Marriages, 1854-1876	1041032 item 6-9.
  Marriages, 1876-1895 Burials, 1839-1900	1041033 item 1-3
  Baptisms, marriages & burials, 1558-1672 Marriages, 1653-1658 Baptisms, marriages & burials, 1697-1812	1752142 item 3-8.
  Baptisms, marriages & burials, 1812; 1733-1788 Baptisms, 1833-1855; 1878-1908	1752143
  Marriages, 1754-1847	1752144
  Marriages, 1847-1874	1752145
  Marriages, 1874-1901	1752146
  Banns, 1830-1848 Burials, 1813-1915, 1921 Burials for St. Peter's Church, Calow, a chapelry in Chesterfield, 1872-1898	1752147 item 1-5
  Baptisms, marriages and burials, 1612-1760 Baptisms, 1813-1833; 1856-1878	1785838 item 2-7.
  Burials, 1853-1921 (Includes burials for St. Peter's in Calow, 1872-1898.) Marriages, 1901-1917 (To 16 Apr. 1917.)	2081283 item 2-5.
  Marriages, 1917-1921 (from 21 Apr. 1917.)	2081284 item 1
  Marriages, 1921-1928 (18 June 1921-9 Apr. 1928) (2 registers).	2103927 item 14-15.
  Marriages, 1928-1971 (7 Apr. 1928-11 Dec. 1971) (4 registers). Baptisms, 1934-1945.	2103928
  Bishop's transcripts, 1665-1883.	Microfilm Number
  Baptisms, marriages, and burials, 1665-1804	0422195
  Baptisms, marriages and burials, 1804 cont.-1810	0422196
  Baptisms, marriages and burials, 1813-1824	0497397
  Baptisms, marriages and burials, 1824 cont.-1835	0497398
  Baptisms, marriages and burials, 1835 cont.-1837 Baptisms and burials, 1838-1855	0498050
  Baptisms and burials, 1855 cont.-1883	0498051

• "Parish Chest" Papers for Chesterfield include a thick-ish ledger for Chesterfield Union Poor Law - Churchwardens & Overseers of the Poor, Audit of Accounts 23rd Jan 1845. The book contains details of land & property, acreage, rateable value, etc, and a list of Owners/Occupiers. My grateful thanks to Janet Kirk for this information, and for the list below.

  Examples (in surname, forename order as per the original):-

  Owner	Occupier
  Hancock Cornelius	Anthony William
  "     "	Anthony George
  Drabble James	Drabble James (2 lots of land & a weighing machine)
  "     "	Brocklehurst William
  Devonshire Duke of	Bowring John
  Drabble James	Bradshaw Luke
  Hancock Cornelius	Cooper Joseph
  Outram Collis Sam	Drabble Joseph
  Drabble James	Drabble James (Hollis property & land)

  
  
  
• The church was in the rural deanery of Chesterfield.
  

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Civil Registration

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
  
  
• The parish was in the Chesterfield sub-district of the Chesterfield Registration District.
  

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Description and Travel

"CHESTERFIELD is an ancient corporate and market-town, and parish, in the hundred of Scarsdale, 150 miles from London, 48 S.E. from Manchester, 24 N. from Derby, the like distance E. from Buxton, 12 E. from Bakewell, the like distance S. from Sheffield, and 8 N. by E. from Matlock. It is a large but irregularly built town, pleasantly situate between two rivulets, the Hyper and Rother, in the beautiful and fertile vale of Scarsdale, and is the second considerable town in the county of Derby. The Saxon appellation of Ceaster proves it to have been a place of great antiquity and considerable importance, and it is imagined to have originated from a Roman station."

[Description from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835]

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Folklore

• There's a traditional verse which states:-

  "When Chesterfield was gorse and broom
  Leash Fen was a market town
  Now Chesterfield is a market town
  Leash Fen is but gorse and broom"

  Leash Fen, or Leys Fen is on the high moorland west of Chesterfield, and said to be the site of a sunken market town, possibly of Iron Age vintage. Several sites on the surrounding moorland have already been excavated - for instance, Gardom's Edge, near Baslow - demonstrating habitation of these uplands during pre-history.

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Gazetteers

• The transcription of the section for Chesterfield from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.

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History

• Transcription of section of Lysons' Topographical and Historical Account of Derbyshire, 1817, for Chesterfield by Barbarann Ayars.

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Military Records

• Christ Chruch contains a carved oak plaque "roll of Honour" to the men of the Stonegravels district who died in World War One.

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Obituaries

• We have a fine example of an obituary from the Derby & Chesterfield Reporter for John HALLAM.

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Politics and Government

• This parish was in the ancient Scarsdale Hundred (or Wapentake).
  

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Poorhouses, Poor Law, etc.

• As a result of the 1834 Poorlaw Amendment Act reforms, this parish became a member of the Chesterfield Poorlaw Union.
  

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Probate Records

• Chesterfield Wills and Inventories, 1521-1603 - one of Derbyshire Record Society Publications, unfortunately out of print, but should be available for study via Inter-Library Loan (ILL).
  
  
• Chesterfield Wills and Inventories, 1604-1650 - one of Derbyshire Record Society Publications, published April 2001.

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Schools

• The following information is a quotation from A History of Derbyshire, (Gladwyn Turbutt, 1999).

"Chesterfield had a grammar school which was flourishing in the mid- thirteenth century and dependent on the parish Church. The first record of the school occurs in a letter dating from the reign of Henry III in which Henry, a clerk of Ashbourne, wrote to the vicar of Chesterfield thanking him for his assistance in securing his appointment as schoolmaster of the Chesterfield school...Only one other reference to a Chesterfield schoolmaster occurs in the medieval period: this is to Sir Henry of Sutton, described as 'master of the schols of Chesterfield', in a deed of 1337 and again in one of 1346-7. The school no doubt continued, probably under the auspices of the Gild of St Mary and the Holy Cross, until the dissolution of the chantries and gilds in 1548. The location of the medieval school is unknown. When the later grammar school was established in 1598, as a result of the testamentary bequest of Godfrey Foljambe of Walton, the chapel of St Helen's was apparently converted into a school house, which remained in use until the early eighteenth century when new premises were built nearby."

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Social Life and Customs

• Chesterfield has held a market since earliest times - the Sheriff of Derbyshire recorded an account of £1 2s 7d from the market of Chesterfield as long ago as 1165. The town's market place was much closer to the Church in the Middle Ages, and the church was used as a store for market goods. This is why in May 1226 during the Battle of Chesterfield, there were sacks of wool in the Nave of the Church for the Earl of Derby to hide amongst!

  The present Market Hall was built in 1857 by the Chesterfield Market Company and bought by Chesterfield Corporation in 1872 for the sum of £11,500. (Ref: A History of Derbyshire, Gladwyn Turbutt, 1999).

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