HAMPSHIRE
Description from 19th Century Gazetteer.
"Hampshire, Hants, or Southampton, maritime county
(including the Isle of Wight), in South of England; bounded north by
Berks, east by Surrey and Sussex, south by the English Channel, and
west by Wilts and Dorset; greatest length (exclusive of the Isle of
Wight), north to south, 46 miles; greatest breadth, east to west, 46
miles; 1,037,764 acres, population, 593,470. (The figures of acres and
population include the Isle of Wight.) Hampshire is undulating, finely
wooded, and fruitful. Its coast line is very inregular, the principal
indentation being Southampton Water. From Surrey and Sussex, north-east
to Wilts and Berks, two ranges of chalk hills, known as the North and
South Downs, traverse the county. In the west is the New Forest, and in
the south-east are the Forests of Bere and Waltham Chase. The Avon,
Exe, Test, Itching, and Hamble are the chief rivers. The county is
noted for its agriculture, the wheat of Hampshire being especially
prized. Upon the Downs are reared large flocks of the variety of sheep
known as "Hampshire Downs," or "short wools." Pig breeding, and the
curing of bacon, have long been large and lucrative branches of the
county's industry. The mineral resources are meagre; and, except in
large coast towns, such as Portsmouth and Gosport, the manufactures
also are unimportant. The shipping, however, is very extensive.
Hampshire (with the Isle of Wight) comprises 38 hundreds, 12 liberties,
349 parishes, with parts of 3 others..."
INFORMATION RELATED TO ALL OF HAMPSHIRE
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- The Hampshire
Record Office is located at Winchester (Sussex Road, Winchester, HANTS SO23 8TH UK) and is part of the Hampshire County Council's Archives and Local Studies section of the Recreation and Heritage department. Included in their mandate are archives, and libraries. One of the projects supported by the Hampshire Record Office was the digitization of historic Hampshire photographs (10,000 images from the 1850s to the 1990s). The Hampshire Photographic Project is part of the online catalogue which also includes all wills proved in the courts of Winchester Diocese to 1858.
- The Portsmouth
Museums and Records Service is located in the same building as the Portsmouth City Museum. The 14th century records of the Portsmouth City Council are held there. There are also large collections of material deposited by local businesses, family groupings and other organizations. The first floor public Search Room houses thousands of local maps and plans, photographs and picture postcards.
- Southampton
City Archives Services. Holdings in the archives date from 1199 onwards. The reading room in the heart of Southampton's fine Civic Centre, to consult the materials in the collection. You will find us in the basement level of the South Block. An appointment isn't necessary, but you may wish to contact the archivist before your visit, to ensure the information or items you're looking for is held. The Reading Room is accessible to wheelchair users. Hand-magnifiers and lamp-magnifiers are also available. There is no charge for visiting the reading room, which is open Tuesday - Friday 9.30am - 4.30pm.
- Isle
of Wight Record Office - their material spans 12th to 21st centuries and includes
parish, estate, family, businesses, schools and local government for
the island. The Record Office undertakes research for those who are not able to visit in person. The charge is £15.00 for a 1 hour search of documents held by the Office. There are also several private record agents working on the Isle of Wight, and a list of these is available on request; if a search is beyond the resources of the Office, they reserve the right to refer to this list. Visit this site which has a number of images including a 1627 map of the Island from Speed's Atlas.
- Dorset County Council
have records of the area around Bournemouth, formerly in Hampshire but
now in Dorset. The Dorset Record Office preserves and makes available to the
public the archives and records of the history of Dorset over the last ten centuries.
The archives preserved in the Dorset
Record Office survive from 965 to the present day and relate to every town
and parish in the area of Bournemouth. They record the ownership and
management of the land, the operation of businesses, the conduct of
local government, the administration of justice, the lives of families
and individuals, etc.
- The Staunton
Park Genealogy Centre, based near Havant.
- The University of
Southampton Library, Archive and Manuscript Collections: ("is
particularly strong in areas of nineteenth and twentieth century
political and military history, and archives of Anglo-Jewry").
- Local
Studies & Reference Libraries
-
Hampshire churches links to webpages for a number of Hampshire Churches including photographs.
Isle of Wight Churches which includes a map which is clickable taking you to many of the island's churches (includes photographs, current and historical information).
- Church
Plans Online (Hampshire section), records of The Incorporated
Church Building Society held at Lambeth Palace Archives. There are almost 500 records
of applications for funding of building and restoration from 1818 to 1982. Detail available
varies from a summary of the grant application to a plan of the church before and after the
work, and sometimes an illustration of the church.
- Online Parish Clerk Project
The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project is being co-ordinated by Tony and Linda Knight who are hosting the data on their Knightroots web site (choose Hampshire OPC in the left hand navigation panel on their website). Tony and Linda will maintain the individual parish pages and utilize their own transcriptions plus the many donated transcriptions for the many parishes of Hampshire. Volunteers to help with this enormous project (there are nearly 400 parishes and chapelries in this County) are always welcomed. The online parish clerk is a volunteer who would gather information for a specific parish and provide transcriptions, advice and lookups based on this information. If you would like to take on a particular parish or donate transcriptions for individual parishes please contact Tony and Linda Knight. They would also welcome contributions from anyone who is unable to commit to responsibility for a parish but would still like to contribute. Any contributions that are made will be credited to the submitter.
- Hampshire - Church Records and indexes
- links and information
- Hampshire
Treasures Online - "Those natural or man made features of the
county which are of public interest by reason of their aesthetic,
archaeological, historic, scenic, scientific, sociological or
traditional interest, and whose deterioration or destruction would
represent a serious loss to our heritage".
- Local pages
by area on Hampshire County Council Hantsweb
-
William Cobbett's Rural Rides 1830 - Extracts about Hampshire,
provided by Jean and Martin Norgate on
Old Hampshire mapped which has other descriptions.
- New
Forest History has descriptions and
links for this area. It includes a section on Commoners'
Rights
- Southampton Hall of
Aviation - History of Aviation in Southampton, Hampshire and Solent
area. The museum also has an archive, full of information including
original drawings, maps, books and photographs.
- Online Parish Clerk Project
The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project is being co-ordinated by Tony and Linda Knight who are hosting the data on their Knightroots web site (choose Hampshire OPC in the left hand navigation panel on their website). Tony and Linda will maintain the individual parish pages and utilize their own transcriptions plus the many donated transcriptions for the many parishes of Hampshire. Volunteers to help with this enormous project (there are nearly 400 parishes and chapelries in this County) are always welcomed. The online parish clerk is a volunteer who would gather information for a specific parish and provide transcriptions, advice and lookups based on this information. If you would like to take on a particular parish or donate transcriptions for individual parishes please contact Tony and Linda Knight. They would also welcome contributions from anyone who is unable to commit to responsibility for a parish but would still like to contribute. Any contributions that are made will be credited to the submitter.
- Currently the following other counties have Online Parish Clerk projects: Cornwall, Devon, Dorset,
Sussex, Warwickshire, and
Wiltshire.
- Genealogical
Sources for Hampshire is an 88 page document from Hampshire
Genealogy Society (pdf - 260 kb)
they also provide Genealogy and
Local History - useful links
- Here is a surnames
list, compiled by Chris Broomfield, of the Hampshire-related
research interests of a number of Internet and CompuServe users.
- John Fuller has provided full details of the many Genealogy
Mailing Lists which cover this county. This is but a small part of
the data available on the "Genealogy
Resources on the Internet" pages maintained by John and Chris Gaunt.
- Researchers may be interested in the Hampshire GenWeb and the
Isle of Wight GenWeb
pages.
- Hampshire
Family History and Local History - a directory of Internet sites
for Hampshire and Isle of Wight genealogy, compiled by Alan McGowan.
-
Old Hampshire Mapped
is a site with a variety of maps online. There is an associated
Gazetteer.
Both are also available
on CD from the site compilers,
Jean and Martin Norgate. There is an article about the design and
production of the set of map reproductions in
"Old Hampshire Mapped" by Jean and Martin Norgate, The Cartographic
Journal, Vol 41 No 1 June 2004 p47-53.
- Genmaps also have put online a
variety of
old Hampshire maps.
-
Hampshire map of 1627 by John Speed
- North Hampshire Tithe Map
Project
"has, as it's aim, to transcribe and digitise all the Tithe
Apportionments and Tithe Maps
for that area of North Hampshire covered by the present Borough of
Basingstoke & Deane.
Additionally all the data from the Tithe Apportionments is being
compiled into a searchable
database. This is a private research project being carried out by Gerry
Dutton.
-
Free Historical Maps for the county of Hampshire and the Isle of
Wight, with gazetteer.
- Alan Godfrey Maps
publish facsimiles
of detailed Ordnance Survey maps, mainly from 1890s to 1930s
- Hampshire Constabulary
History Society
have a website with history of the force, including famous cases, books
and memorials.
They have a museum at Netley Training School, and a newsletter online.
They publish a book
"Policing Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: A Photographic
History"
ISBN 186077 1963 - More than 200 photographs help tell the
history of the force in
Hampshire.
- Charcoal
Burners of the New Forest From The Lonely Men of the Forest by
J.S.P. Agg Large.
This is an extract from a magazine article, provided online in a Purkis
family website
which has information on the Rufus Stone and surroundings.
- Coastguards of Hampshire and
the Isle of Wight information was on these pages, it is now included in a national database provided for
us by Stan Waight and collaborators.
- Information from Hampshire Poll Books (1790 and 1710) can be found on the pages for Abbots Ann and Aldershot. The electronic version was prepared by The Thomson Corporation: Gale, Thomson ©2003. Note: Thomson Gale have made a facsimile from which I have made a transcription of names only.
- Voting lists or Poll Books for individual counties were produced beginning in the late 1600s until the late 1800s. Voting was not secret but rather the lists of people and how they voted was published. Poll Books also include information about the individual including their address and the criteria under which they were permitted to vote. The main criteria for having the vote was that the individual was a freeholder (i.e. either an owner of a house or land).
- Under Taxation on the webpage for Abbots Ann and Aldershot the names of freeholders are listed. Electronic versions of the Hampshire Poll Books for 1710 and 1790 are available at many libraries and The Thomson Corporation.
Last updated by Elizabeth (Blake) Kipp on 10 August 2008
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