Leek, Staffordshire Family History Guide
Leek is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Staffordshire.
Other places in the parish include: Bradnop, Bradnop and Cawdry, Heaton, Leek Frith, Leekfrith, Stanley, Rudyard, Ruston James, Rushton Marsh, Ruston Spencer, and Longsdon.
Parish church: St. Edward the Confessor
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1634
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1662
Nonconformists include: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Independent/Congregational, Particular Baptist, Primitive Methodist, Roman Catholic, Society of Friends/Quaker, and Wesleyan Methodist.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
- Buglawton Cheshire
- Bosley Cheshire
- Rushton
- Endon
- Wincle Cheshire
- Horton
- Meerbrook
- Longnor
- Bucknall cum Bagnall
- Leek St Luke
- Quarnford
- Macclesfield Forest with Wildboarclough Cheshire
- Biddulph
- Cheddleton
- Onecote
Parish History
Leek
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
LEEK, a town, a township, a parish, a sub-district, and a district in Stafford. The town occupies the summit and declivities of a pleasant eminence, on the left bank of the river Churnet, nearly in the centre of a deep but spacious valley, adjacent to the North Staffordshire railway and near the Caldon canal, 5 miles from the boundary with Cheshire, and 13½ SSE of Macclesfield.
It dates from very early times; was held by Algar, the Saxon; passed to the Norman Earls of Chester; and was given by them to Delacres abbey, which they founded near it in 1220, and which has left some remains. A few ancient British weapons have been found at it; Thomas Parker, born in 1666, who became Earl of Macclesfield and Lord Chancellor of England, was a native; and the Pretender passed through in 1745.
The town contains several spacious well built streets; and is one of the most handsome in the county. The town hall was built on the site of an ancient market cross, in 1806, at a cost of £900. The public hall was built in 1862. A literary and mechanics’ institute was established in 1837; and a new building for it, at a cost of about £700, was erected in 1862.
The parish church, or church of St. Edward the Confessor, is early English; and has a pinnacled tower. The churchyard contains a dilapidated ancient cross, called Danish; and commands a very fine view toward the hills in the N and the W, including a rocky mountain, called the Cloud, which occasions sunset, at the summer solstice, to appear double. St. Luke’s church was built in 1846.
The new Independent chapel was erected in 1864, at a cost of about £4,000; is in the decorated English style, of Laddridge and Hollington stone; has a large five light window, and a tower and spire 120 feet high; and contains 600 sittings. There are chapels also for Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, New Connexion Methodists, and Roman Catholics.
There are a grammar school, national schools, a cottage hospital built in 1869, a dispensary, and alms houses and other charities £379. The town has a post-office under Stoke-upon-Trent, a railway station with telegraph, two banking offices, four chief inns, and a police station; and is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place.
A weekly market is held on Wednesday; a cattle market, on every alternate Wednesday from 28 July to 25 December; cheese markets, on the second Monday of March and the third Monday of September and November; and fairs, on the Wednesday before 13 February, Easter-Wednesday, 18 May, Whit-Wednesday, 3 and 28 July, the Wednesday after 10 October, 13 November, and the Wednesday after Christmas.
The twisting and doubling of silk, the sewing of silk, and the making of twist ferrets, galloons, handkerchiefs, shawls, buttons, ribbons, sarcenets, and broadsilks are largely carried on.
The town’s limits include portions of the townships of Leek, Leek-Frith, and Tittesworth; and were defined by a local improvement act of 1855. Pop. in 1851, 8,877; in 1861, 10,045. Houses, 2,219. The township bears the name of Leek and Lowe. Real property, £17,640; of which £300 are in gas works. Pop. in 1851, 8,602; in 1861, 9,057. Houses, 1,983. Pop. of the part within the town, 8,859. Houses, 1,950.
The parish contains also the townships of Leek-Frith, Tittesworth, Bradnop, Onecote, Rudyard, Heaton, Rushton-James, Rushton-Spencer, and Endon-with-Longsdon and Stanley. Acres, 34,370. Real property, £54,526; of which £31 are in quarries. Pop. in 1851. 12,301; in 1861, 14,326. Houses, 3,064. The manor belongs to the Earl of Macclesfield. The chief seats are Highfield, Ashcombe Park, Ashenhurst, Bassford Hall, Westwood Hall, Ballhaye, and Haregate.
The parochial living and also the living of St. Luke are vicarages in the diocese of Lichfield. Value of each, £300. Patron of the vicarage, the Bishop of Lichfield; of the p. curacy, alternately the Crown and the Bishop. The chapelries of Endon, Meerbrook, Rushton, and Onecotecum-Bradnop, also are separate benefices.
The sub-district contains only the Leek, Tittesworth, Bradnop, Onecote, and Rudyard townships of Leek parish, but contains also the parish of Horton. Pop., 12,341. Houses, 2,648.
The district comprehends also the sub-district of Leek-Frith, containing the townships of Leek-Frith, Heaton, Rushton-James, and RushtonSpencer; the sub-district of Norton, containing the township of Endon-with-Longsdon and Stanley, and two townships of Norton-in-the-Moors; and the subdistrict of Longnor, containing the parishes of Grindon, Wetton, and Sheen, a township of Mayfield, and six townships of Alstonefield. Acres, 72,893. Poor-rates in 1863, £8,640. Pop. in 1851, 23,031; in 1861, 24,806. Houses, 5,263.
Marriages in 1863, 135; births, 854, of which 76 were illegitimate; deaths, 587, of which 218 were at ages under 5 years, and 16 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1,513; births, 8,270; deaths, 5,733. The places of worship, in 1851, were 22 of the Church of England, with 6,872 sittings; 2 of Independents, with 540 s.; 25 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 4,039 s.; 1 of New Connexion Methodists, with 262 s.; 7 of Primitive Methodists, with 872 s.; and 1 of Roman Catholics, with 181 s.
The schools were 25 public day schools, with 1,593 scholars; 30 private day schools, with 610 s.; and 44 Sunday schools, with 4,600 s. The workhouse is in Leek township, on the London road; and, at the census of 1861, had 94 inmates.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Leek Frith
Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales Circa 1870
Leek-Frith, a township and a sub-district in Leek parish and district, Stafford. The township includes part of Leek town; extends thence to the N; contains a considerable village of its own name; and contains also the church of Meerbrook. Real property, £7,360. Pop., 763. Houses, 150. – The sub-district contains also three other townships. Pop., 1,790. Houses, 362.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
Online School Records
Bradnop National School (Jmi) 1877 to 1898 Admissions
Bradnop Parochial School (Jmi) 1898 to 1914 Admissions
Heaton Swythamley County Primary School (Infants & Juniors) 1905 to 1914 Admissions
Leek Wesleyan Day School, West Street 1907 to 1914 Admissions
Leek Wesleyan Day School, West Street (Jmi) 1870 to 1894 Admissions
Mill Street Wesleyan (Formerly Known As Mill Street Ragged ) School 1873 to 1910 Admissions
FamilySearch
Leek
Leek Frith
Bankrupts
Below is a list of people that were declared bankrupt between 1820 and 1843 extracted from The Bankrupt Directory; George Elwick; London; Simpkin, Marshall and Co.; 1843.
Badnall Rich., Leek, Staffordshire, banker & silk manufacturer, June 19, 1827.
Badnall Richard, jun.; and Francis Gybbon Spilsbury; Leek, Staffordshire, silk manufacturers and dyers, Dec. 19, 1826.
Badnall Richard, jun.; Francis Gybbon Spilsbury; and Henry Cruso; Leek, Staffordshire, silk manufacturers and dyers, Feb. 24, 1827.
Barlow John, Leek, Staffordshire, victualler, June 1, 1832.
Braddock Samuel, Leek, Staffordshire, innholder, Feb. 13, 1829.
Brunt Isaac, Leek, Staffordshire, button manufacturer, June 16, 1837.
Maps
Administration
- County: Staffordshire
- Civil Registration District: Leek
- Probate Court: Court of the Bishop of Lichfield (Episcopal Consistory)
- Diocese: Lichfield
- Rural Deanery: Leek
- Poor Law Union: Leek
- Hundred: North Totmonslow; South Totmonslow
- Province: Canterbury