Rotherham, Yorkshire Family History Guide

Rotherham is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Yorkshire.

Other places in the parish include: Scholes, Orgreave, Ickles, Catcliffe, and Brinsworth.

Alternative names:

Parish church: All Saints

Parish registers begin:

Parish registers: 1540
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1600

Nonconformists include: Baptist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Independent/Congregational, Methodist New Connexion, Particular Baptist, Presbyterian Unitarian, Primitive Methodist, Protestant Dissenters, Unitarian, Wesleyan Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist Reform.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

ROTHERHAM, a town, a township, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in W. R. Yorkshire. The town stands on the river Rother, at its junction with the river Don and the Tinsley canal, and on the North Midland railway, at its junction with the Sheffield and Rotherham railway, 5½ miles N E of Sheffield.

It takes its name from its situation on the Rother; belonged to successively Acune the Saxon, Nigel de lovetot, the Vescis, Rufford abbey, and the Talbots; had a college of ecclesiastics, founded in 1483, by Thomas de Rotherham, who was a native, and became Archbishop of York; suffered much decline in prosperity, by the suppression of that college after the Reformation; was garrisoned by the parliamentarians, and taken by the royalists, in the civil wars of Charles I.

It is now a seat of petty-sessions, quarter-sessions, and county-courts, and a polling-place; is governed by town commissioners and 12 feoffees; occupies a diversified site, partly valley, partly rising-ground; includes the suburb of Masbrough, on the left side of the Don, and separately noticed; presents a substantial and somewhat picturesque appearance; acquired several new streets subsequent to 1850.

It publishes a weekly newspaper; and has a head post-office, two railway stations with telegraph, two banking offices, three chief inns, a town hall, a police station, a corn exchange, an ancient five-arched-bridge, two churches, nine dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a public cemetery, an independent theological college, a mechanics’ institute, a public subscription library, a news-room, an endowed grammar school with £24 a year, two other endowed schools with £77 and £20, a large British school or Lancasterian school, two national schools, endowed alms-houses with £68 a year, other charities £655, a dispensary, and a workhouse.

The town hall was built in 1826, at a cost of more than £5,000; and serves also as the court-house. The corn exchange was built in 1842, at a cost of £950. The bridge is surmounted by an ancient chapel, which was long used as the town prison.

The church dates from the time of Edward IV.; is a very fine specimen of later English architecture; consists of nave, aisles, transepts, chancel, N and S chapels, and porch, with central tower and crocketted spire; and was thoroughly repaired in 1845. The Independent chapel was built in 1867, at a cost of about £4, 500; and is in the decorated English style, and cruciform, with tower and spire. The Independent college and the Roman Catholic chapel are in Masbrough The public cemetery is in Moorgate-road, and was formed in 1842. The subscription library was established in 1775, and has about 3,000 volumes.

The workhouse was built in 1839, at a cost of £5,000; and stands in a plot of about 5 acres. A corn and cattle market is held on every Monday; a butter and poultry market, on every Friday; a large general market, on every second Monday; fairs, on Whit-Monday and 1 Dec.; and a hiring fair, on the first Monday of Nov.

A considerable transit trade is carried on, both from wharves and from the railway stations; and there are large factories for iron and steel, factories for railway carriages, railway wheel-works, and general forgings, works for hot moulds, pipe clay, earthenware, and porcelain, glass-works, pyroligneous acid and British gum-works, manufactures of oil case covers and combs, flax-mills, rope-yards, saw-mills, and breweries.

The town’s limits include parts of Rotherham, Whiston, and Brinsworth townships. Pop. in 1851, 6, 325: in 1861, 7, 598. Houses, 1, 484. The township comprises 2,140 acres. Real property, £24,249; of which £259 are in iron-works and £830 in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 6,325; in 1861, 8,390. Houses, 1,638. The parish contains also the townships of Tinsley, Brinsworth Kimberworth, Greasbrough, Orgreave, Catcliffe, and part of Dalton. Acres, 12, 640. Pop. in 1851, 16, 730; in 1861, 24,003. Houses, 4, 832.

The manors of Rotherham and Kimberworth belong to the Earl of Effingham. Very handsome residences of gentry, manufacturers, and merchants, are on an eminence 1 mile SE of the town. The Roman Ridgeway passes about 1¼ mile to the W; and the Roman station Ad Fines was near Ickles Hall.

The living is a vicarage in the diocese of York. Value, £300. Patron, the Archbishop of York. The p. curacies of Masbrough, Kimberworth, Greasbrough, and Dalton are separate benefices.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

ROTHERHAM (All Saints), a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the N. division of the wapentake of Strafforth and Tickhill, W. riding of York; comprising the chapelries of Greasbrough and Tinsley, and the townships of Brinsworth, Catcliffe, Kimberworth, Orgreave, Rotherham, and part of Dalton; and containing 13,385 inhabitants, of whom 5505 are in the town, 49 miles (S. S. W.) from York, and 159 (N. N. W.) from London. This place, which derives its name from the Rother, is bounded by that river on the west, and on the north-west by the river Don: it is situated partly on the acclivities of an eminence, and partly in a vale near the confluence of these streams.

The houses are in general of stone, and many of them are low and of mean appearance, but great improvements have been made within the last twenty years; in the immediate neighbourhood, several substantial and respectable dwellings have been recently built, and at the east end of the town are two elegant mansions called Clifton and Eastwood.

The streets are mostly narrow and irregularly formed; the place is paved, lighted with gas, and amply supplied with water. It is connected with the suburb or town of Masbrough, which is of nearly equal extent, by an ancient bridge over the Don, of five pointed arches, on the central pier of which is an old chapel of elegant design, now used as the town prison.

The environs abound with varied scenery; and within a short distance, on the road to Barnsley, is Wentworth House, the magnificent seat of Earl Fitzwilliam. A public subscription library, containing several thousand volumes, is liberally supported. The district abounds in mineral wealth; coal and iron ore are found in great profusion, and have been wrought from a very remote period.

The town was formerly celebrated for its manufacture of edge tools; and in 1160, there were mines of ironstone, smelting-furnaces, and forges in the neighbourhood. But the most extraordinary establishments of this kind, of late years, were the iron-foundries belonging to Messrs. Walker, in which immense quantities of cannon of the largest calibre were wrought for government during the war, till the works were given up by the original proprietors, and let out to small capitalists.

The spinning of flax affords employment to about 200 persons; there are manufactories for rope and for starch, a large malting establishment, two large ale and porter breweries, several oil and chemical works, and a glass-house. Some other manufactories and works are noticed in the article on Masbrough. The Don, which is navigable to Sheffield, communicates with the river Aire on the north-east, with the Stainforth and Keadby canal on the east, with the Dearne and Dove canal and the Barnsley canal on the north-west, and consequently with the river Calder; by which means Rotherham enjoys a facility of communication with all the principal towns in the great manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire.

In 1836 an act was passed for making a railway to Sheffield, with a branch to the Greasbrough canal and coal-field; it was opened on the 31st of October, 1838, and the distance is about six miles. The Rotherham terminal station is situated in Westgate, and occupies about an acre and a half. There is also a station at the Holmes, whence a branch diverges to join the Midland railway at Masbrough.

The market is on Monday, for corn, cattle, and provisions: on alternate Mondays is a celebrated market for fat-cattle, sheep, and hogs, numerously attended by graziers from distant parts of the country; and fairs take place on Whit-Monday and December 1st, for cattle. A court leet is held annually, at which constables and other officers for the internal regulation of the town are appointed. The powers of the county debt-court of Rotherham, established in 1847, extend over the registration-district of Rotherham. The adjourned Midsummer-sessions for the West riding are held in the court-house, a handsome stone building in the Italian style, erected at an expense of £4000.

The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king’s books at £16. 8. 6.; net income, £170; patron and impropriator, the Earl of Effingham. The church is situated on an elevated knoll near the heart of the town, and is a capacious and venerable cruciform structure in the later English style, with a central tower and spire enriched with panels, canopies, and crockets. The exterior is profusely but correctly ornamented with sculptures of beautiful design, the doorways are richly moulded, and the sides of the building strengthened with panelled and crocketed buttresses; the south porch, of appropriate character, is highly enriched.

The interior is lofty, and finely arranged; the roof of the nave, which is of oak elaborately carved, is supported on piers of graceful elevation, and the windows, with a very few exceptions, contain tracery of elegant design. The chancel is separated from the nave by a screen of excellent workmanship. In the transepts are some good monuments; and near the altar is a beautiful one of marble to the memory of Samuel Buck, Esq., a native of the town, and recorder of Leeds, who died in 1806. At Greasbrough, Kimberworth, and Tinsley are other incumbencies. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, Wesleyans, and Unitarians.

The free grammar school was founded in 1584, by Lawrence Woodnett and Anthony Collins, of London, who endowed it with a small portion of land; the endowment was subsequently augmented by a grant of £10. 15. 4. per annum, from the revenue of the crown lands. The school, in conjunction with those of Pontefract, Leeds, and Wakefield, is entitled, in failure of candidates from Normanton school, to two scholarships founded in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, by John Frieston, of Altofts.

A charity school was founded by Mr. Scott, and the funds for its support are now under the superintendence of the feoffees of the common lands; the income, increased by subsequent benefactions, is about £97 per annum. Rotherham College, for the education of young men intended for Independent ministers, was removed hither from Heckmondwike, where it had subsisted for nearly 40 years, in 1795: the premises are handsomely built, and occupy a healthy and pleasant eminence.

The dispensary, a stone building erected by subscription at an expense of £2000, contains on the ground-floor, in addition to the offices requisite for the institution, a spacious room for the grammar school, and on the upper story an apartment for the library, and a newsroom.

The union of Rotherham comprises 27 parishes or places, 26 of which are in the West riding of York, and one in the county of Derby; the whole containing a population of 28,783.

In 1480, Thomas Scott, Archbishop of York, usually called Thomas of Rotherham, who was then Bishop of Lincoln, founded a college in the town for a provost, five priests, six choristers, and three schoolmasters, and dedicated it to the Holy Jesus: of this structure, which subsisted for nearly a century, there remain the inn in Jesus’ gate, and the opposite buildings now used as stables. Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, an eloquent preacher in the time of Charles II., was a native of the town.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Parish Registers

Rotherham Part 1 1540 to 1798, Yorkshire Marriage Registers West Riding General Editor Thos. M. Blagg Preface, Introduction, Index to Contents of Registers, Collation of Volumes, Abbreviations, Marriages July 1540 to Aug. 1798 Publisher: Phillimore & Co. – This book is a free download from Parishmouse

Rotherham Part 2 1798 to 1837, Yorkshire Marriage Registers West Riding General Editor Thos. M. Blagg Rotherham Marriages 6 Aug. 1798 to June 1837, Errata, Index of Subjects, Index of Places, Index of Persons Publisher: Phillimore & Co. – This book is a free download from Parishmouse

Paver’s Marriage Licences

It would appear that a good many licences were never used. So genealogists should exercise a little care in their acceptance of the licenses.

1630 Edmund Wyrrall, Conisborough, and Alice Legg, Rotherham—either place.

1630 George Campsall, Blyth, and Elizabeth Beardshaw, Rotheram—there.

1630 Arnold Reresby als Leedam, Sheffield, and Mary Wableton, Rotherham — either place.

Source: The Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series Vol XL for the Year 1908; Edited by John WM. Clay, F.S.A., Vice-President of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society; Printed for the Society 1909.

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