Fulham All Saints, Middlesex Family History Guide

Fulham All Saints is an Ancient Parish in the county of Middlesex.

Other places included in the parish: Parsons-Green, Walham-Green, and North End; and, prior to 1834, also included Hammersmith

Parish church: All Saints

Parish registers begin:

• Parish registers: 1675
• Bishop’s Transcripts: 1614; 1800

Nonconformists include: Roman Catholic 

Adjacent Parishes

• Fulham St Mary, North End
• Barnes, Surrey
• Hammersmith (St Paul)
• Fulham St John, Walham Green
• Summers Town, Surrey
• Wandsworth St Anne, Surrey
• West Brompton
• Chelsea (St Luke)
• Putney, Surrey
• Wandsworth (All Saints), Surrey
• Battersea (St Mary), Surrey

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

FULHAM, a village, a parish, and a sub-district, in Kensington district, Middlesex. The village stands on the Thames, opposite Putney, 6½ miles SW of St. Paul’s, London; is on a railway from the Hammersmith and City line to the N shore of the Thames, formed in 1865-9 on a capital of £266, 600; and has a post office under London SW.

It was known to the Saxons as Fullenham; and was occupied by the Danes in 879, and by the parliamentarian forces in 1642 and 1647. It comprises several streets, several ranges of neat modern houses, and some detached villas. Its streets are rather irregularly built; but many of its houses are elegant, and are chiefly inhabited by genteel families connected with the metropolis. A wooden bridge over the Thames, 789 feet long and 24 feet wide, was designed by Cheselden, and erected at a cost of £23,075.

The parish includes Parsons-Green, Walham-Green, and North End; and, prior to 1834, also included Hammersmith. Acres, 1,834; of which 150 are water. Real property, £62,370. Pop. in 1851, 11,886; in 1861, 15,539. Houses, 2,481. The property is much subdivided.

The manor was given, so early as 691, to the bishops of London; and has, ever since, continued in their possession. A palace of the bishops was here, on low ground, adjacent to the Thames, a little west of the village, from some time long before the Conquest; but seems to have been repeatedly reconstructed. The present palace was begun by Bishop Fitzjames in the time of Henry VII.; consists principally of parts of more recent date; has been altered, renovated, extended, and beautified by successive bishops, presents an imposing appearance, though built of brick; comprises two courts, with chapel and library; and contains an interesting series of portraits of the bishops. The grounds connected with it are very fine; possess charming close scenes, both in themselves and in their combinations with the river; and have long been celebrated for containing rare plants.

Lisle’s Place, in the parish, belonged to the De Lisles and the Warwicks. Munster House, now a lunatic asylum, belonged to the Powells, and was a hunting-seat of Charles II. Stourton House, now taken down, belonged to the Stourtons; passed to the Sharps; and was the death-place of Granville Sharp. Colehill House was the residence of Kent, the landscape-gardener. Claybrook House belonged to the Claybrooks. A house at Parsons Green, now destroyed, was inhabited by Samuel Richardson, and was a resort of his admirers. Another house, also destroyed, was inhabited by the Earl of Peterborough, and was frequented by Locke, Swift, and other distinguished literati. Lord Bacon likewise was a resident; so was Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bodleian library; and so were many other distinguished literary men, connected with the metropolis, from Florio to Theodore Hook.

Much of the land in the parish is disposed in market-gardens and nursery-grounds, for the supply of vegetables and plants to the London market. A considerable fishery of barbel, eel, roach, dace, and flounders, in the Thames, is carried on. Four private lunatic asylums, a modern brick workhouse, the conveyance pipes of the Chelsea water-works company, and a manufactory of coarse earthenware are in the parish.

The living is a vicarage in the diocese of London. Value, £835. Patron, the Bishop of London. The church is ancient; has a tower of the 14th century, partly rebuilt in 1845; and contains monuments to Bishops Lowth, Gibson, Sherlock, Compton, Henchman, Porteous, and other bishops, also monuments to Lady Legh, Dr. Barrow, Secretary Smith, the physician Butts, the physician Cadogan, Lady Clarke, Lord Mordaunt, the biographer Fiddes, and others. The chapelries of Walham Green, Moor Park, and North End are separate.

There are two Wesleyan chapels, and a Roman Catholic church; the latter a handsome stone edifice, with a tower, erected in 1850. There are also a national school, and other public schools. A charity by Bishop King, who was for some time vicar, yields £122; one by Bishop Porteous, £23; one by Powell, £51; one for the new alms-houses, £82; and others, £347. The sub-district is conterminate with the parish. The Fulham poor-law union is conjoined with the Paddington and Kensington unions to form Kensington district; and it comprises the parishes of Fulham and Hammersmith. Pop. in 1851, 29,646; in 1861, 40,058.

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

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

FULHAM (All Saints), a parish, in the union of Kensington, Kensington division of the hundred of Ossulstone, county of Middlesex, 4 miles (S. W. by W.) from London; containing 9319 inhabitants. This place is situated on the north bank of the Thames, and consists of several irregularly-built streets, and various handsome detached houses, and ranges of modern buildings, chiefly in a direction towards Walham-Green; it is partially paved, lighted with gas from works in the district of Walham-Green, and amply supplied with water from the river and from springs. Fulham is a spot of considerable antiquity: the Danes, on their invasion of England, fixed their head-quarters here, in 879; and, after wintering in the place, set sail for Flanders in the spring. In 1642, the Earl of Essex, the republican general, caused a bridge to be built, on barges and lighters, across the Thames, from Fulham to Putney, for the conveyance of his army and artillery into Surrey; and the parliamentary army under Sir Thomas Fairfax was quartered here in 1647. The manor, which appears to have belonged to the see of London from the end of the seventh century, was sold by order of the parliamentary commissioners in 1647, but restored in 1660; and the manor-house, or palace of Fulham, has been from a very early period the summer residence of the bishop. This mansion, of which the more ancient portion, consisting of the outer court, was built by Bishop FitzJames in the reign of Henry VII., is beautifully situated on the bank of the Thames, in a park embellished with trees of stately growth; it is built of brick, and is approached by a noble avenue leading to the entrance lodge, which displays some interesting details in the later English style. On the north side of the residence is the chapel, the windows of which are ornamented with stained glass removed from the chapel of London House, Aldersgate-street. Bishop Compton, distinguished for his love of botany, in the beginning of the last century improved the gardens by the introduction of a number of curious plants and forest-trees, particularly from North America. In the vicinity of Fulham are several extensive nursery-grounds, and much of the land is occupied by market-gardeners, who are noted for the cultivation of asparagus. There are a manufactory for brown stone-ware, and an extensive malt-kiln. Fulham is connected with Putney, in Surrey, by a wooden bridge over the Thames, built by Mr. Philips, carpenter to George II. The parish is within a police-court district, formed by order of council in 1841.

The living comprises a rectory and a vicarage, the former a sinecure, valued in the king’s books at £26, and in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners: the latter is valued at £10; net income, £1135; patron, the Bishop. The church is an ancient stone structure, consisting of a nave, aisles, and chancel, with a handsome tower at the west end, in the decorated English style, and contains a single stone stall with a canopy ornamented by quatrefoils, and also some monuments. It was repaired and enlarged at a cost of £1900, raised by subscription, in 1840, when 230 sittings were added; and the tower was restored in 1845, at an expense of about £1000. Among the distinguished persons interred here, may be mentioned Dr. William Butts, physician to Henry VIII.; Dr. Richard Zouch, professor of civil law at Oxford, in the reign of Charles I.; Bishops Compton, Gibson, Sherlock, and Lowth; Dr. Richard Fiddes, author of a life of Cardinal Wolsey; and Dr. William Cadogan, an eminent physician, who died in 1797. At North-End is a donative in the gift of the Rev. Sparks Byers: St. John’s district church, Walham-Green, was erected in 1829. In 1834, an act was procured for separating Hammersmith from Fulham, and constituting it a distinct parish. There is a place of worship for Independents. Sir William Powell, Bart., in 1680 founded twelve almshouses for widows, and endowed them with property producing £51 per annum, to which considerable additions have been made by subsequent benefactors. Seven almshouses for aged men and their wives were built in 1834, at an expense of £530, on a piece of land between Walham-Green and Hammersmith; and the parish, having received £700 from the West London Railroad Company, for part of Wormholt Common, voted £534 for erecting seven additional houses for single persons of either sex.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Parish Records

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Middlesex Historical Directories

Administration

• County: Middlesex
• Civil Registration District: Kensington
• Probate Court: Court of the Commissary of the Bishop of London (London Division)
• Diocese: London
• Rural Deanery: Not created until 1858
• Poor Law Union: Fulham
• Hundred: Ossulstone (Kensington Division)
• Province: Canterbury