Bridport, Dorset Family History Guide
Bridport is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Dorset.
Other places in the parish include: Dottery, Victoria Grove, West Bay, and Chardsmead.
Alternative names:
Parish church: St. Mary
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1600
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1731
Nonconformists include: Baptist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Independent/Congregational, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Society of Friends/Quaker, Unitarian, and Wesleyan Methodist.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
BRIDPORT, a town, a parish, a subdistrict, a district, and a division in Dorset. The town stands on a gentle eminence, between the rivers Bride and Asker, a little above their confluence, and at the terminus of a branch railway, surrounded by hills, 1½ mile N of the Bride’s mouth, 9¼ by railway WSW by Maiden-Newton, and 15 by road W of Dorchester.
It had a mint and 120 houses at the time of the Conquest; was occupied by both the royalists and the parliamentarians, but not contested by either, during the civil war; made a riotous outburst at the time of the Duke of Monmouth’s landing at Lyme; and had an ancient priory, dedicated to St John the Baptist.
It consists of three spacious, airy streets; contains many handsome houses; and commands, from its summit-ground, many fine vista-views. The town hall occupies the site of an ancient chapel; was built in 1786; and is a handsome edifice of brick and Portland stone. The parish church is cruciform, chiefly later English; has a central, square, pinnacled tower; was restored in 1860, at a cost of upwards of £3,000; and contained a monument to a kinsman of Queen Philippa, and some other interesting monuments.
St. Andrew’s church, near the northern entrance to the town, is a new, small, beautiful edifice. There are chapels for Independents, (a new one,) Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians, Methodists, and Roman Catholics; a free school with £80 a year; alms-houses, with £73; other charities, with £97; and a mechanics’ institute. Bridport Harbour is at the mouth of the Bride, 1½ mile distant; has a post office of its own under Bridport, some cottages, and an inn; and takes its name from a basin enclosed by a double wooden pier, flanked by picturesque cliffs, and capable of admitting vessels of 250 tons.
Bridport has a head post office,‡ a railway station with telegraph, two banking offices, and two chief inns: is a seat of sessions, a coastguard station, and a bonding port; and publishes a weekly newspaper. Markets are held on Wednesday and Saturday; and fairs on 6 April, Holy Thursday, and 11 October. Manufactures are carried on in shoe-thread, twine, cordage, sailcloth, and fishing-nets. The cordage was at one time a great staple; supplied nearly all the royal navy in the time of Henry VIII.; and became so identified with the work of the hangman as to be popularly called “the Bridport dagger.”
The vessels registered at the port at the beginning of 1868 were 9 of 1,430 tons; and those which entered in 1867, counting repeated voyages, were 3 of 155 tons from British colonies, 15 British of 2,747 tons and 5 foreign of 640 tons from foreign countries, and 60 sailing-vessels of 10,427 tons coastwise. The customs in 1867 were £2,803. The chief exports are cheese, butter, and the local manufactures; and the chief imports hemp, flax, tallow, timber, wines, spirits, coal, and slate.
The town was chartered by Henry III.; sent two members to parliament from the time of Edward I. till 1867; was reduced, in 1867, to the right of sending only one; and is governed, under the new act, by a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors. The borough includes all Bridport parish, and parts of Burton-Bradstock, Bothenhampton, Walditch, Allington, Bradpole, and Symondsbury parishes. Acres, 656. Taxes in 1857, £3,530. Electors in 1868, 503. Pop. in 1861, 7,719. Houses, 1,581. The town gave the title of Baron and Viscount to the family of Hood.
The parish comprises 62 acres. Real property, £14,102. Pop., 4,6 45. Houses, 992. The property is much subdivided. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury. Value, £250. Patron, the Earl of Ilchester.
The subdistrict includes also the parishes of Allington and Bradpole. Acres, 1,622. Pop., 8,009. Houses, 1,638. The district comprehends also the subdistrict of Whitchurch-Canonicorum, containing the parishes of Whitchurch-Canonicorum, Chideock, Symondsbury, Wootton-Fitzpaine and Catherston-Lewston, and the parochial chapelry of Stanton-St. Gabriel; and the subdistrict of Burton-Bradstock, containing the parishes Burton-Bradstock, Loders, Askerswell, Chilcombe, Litton-Cheney, Puncknowle, Swyre, Bothenhampton, and Walditch, and the parochial chapelry of Shipton-George. Acres, 33,187. Poor-rates in 1866, £8,658. Pop. in 1861, 16,828. Houses, 3,520.
Marriages in 1866, 123; births, 571,-of which 34 were illegitimate; deaths, 357, of which 128 were at ages under 5 years, and 16 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60,1361; births, 5,694; deaths, 3,529. The places of worship in 1851 were 20 of the Church of England, with 6,992 sittings; 6 of Independents, with 2,150 s.; 1 of Baptists, with 350 s.; 1 of Quakers, with 250 s.; 1 of Unitarians, with 474 s.; 8 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 1,489 s.; and 1 of Latter Day Saints, with 140 attendants.
The schools were 23 public day schools, with 1,504 scholars; 34 private day schools, with 696 s.; 32 Sunday schools, with 2,839 s.; and 3 evening schools for adults, with 32 s. The workhouse is in Bradpole. The division contains the hundreds or liberties of Beaminster, Beaminster-Forum and Redhone, Broadwinsor, Godderthorne, Halstock, Lothers and Bothenhampton, Poorstock, and Whitchurch-Canouicorum, and parts of the hundreds or liberties of Eggerton, Frampton, Uggscombe, and Cerne, Totcombe, and Modbury. Acres, 87,194. Pop. in 1851, 24,673; in 1861, 23,848. Houses, 5,051.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848
BRIDPORT (St. Mary), a sea-port, borough, market-town, and parish, having separate jurisdiction, and the head of a union, in the Bridport division of Dorset, 14¾ miles (W.) from Dorchester, and 134 (W. S. W.) from London, on the high road to Exeter; containing 4787 inhabitants.
This was a town of some importance in the time of Edward the Confessor, and is mentioned in Domesday book as having a mint and an ecclesiastical establishment. During the civil war in the reign of Charles I. it was garrisoned by the parliament; but, not being a place of much strength, was alternately in the possession of each party. In 1685 it was surprised by some troops in the interest of the Duke of Monmouth, under Lord Grey; these were defeated by the king’s forces, and twelve of the principal insurgents were afterwards executed.
The town is situated in a fertile vale surrounded by hills, having on the west the river Bride or Brit, from which it takes its name, and on the east the Asher, over which are several bridges: these rivers unite a little below the town, and fall into the sea at the harbour, about a mile and a half to the south. It is chiefly formed by three spacious streets, containing many handsome modern houses; and is partially paved, amply supplied with water, and well lighted with gas. A mechanics’ institution, containing a reading-room, and lecture and class rooms, has been built at the expense of H. Warburton, Esq., a late member for the borough.
The trade of the port consists principally in the importation of hemp, flax, and timber, from Russia and the Baltic, and timber from America and Norway: there is also a considerable coasting-trade, by which the adjacent towns are supplied with coal from the north of England, with culm from Wales, and with other articles of general consumption. Many coasting vessels, particularly smacks, for the trading companies of Scotland, are built at this port; they are considered remarkable for strength, beauty, and fast sailing.
The harbour is situated at the bottom of the bay formed by Portland Point, on the east, and the headlands near Torbay on the west. An act for restoring and rebuilding it was obtained in the 8th of George I., the preamble to which recites that, by reason of a great sickness that had swept away the greater part of the wealthy inhabitants, and other accidents, the haven was choked with sand, and the piers had fallen into ruins: the work was begun in 1742, and, by the expenditure of large sums, great improvement was made.
Another act was obtained in 1823, since which more than £20,000, raised on the security of the rates and duties, have been expended, so that the harbour is now perfectly safe and commodious.
This is a bonding port for wines, spirits, hemp, iron in bars, timber, tallow, hides, and other articles; the amount of import duties is somewhat more than £6200 per annum. An act was passed in 1845, for the construction of the Wilts, Somerset, and Weymouth railway, with a branch of 11¾ miles to this town.
The principal articles of manufacture are nets, lines, small twine, shoe-thread, girth webbing, cordage, and sail-cloth, for the use of the home and colonial fisheries, particularly those of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia: 10,000 persons are generally thus employed in the town and neighbourhood. In the reign of Henry VIII., the cordage for the whole of the English navy was ordered to be made at Bridport, or within five miles of it, exclusively. The markets are on Wednesday and Saturday; fairs are held on April 6th and Oct. 11th, for horses, horned-cattle, and cheese, and there is a smaller fair on Holy-Thursday.
The government, until recently, was regulated by charter of incorporation, originally granted by Henry III., confirmed by Richard II., Henry VII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, and renewed and extended by James I. and Charles II. By the act of the 5th and 6th of William IV., cap. 76, the corporation now consists of a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors; and the borough has been divided into the north and south wards, the municipal and parliamentary boundaries being the same: the number of magistrates is eight.
The elective franchise was conferred in the 23rd of Edward I., since which time the borough has regularly returned two members to parliament. The right of election was formerly vested in the inhabitants of the borough (which comprised 92 acres), paying scot and lot, in number about 250; but the act of the 2nd of William IV., cap. 45, extended it to the £10 householders of an enlarged district, containing by computation 388 acres. The mayor is returning officer.
The powers of the county debt-court of Bridport, established in 1847, extend over the greater part of the registration-districts of Bridport and Beaminster. The town-hall is a handsome building of brick and Portland stone, containing, in the upper story, a large room for judicial and other purposes, a council chamber, town-clerk’s offices, &c.: it was erected in 1786 on the site of the ancient chapel of St. Andrew, in the centre of the town, by an act of parliament. There is also a lock-up house for the confinement of prisoners before committal.
The living is a discharged rectory, valued in the king’s books at £10. 12. 3½.; net income, £166; patron, the Earl of Ilchester. The church, which appears to have been erected in the reign of Henry VII., about 1485, is a handsome and spacious cruciform structure, chiefly in the later English style, with a square embattled tower seventy-two feet high, rising from the centre, and crowned with pinnacles: it contains many interesting monuments; among them is an altar-tomb of William, son of Sir Eustace Dabrigecourt, of Hainault, related to Queen Philippa.
There are places of worship for the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, and Unitarians. A free school was founded and endowed in 1708, by Daniel Taylor, one of the Society of Friends; and there are alms houses and other charities, under the management of trustees appointed in 1837, by the court of chancery. A handsome stone building for the poor law union of Bridport, and a register and other offices, have been lately erected; the union comprises nineteen parishes and places, and contains a population of 16,695.
Turtle stone and cornua ammonis are found in the neighbouring quarries; and copperas stones on the beach, about four miles west of the harbour. There were formerly several religious houses here, among which were the priory of St. John, and the chapels of St. Leonard, St. Michael, and St. Andrew; but no remains exist. Bridport confers the titles of Baron and Viscount on the family of Hood.
Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848
Directors of Companies
The following people were listed in the Directory of Directors 1881 as directors of companies who were either living in Bridport or the company was based in Bridport or both.
Chick – Mr William Henry Chick is a director of the Bridport Railway Company Bridport Dorset
Gundry – Mr Joseph Pearkes Fox Gundry, J.P., East road, Bridport, Dorsetshire, is deputy chairman of the Bridport Railway Company
Hounsell – Mr Herbert E Hounsell, managing director of E. Hounsell, Limited, Pelican Twine and Net Works, Bridport, Dorset, is a director of the –
Bridport Harbour Board
Bridport Gas Works Company
Reading Iron Works Limited
Legg – Mr Job Legg is a director of the Bridport Railway Company Bridport Dorset
Parish Registers
Marriage Allegations
The following people have been recorded in the Hampshire Allegations for Marriage Licences granted by the Bishop of Winchester 1689 to 1837.
Hussey, Samuel, of H.M. hospital ship Lioness, 21, b., & Hannah Bridport, co. Dorset, 21, sp., at Portsea, 21 Feb., 1783.
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Business records and commerce
Cemeteries
Census
Census returns for Bridport, 1841-1891
Church Records
Baptisms, 1751-1836; deaths, 1750-1786 Author: Independent Church (Bridport)
Births and baptisms, 1834-1837 Author: Wesleyan Church (Bridport, England)
Church records, 1720-1837 Author: Presbyterian Church (Bridport, Dorsetshire)
Churchwardens’ accounts, 1762-1913 Author: Church of England. St. Mary’s Church (Bridport, Dorset)
Marriages, births and burials, 1777-1803 Author: Society of Friends (Bridport, Dorsetshire)