Ware is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Hertfordshire.
Other places in the parish include: Amwell End.
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
Parish registers: 1558; see also Thundridge
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1801
Nonconformists include: Baptist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Independent/Congregational, Irvingite (Catholic Apostolic Church), Presbyterian, Society of Friends/Quaker, Wesleyan Methodist, Primitive Methodist, Lady Huntingond’s Connexion and Roman Catholic.
WARE, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Herts.
The town stands on the river Lea, and on the Eastern Counties railway, 2½ miles ENE of Hertford; was called Guare or Guaris by the Saxons, and Waras at Domesday.
It was the scene of a manœuvre by the Danes, who brought up their vessels to it and constructed a dam across the river to defend them, and of the counteraction of that manœuvre by Alfred, who diverted the water from the river’s bed and stranded the vessels.
It belonged, at Domesday, to Hugh de Grentemaisnel, who founded at it a Benedictine priory, a cell to Uticain abbey, in Normandy: passed to R. Blanchmains, the Earls of Winchester, the Wakes, the Hollands, the Montacutes, the Nevilles, the Plantagenets, the Fanshaws, and the Bydes; was, in 1242, the place of a tournament, at which the Earl of Pembroke was trampled to death; suffered damage by a flood in 1408; is noted by Shakespear, Johnson, and other writers for possession of an ancient carved oak bedstead, still to be seen at one of its inns.
It is now a seat of petty-sessions; includes, on the opposite side of the Lea, a suburb called Amwell-End.
It carries on malting, brewing, ropemaking, and sack-making; and has a head post-office, a r. station with telegraph, a banking office, two chief inns, a police station, a town hall, a corn-exchange of 1867, a cattle-market of 1868, an iron bridge of 1845, a public library and reading room, a fine ancient church recently restored at a cost of £5,810, another church of 1858, three dissenting chapels, an endowed grammar-school with £50 a year, national and British schools, two suites of alms houses, a workhouse, general charities £303, a weekly market on Tuesday, and two annual fairs. Pop. in 1861, 5,002. Houses, 1,005.
The parish includes Wareside hamlet, and comprises 4,700 acres. Real property, £31,057; of which £100 are in gasworks. Pop. in 1851, 5,088; in 1861, 5,397. Houses, 1,077.
The head living or St. Mary’s is a vicarage, and that of Christchurch is a p. curacy, in the diocese of Rochester. Value of St. M., £350; of C., £150. Patron, of St. M., Trinity College, Cambridge; of C., R. Hanbury, Esq.; the p. curacy of Wareside is a separate benefice.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
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.
Albany John, Ware, Herts, bargemaster, March 18, 1826.