Watford Hertfordshire Family History Guide

Updated onOctober 17, 2024

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Watford is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Hertfordshire.

Other places in the parish include: Oxhey, Leavesdon, Cashiobury and Leavesdon, and Cashio.

Alternative names:

Parish church:

Parish registers begin:

Parish registers: 1539
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1570

Nonconformists include: Baptist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Independent/Congregational, Society of Friends/Quaker, and Wesleyan Methodist.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

WATFORD, a town, a parish, and a district, in Herts.

The town stands on Watling-street, the river Colne, the Northwestern railway at the junction of the branches to Rickmansworth and St. Albans, 17¾ miles NW of London.

It took its name from Watling-Street and from a ford on the Colne; is a seat of petty-sessions and county courts, and a polling place.

It consists chiefly of one street, upwards of a mile long, and recently much improved; and has a head post-office, a r. station with telegraph, two banking offices, two hotels, one of them built at a cost of £7,000, a medicinal spring, a court house, a bridge, a police station, an ancient church with tower and spire, a modern church in the early English style, four dissenting chapels, a new cemetery with two chapels, a literary institute, a mechanics’ and labourers’ reading room, an endowed school for 40 boys and 20 girls, another endowed school for 11 boys, national and British schools, alms houses for 12 widows, a workhouse, and aggregate charities £808.

A weekly market is held on Tuesday; fairs are held on 31 March, 29 and 30 Aug., and 9 Sept.; and there are a silk factory, an iron foundry, coach-works, breweries, and paper and corn mills.

A railway tunnel, 1 mile and 170 yards long, is adjacent; and was formed at a cost of £140,000.

The town includes a small part of Bushey parish. Pop. in 1861, 4,385. Houses, 897.

The parish includes Oxhey, Cashio, and Leavesden hamlets; and comprises 10,792 acres. Real property, £38,808. Pop. in 1851, 6,546; in 1861, 7,418. Houses, 1,481.

The manor belonged anciently to St. Alban’s abbey; went, in the time of James I., to the Egertons; and was sold, in 1760, to the Capels. The Grove is the seat of the Earl of Clarendon; Cashiobury, of the Earl of Essex; Watford House, of R. Clutterbuck, Esq.; and W.-Field House, of A. Hulbert, Esq.

The head living or St. Mary’s is a vicarage, and that of St. Andrew is a p. curacy, in the diocese of Rochester. Value of St-M., £670; of St. A., £300. Patron of St. M., the Earl of Essex; of St. A., Trustees.

The vicarage of Leavesden and the donative of Oxhey are separate benefices.

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

Parish Records

FamilySearch

Administration

County: Hertfordshire
Civil Registration District: Watford
Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of St Albans
Diocese: Post-1844 – Rochester, Pre-1845 – London
Rural Deanery: Pre-1845 – St Albans, Post-1844 – Watford
Poor Law Union: Watford
Hundred: Cashio
Province: Canterbury