Snaith Yorkshire Family History Guide

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

Other places in the parish include: Gowdall, East Cowick, Cowick, Balne, West Cowick, West and East Cowick, Snaith and Cowick, Pollington, Newbridge, Hick, Hensall, Heck, Greenland, Great Heck, and Great and Little Heck.

Parish church: St. Mary

Parish registers begin:

  • Parish registers: 1537
  • Bishop’s Transcripts: 1599

Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist.

Adjacent Parishes

Snaith Parish Registers

Snaith, Co, York Parish Registers Part I 1537-1657 (Baptisms 1558-1657, Marriages 1537-1657)

Snaith, Co York Parish Registers Part II 1537-1656 (Burials 1537-1656)

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

SNAITH, a small town, a township, a sub-district, and a parish, in W. R. Yorkshire. The town stands on the river Aire and on the Goole railway, 7 miles W by S of Goole; is a seat of petty-sessions, and a polling place; underwent much recent improvement; and has a post-office under Selby, a r. station with telegraph, a later English church with a tower, a Wesleyan chapel built in 1863, a grammar-school with £30 a year from endowment, alms houses with £21, other charities, £240, a weekly market on Thursday, and cattle fairs on the last Thursday of Apriland 10 Aug.

The township contains also Cowick hamlet, and comprises 6,455 acres. Real property, £10,873; of which £56 are in gasworks. Pop., 1,763. Houses, 400. The manor belongs to Viscount Downe. The sub-district contains also Rawcliffe, Pollington, and Gowdall townships; and is in Goole district. Acres, 13,925. Pop., 4,117. Houses, 949.

The parish contains likewise Goole, Hook, and Armin townships in Goole district, Carlton township in Selby district, and Hensall, Heck, and Balne townships in Pontefract district; and is ecclesiastically cut into the sections of Snaith, Cowick, Goole, Armin, Carlton, Rawcliffe, Hook, Hensall-cum-Heck, and Pollington-cum-Balne. Acres, 32,435. Pop. in 1851, 11,365; in 1861, 12,772. Houses, 2,743. The head living is a vicarage in the diocese of York. Value, £500. Patron, Y. Yarburgh, Esq. The other livings are separately noticed.

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

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

SNAITH (St. Mary), a market-town and parish, in the union of Goole, chiefly in the Lower division of the wapentake of Osgoldcross, but partly in the Lower division of the wapentake of Barkstone-Ash, W. riding of York; comprising the chapelries of Armin, Carleton, Goole, Hook, and Rawcliffe, and the townships of Balne, Cowick, Gowdall, Heck, Hensall, Pollington, and Snaith; and containing 10,444 inhabitants, of whom 855 are in the town, 23 miles (S. by E.) from York, and 175 (N. by W.) from London.

This place is of considerable antiquity, and at a very early period a priory for Benedictine monks was founded here as a cell to the abbey of Selby, to which establishment the church of Snaith had been given by Girard, Archbishop of York, in the year 1106. The priory flourished till the Dissolution, and was granted by Edward VI. to John, Earl of Warwick.

The town, which is situated on a gentle declivity, on the south bank of the river Aire, is small, and irregularly built. The houses are chiefly of brick, but a few handsome and substantial dwellings have been lately erected; the streets are lighted with oil, and the inhabitants are supplied with water from wells. The environs abound with pleasing scenery, enlivened by the rivers Don and Went.

The Wakefield, Pontefract, and Goole railway runs by the town, and the canal from Knottingley to Goole passes on the south. Flax was formerly cultivated in the neighbourhood to a considerable extent, and conveyed to Leeds by the river Aire; but the quantity has been much diminished, and potatoes are now sent in large quantities. There is a steam-mill for grinding corn. The market is on Thursday; and fairs take place on the last Thursday in April, and August 10th, for cattle, &c.

The parish comprises by computation 35,000 acres of land, the property chiefly of Viscount Downe, the Earl of Mexborough, and N. E. Yarburgh, Esq. The living is a vicarage; net income, £479; patron, Mr. Yarburgh: the great tithes of Snaith and Cowick have been commuted for £768, and the small for £166. The church is a spacious structure in the later English style, with a low square tower surmounted by pinnacles; it contains a splendid monument by Chantrey to the second Viscount Downe, a marble bust to an ancestor of the present Lord Beaumont, and some remnants of ancient armour, with several banners.

There are district churches at Rawcliffe, Carleton, Armin, Hook, and Goole. A free grammar school, and some almshouses for six widowers, were founded in 1623, by Nicholas Waller, who bequeathed houses and land for the payment of £28 to the master, £12 to the usher of the school, and £20 per annum to be divided among the alms people: the school endowment is now applied in aid of a national school. There are almshouses for six persons, founded by the Yarburgh family; and others for six widows, which were rebuilt in 1802, by Viscount Downe. Various bequests have been left for the poor generally.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Administration

  • County: Yorkshire
  • Civil Registration District: Pontefract
  • Probate Court: Court of the Peculiar of Snaith
  • Diocese: York
  • Rural Deanery: New Ainsty
  • Poor Law Union: Goole
  • Hundred: Barkstone Ash; Osgoldcross
  • Province: York