Sowerby St George Yorkshire Family History Guide

Sowerby St George is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Yorkshire, created in 1842 from Halifax St John the Baptist Ancient Parish, located on Quarry Hill.

Alternative names: Halifax St George, Quarry Hill

Parish church:

Parish registers begin:

Parish registers: 1840
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1848

Nonconformists include: Baptist, Independent/Congregational, Methodist New Connexion, and Wesleyan Methodist.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

SOWERBY, a chapelry, in the parish and union of Halifax, wapentake of Morley, W. riding of York, 4 miles (W. S. W.) from Halifax; containing 8163 inhabitants. The chapelry is situated on the south side of the vale of Todmorden, and comprises by computation 3670 acres; one-half is inclosed, and an act of parliament has lately been obtained for inclosing the remainder. The lands under cultivation produce abundant crops, and the surface generally is diversified with hill and dale. The river Calder and the Manchester and Leeds railway pass on the north. Good building-stone is extensively quarried, and the Millstone group contains a seam of plate coal.

The village of Sowerby, which is on an eminence, is spacious and well built; and within the chapelry are parts of the villages of Sowerby-Bridge and Mytholmroyd, with numerous scattered hamlets. The manufacture of woollen, silk, worsted, and cotton goods, is largely carried on. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £190; patron, the Vicar of Halifax: there is a glebe-house, with about 35 acres of land. The chapel, dedicated to St. Peter, was erected in 1765, on the site of an ancient chapel of ease, some portions of which are preserved in the grounds of Field House, where they have been formed into an artificial ruin. It is a handsome structure in the later English style, with a square embattled tower, and contains a monument with a well executed statue to the memory of Dr. John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was born at Haugh-End, in the chapelry.

In 1840 a district church dedicated to St. George was erected, in the Norman style, at a cost, including a neat parsonage-house in the vicinity, of £2600, of which £300 were a grant from the Ripon Diocesan Society: patron of the living, the Vicar; income, £150. There are eight places of worship for dissenters; also a grammar school for boys, with an endowment of £16 per annum for teaching twelve scholars, who are chosen by the minister and churchwardens of St. Peter’s. In 1711, the Rev. Paul Bairstow bequeathed property now producing £103 per annum, of which £85 are distributed among the poor; to whom, also, Mrs. Mary Wadsworth bequeathed property producing £21 per annum. A large Druidical stone here was some years since split up, and used in building a cottage.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Parish Records

FamilySearch

Administration

County: Yorkshire
Civil Registration District: Halifax
Probate Court: Exchequer and Prerogative Courts of the Archbishop of York
Diocese: Post-1835 – Ripon, Pre-1836 – York
Rural Deanery: Pontefract
Poor Law Union: Halifax
Hundred: Morley
Province: York