Bank St Unitarian Chapel, Great Bolton in the County of -- Lancashire --

Baptisms at Bank St Unitarian Chapel
in the District of Great Bolton, Bolton le Moors

On the 30 January 1837, Franklin Baker the Minister of Bank Street Presbyterian Chapel in Bolton le Moors completed a questionnaire for the 'Commissioners for enquiring into the State, Custody and Authenticity of Non-parochial Registers'. He stated that the chapel was of Unitarian denomination of Protestant Dissenters, and was founded about 1695. He named Robert Heywood as Treasurer, and the following as Trustees: Henry Holme, James Bromiley, Thomas Cooper, John Armstrong, William Aspinwall, Arthur Bromiley, George Cunliffe, John Dean, James Dean, Chas. Jas. Darbishire, Jas. Fray, John Perdow, Willm. Heaton, Thos. Kenyon, William Scowcroft, Thomas Scowcroft, William Sittill.

With respect to the registers he stated that no register was known to have been kept prior to 31 May 1753. He identified three registers:-

1. Three leaves with baptisms from May 31 through 29 Dec 1753, pasted onto the blank leaf of the 3rd folio. A note above the pasted pages records that 'these pages pasted on this paper were written as I believe, by the Revd. Thomas Dixon, Dissenting Teacher and the predecessor of the Revd. Philip Holland. John Holland'.

2. A duodecimo register extending from Nov. 5 1754 to Decr. 9th 1788. A note accompanying this register states 'I, John Holland, Minister to a Society of Protestant Dissenters in Bank Street Bolton in the Moors Lancashire, from the year 1789, do thus certify my assured confidence that this book contains the register of the persons baptised by my uncle and predecessor the late Revd. Philip Holland. Witness my signature John Holland Bolton March 21 1819.'

3. A folio register extending from Decr. 28th 1788 to Decr. 22 1836.

The baptism and birth records presented here have been extracted from an LDS film of the Bank Street Chapel registers now housed in the Public Record Office London.

The 2nd register originally had no page numbers, but was stamped when archived (two leaves per page): these are the page numbers referred to here (page 1-3 are the questionnaire). The entries were numbered, with just a few inadvertent duplications or omissions. However, it appears that the leaves of the register were either unbound or had come apart prior to being number stamped. Unfortunately, when the pages were bound back together some were out of numerical and date sequence. They are listed here in their correct order.

A more serious problem is that the words on the end of many lines have been partly covered over (by binding tape?) or have been obscured in a tightly bound gutter. Most of these obscured words are surnames. Fortunately, family associations allow the surnames to be identified from the visible letters. Where this has happened the surnames are always suffixed by ?, and a note added to say how many letters are actually visible.

Peter Wood
April 2009

The Register for Baptisms at Bank St Unitarian Chapel 1753 with Surname Index

The Register for Baptisms at Bank St Unitarian Chapel 1754 - 1788 with Surname Index

The Register for 1754 - 1788 is divided into batches covering 18 years
Batches for the individual years may be accessed via the links below

 1754 - 1771   1772 - 1788 

The Register for Baptisms at Bank St Unitarian Chapel 1788 - 1836 with Surname Index

The Register for 1788 - 1836 is divided into batches covering 25 years
Batches for the individual years may be accessed via the links below

 1788 - 1812   1813 - 1836 

There are 2734 Baptism Records extracted for this Church

A combined index for all the above registers may be accessed through the links below.

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