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Bridge Street Wesleyan Chapel, Little Bolton
in the County of
-- Lancashire --

Baptisms at Bridge Street Wesleyan Chapel
in the Town of Bolton

On 13 June 1837, James Heaton the Superintendent Minister of the Wesleyan Chapel called Bridge Street in Little Bolton in the parish of 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 had been founded about 1803. The register of births and baptisms he sent to the commissioners commenced on 6 May 1814 with the last baptism dated 9 July 1837. The baptism and birth records presented here have been extracted from an LDS film of this register, now housed in the National Archives (Public Record Office) in London. Unlike many nonconformist chapels, Bridge Street used one of the standard ‘8 entries per page’ register books introduced in 1813 by the Church of England. No mention is made whether there was a register kept for baptisms prior to 1814.

The writing in the register is badly faded in places, particularly in the years 1834-1836. We have been unable to extract any useful information from 13 entries (3 on page 100, 5 on page 102, 2 on page 105, 1 on page 112 and 2 on page 115).

During the period when George Marsden was minister from about 1828-1832 it was the practice to add cryptic marks to the entries. They appear as letters such as h or m entered in the box where the father’s occupation (Quality, Trade or Profession) was recorded. In the margin next to the entry is a symbol that resembles a number 6, often with a small inverted 6 before it. We do not know what these letters and symbols mean, but they are recorded here in Notes as the letter and figure 6.

Peter Wood
11 Jun 2009

The Register for Baptisms at Bridge Street Wesleyan Chapel 1814 - 1837 with Surname Index

The Register for the years 1814 - 1837 is divided into batches covering 12 years
Batches for the individual years may be accessed via the links below

1814 - 1825 1826 - 1837

There are 973 Baptism Records extracted for this Parish

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