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After two centuries of decline, in the 1780s, the town's fortunes were dramatically revived by the patronage of the Duke of Gloucester, brother of King George III and then of the King himself, who regularly used the town as a holiday resort between 1789 and 1811. He is commemorated by the descriptive "Regis" added to the town name, by a prominent statue on the Esplanade, or sea-front, recording the gratitude of the inhabitants, and by anotherr statue, the White Horse of Osmington, which by an oversight showed the King riding out of the town, not into it, and which is said to have angered him so much that he never returned. The well-known terraces of large late Georgian town houses on the Esplanade date from this period, with additional building later in the 19th century. The town was well established as a successful resort by the time that George's visits ceased, and has continued as such to the present day. Weymouth & Melcombe Regis was used as a base for Allied troops in the D-Day landings of World War II, and has since operated on and off as a cross-channel ferry terminus. [edit] GovernanceMelcombe was originally a chapelry in the parish of Radipole in the Culliford Tree Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. With the development of its seaport in the 13th century it was made a borough in 1268. In 1571 it joined with Weymouth on the south side of the River Wey, to become a double municipal borough which eventually came to be known simply as Weymouth. However, Melcombe Regis remained a separate parish and became a civil parish in 1866. In 1920 the civil parish was formally abolished and the two towns merged under the name Weymouth as a single civil parish. In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts and all boroughs across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. Melcombe Regis joined the metropolitan Weymouth and Portland District which extended southward to include the Isle of Portland. Under another set of local government reforms adopted on 1 April 2019, Weymouth and Portland District was abolished, and the County of Dorset (excluding Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole) became a single unitary authority. The area is now administered by Dorset Council. [edit] Dorset Research TipsOne of the many maps available on the website A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Dorset at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. The internal boundaries on this map are the rural districts which are indicated in WeRelate's "See Also" box for the place concerned (unless it is an urban parish). The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases. Some are linked to Ancestry.
[edit] CensusesUK censuses are taken every ten years in the years ending in "1". There was no census in 1941. Details are not made available for 100 years after a census. A number of online databases (both paid and free) provide transcriptions of censuses up to 1911. Most of these provide information for an individual or a family. Many also provide images of the originals and thus allow browsing of a page or perhaps a whole enumeration district. The 1921 census was published in January 2022. It is available at FindMyPast with a charge additional to the usual subscrition to view the manuscript entries (there is no extra charge to view the index). The Dorset Online Parish Clerks provides a good number of 19th century census transcriptions as well as lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded in the parish. The formal Home Office Numbers (those starting with HO used in 1841 and 1851), the Registrar General Numbers (starting with RG in later decades, and the Enumeration District Numbers are included. There is an illustrated article to introduce each parish. The 1841 census differed from the later ones in two different ways.
From 1851 onwards people were asked for the county and civil parish in which they were born whether in or out of the county, and ages were expressed exactly (in months for infants).
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