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The victims of the 1805 sinking in Weymouth Harbour of the East Indiamen ship Earl of Abergavenny, including its captain John Wordsworth, brother of poet William Wordsworth, are buried in the churchyard, as are bodies recovered from Alexander, a merchant vessel shipwrecked in 1815 two miles (3 km) from the Isle of Portland. Because of the treacherous local currents and the long sweep of Chesil Beach on which many ships ran aground, the village, as well as the neighbouring Isle of Portland gained a reputation for both smuggling and the looting of wrecks. The major industry in the area was Whitehead Torpedo Works, which has now closed. As the major employer in the village, Whitehead's funded the building of two schools, which opened in 1897. Whitehead's expertise also led to the Royal Naval establishment at Portland becoming a major anti-submarine and torpedo warfare centre in both the First and Second World Wars. [edit] GovernanceWyke Regis was originally a parish in the Wimborne St. Giles Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. It was absorbed into the municipal borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis from the latter's formation in 1835, but removed in 1894 to become part of the Weymouth Rural District. Weymouth Rural District was abolished in 1933 and split between Dorchester Rural District which absorbed the more rural section and the civil parish of Weymouth which took the more built-up part. At this time Wyke Regis itself was split between the rural parish of Chickerell and Weymouth itself. In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. Wyke Regis joined the non-metropolitan Weymouth and Portland District, Dorset, England. 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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