Notes and Transcriptions of Stockport Parish Registers

The collection consists of the transcriptions and notes compiled by W[illiam] I[saac] Wild (d 1897), in his efforts to extend the coverage of Edward Bulkeley's Parish registers of Saint Mary Stockport: containing the baptisms, marriages and burials from 1584-1620, with notes (1889). Wild managed to publish in the Cheshire notes and queries of 1897 a continuation that covered the period from January 1619/20 to August 1627, but further publication was prevented by his death. His notes, historical and genealogical in scope, however, go up to 1680 for both his first (Eng MS 708) and press copies (Eng MS 709). His transcriptions of the Registers of Mount Tabor Chapel in Stockport (Eng MS 710) cover the period 1793 to 1832.

Little has been recorded of William Isaac Wild (c.1843-1897). He was born in Stockport and at the time of the 1891 Census he was aged forty-eight, implying a date of birth of c.1843. In 1891 he was living at 130 Shaw Heath, Edgeley, Stockport. His occupation was recorded as boot and shoe dealer. His wife Alice was aged thirty-seven. They had two sons, John Harry and Roland William, aged twelve and eight respectively, and a two-year old daughter, Florence Mary Alice. There was also a servant in the household. Wild appears to have had a keen interest in the history of his native town. He was the author of The history of the Stockport Sunday School and its branch schools together with a record of all movements connected with the Stockport Sunday School (London: printed for the author, 1891), as well as apparently the more light-hearted "Fashion": a comedy in three acts (Stockport: Free Press Office, [1884]). He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In a letter that accompanied the collection and is now to be found within the JRUL archives, John Harry Wild stated that his father died in 1897.

Edward L.W. Bulkeley was the author of The parish registers of Saint Mary Stockport: containing the baptisms, marriages and burials from 1584-1620, with notes (Stockport: Swain & Co., 1889). He also edited the quarterly journal Cheshire notes and queries (Stockport, 1886-89), and during the same period he wrote articles on Stockport parish registers for the Stockport advertiser.

The collection is available for consultation by any accredited reader.

The collection was donated to the John Rylands Library by J[ohn] H[arry] Wild of Westminster, son of W.I. Wild, in February 1933.

Description compiled by Henry Sullivan and Jo Klett, project archivists.

Catalogued in the Hand-List of the Collection of English Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, 1928-35 (English MSS 708-710).