Notes and Queries for Worcestershire

by John Noake

St. Peter's.

The oldest register now in this church commences with 1686; but this book is No. 2, and it is written at the commencement that "No. 1 contains entries from 1560 to 1686." No. 1 is, however, missing. In the early part of the eighteenth century, the entries of the births of dissenters' children are placed apart by themselves, as in some other registers which I have inspected. The spirit which dictated this is, unhappily, not yet defunct amongst us. There is an entry in 1716 of the name of "Gibbon, son of Mr. G. Bagnall," who was probably a descendant of that loyal gentleman who facilitated the escape of Charles II from the battle of Worcester by lending him his horse when the king was nearly captured in Sidbury. Several instances of adult baptism are recorded here, among which is the following: "Rebecka Nicholas, aged 23, born and bred a Quaker, was baptised Sep. 3, 1759." Not a few names are to be met with, both in the registers and churchwardens' books a century or one hundred and fifty years or more ago, which are still familiar in the parish—such as Burlingham, Gorle, Jenkins, Darke, John Dent, Daniel George, Luke Wells, Coney, Hartwright, Hickman, Roger Moore, Luke Lench, &c. It is probable that many of the poor fishermen's families here have been identified with the parish for a succession of several centuries, and in particular the name of one of them (Leonard Darke) seems never to have been missing, as far back as the records go. No doubt, among these humble followers of a calling which has been handed down from father to son for many generations, as also with innumerable instances of agriculturists, if they possessed the ambition or the means, they might trace as ancient if not as distinguished a pedigree as any Norman or Saxon lord of the soil.

A few notes from the churchwardens' books will suffice. The oldest of them now to be found begins with the year 1739, and the next with 1770. In the latter, one Charles Geary exhibits his anxiety to acquaint posterity with the fact that the holding a churchwardenship is not incompatible with the loftier aspirations of the poetic muse, thus—

"I bought this book,
And in him the p'ishoners may look
And thear they may see
That he
Was bought by me,
Charles Geary."

On the cover of the same book is the following memorandum:

"I have perused the pleadings in a case between John Berkeley, Esq., plaintiff, and John Sparrow and Thomas Butler, churchwardens of St. Peter's, defendants, and find that the inhabitants, owners, and possessors of lands and tenements within the chapelry of Whittington, in the said parish, are, by the verdict given in the said cause, to pay one fourth part only of all levies and charges for repairing of the said parish church of St. Peter's and the ornaments thereof, and also one fourth of all charges for bread and wine used at the communion there.—John Farmer. July 4, 1752."

Among the charges pertaining to the church, in the same year, a new clock and dial, three feet square, by Mr. John Steight, cost £13. 10s.; and three years afterwards the vestry made an order to "buy a new pulpit of the Dean and Chapter for eight guineas, that they had lately made and was not then in use." No such heavy expenses were incurred in this parish as in St. Nicholas's for perambulation purposes or other feasting, and indeed the scale of the disbursements generally betokened St. Peter's to be much the poorer parish of the two. £3. 9s. was charged in 1761 for "going the bounds." In 1774, I find that the turnpikes to Feckenham cost 3d. for a horse; hire of the animal, 2s.; hay and corn, 6d.; dinner and drink for the rider, 1s. 6d. The lamps first put up in this parish were under the care of the churchwardens, who were ordered to appoint a person to trim them. Mr. Nathaniel Wilkinson—who has been rendered famous by his erection of the beautiful spire of St. Andrew's church—was an inhabitant of St. Peter's; and in 1750 I find an order that Mr. Wilkinson's accounts should be examined, "and if he do not submit them for inspection an attorney be employed." It ever seems the fate of genius to contend with pecuniary difficulties.

I now come to the management of the poor. As in all other parishes to whose records I have had access, the greatest vigilance was exercised to pass on tramps and get rid of paupers, especially that class of females who evidently contemplated an increase of the population, and these are invariably designated by a term which will not exactly suit the fastidious readers of the nineteenth century. In 1739 Leonard Darke is ordered "to have the badche (badge) put upon his sleeve as the act of Parliament directs, before the churchwarden relieves him or his wife; and that all other people that receive reliefe from the parish be obliged to wear the badge." In the same year—"Paid to gett a stranger out of the parish troubled with fitts, 1s." In 1746—"Ordered that the churchwardens do agree with the London carryer in the best manner that he can to take Ann Nelson back to Christ Church parish in London, from which she was sent by a pass directed to the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the city of Worcester." See how the authorities of those days enforced seducers to make the amende honourable:

1780.—"Paid to Ann Williams, examination and oath relative to her parish, 2s.

"Her examination and oath touching the father of the child, 2s.

"A warrant to apprehend the father, and expenses of constables and assistants in taking him, £1. 18s.

"Paid for the ring, 4s.

"Licence, £1. 8s.

"Pd parson, clerk, and sexton, 8s.

"For the wedding dinner and drink, 11s. 6d."

There was no middle way left for this description of sinner but a long incarceration in gaol or a procession to the hymeneal altar in company with her whom he had outraged. The prospect of the gratuitous "dinner and drink" no doubt decided the point. Lunatics were treated in an equally characteristic manner.

1753.—"Paid for necessaries for Rd. Strayne, 1s. 6d.

"Two hopsacks for a bedtick for him, 3s. 4d.

"Straw for him, 6d.

"A nurse to look to him, 1s. 6d.

"Paid a man to help to chain him, with expenses, 3s.

"Two staples, a chain, and a lock, 8d."

The small-pox and the itch were the two greatest scourges of pauperism in those days, and it seems that even then (though I was not aware of the fact before) the contract system was resorted to in reference to both the sick and able-bodied poor. In 1779, Mr. William Dunn, apothecary, contracted with St. Peter's vestry to supply the poor of the parish in the workhouse with medicines and proper attendance for the sum of £7. 7s. for three years. Six years later, Robert Tasker, governor of the workhouse, contracted to lodge, clothe, keep, and manage the poor for three years, at £185 per annum: and in 1791 Robert Tasker again contracted for £195, and £10 was then further paid to him "for extras during the last three years and for his particular care and attention to lunatics." But in reference to the workhouse question we must retrace our steps as far back as 1746, when the vestry requested the churchwardens "to take to their assistance others of the parishioners, and draw a scheme for establishing a workhouse in the parish." Ten pounds a year was fixed as the salary of the governor, Zachary Humphries, and "a proper person was to be employed to instruct young persons and others in the workhouse in pareing of leather, sewing of gloves, spinning, or other employments." One shilling a week was allowed to the governor for every person admitted to the house. At the same time it was ordered that "the house now rented by the parish of Mr. Brooker, the minister, be converted into a workhouse, and fitted up in a fortnight." In 1771 it was apparently found that the accommodation was insufficient, as an order was made "That a workhouse be set on foot and established as speedily as may be." Exactly twenty years later it was resolved to concur in the plan of a general workhouse, and delegates were appointed to attend the general committee. Great opposition, however, was raised, in consequence of an outcry against the suppression of the parochial system—as usual, no doubt, by interested individuals having a tender regard for the abuses of the old plan, for this has ever been the experience attending great measures for the public good. In the following year therefore (1792), at a vestry meeting convened to consider the bill for establishing a House of Industry, it was resolved, by a majority of forty-five to reject the bill "as unnecessary for this parish;" and a Mr. James Holyoake, referring to his vote at the last parish meeting respecting this business, "begs leave to observe as to the division of parishes. Out parts of parishes cannot be divided from such parts as in the city. Parishes united or consolidated must remain so, unless altered or divided by act of Parliament; and if this is, or intended to be, a part of the bill, the said James Holyoake doth on his own part protest against such clause being inserted therein; and it is submitted that a review should be taken of all the public acts made and passed by the legislature for the relief, support, and government of the poor in general. Abstract and consider the clauses of these acts of Parliament; consider the acts at large, and give reasons why the ministers, churchwardens, and overseers, should not continue to be the lawful trustees, guardians, and representatives of their churches and parishes for the relief, support, and government of the poor; and determine (if you can) why the ministers, churchwardens, and overseers, should be restrained from representing and doing the duties belonging to their churches and parishes; and why they, or their churches and parishes, should be superseded or directed by any particular set of people on earth. And should not the clause No. lxiii in the said bill, intended for the better relief of the poor of the city of Worcester, conclude thus—'It is intended to be a private act.'"

The year 1793, however, saw the establishment of the general workhouse on Tallow Hill; and in the first year of the operation of the new plan, although the poor were very largely increased above the average of preceding years, the total cost of their maintenance amounted to a less sum than before. The parishes incorporated by this act were All Saints, St. Andrew, St. Alban, St. Clement, St. Helen, St. Martin, St. Michael, and St. Swithin, and the average expenditure of these parishes for the poor for five years preceding amounted to £1525 per annum, as follows: All Saints, £290; St. Andrew, £182; St. Alban, £47; St. Clement, £108; St. Helen, £187; St. Martin, £255; St. Nicholas, £303; St. Swithin, £153. The present Hop Market had been a workhouse (prior to the establishment of that on Tallow Hill) for probably a century, as I find that in 1699 the Foregate was pulled down in order to build a workhouse.

The present vicar of St. Peter's is the Rev. W. Wright; churchwardens, Mr. W. Otley and Mr. R. Allies. Population in 1851, 4025.