THE CLERKS AND THE PARISH REGISTERS
A study of an old parish register reveals a remarkable variation in the style and character of the handwriting. We see in the old parchment pages numerous entries recorded in a careless scribble, and others evidently written by the hand of a learned and careful scholar. The rector or vicar ever since the days of Henry VIII, when in 1536 Vicar-General Thomas Cromwell ordered the keeping of registers, was usually supposed to have recorded the entries in the register. Cromwell derived the notion of ordering the keeping of the registers from his observation of the records kept by the Spanish priests in the Low Countries where he resided in his youth. Archbishop Ximenes of Toledo instituted a system of registration in Spain in 1497, and this was carried on by the Spanish priests in the Netherlands, and thus laid the foundation of that system which Thomas Cromwell introduced to this country and which has continued ever since.
But not all these entries were made by the incumbents. There is good evidence that the parish clerks not infrequently kept the registers, especially in later times, and from the beginning they were responsible for the facts recorded. The entries do not seem to have been made when the baptism, marriage, or burial took place. Cromwell's edict required that the records of each week should be entered in the register on the following Sunday, in the presence of the churchwardens. It seems to have been the custom for the clerk or vicar to write down particulars of the baptism, marriage, or burial in a private memorandum book or on loose sheets of paper at the time of the ceremony. Afterwards these rough notes were copied into the register book. Sometimes this was done each week; but human nature is fallible; the clerk or his master forgot sometimes to make the required entries in the book. Days and weeks slipped by; note-books and scraps of paper were mislaid and lost; the spelling of the clerk was not always his strongest point; hence mistakes, omissions, inaccuracies were not infrequent. Sometimes the vicar did not make up his books until a whole year had elapsed. This was the case with the poor parson of Carshalton, who was terribly distressed because his clerk would not furnish him with the necessary notes, and mightily afraid lest he should incur the censure of his parishioners. Hence we find the following note in his register, dated 10 March, 1651:
"Good reader, tread gently:
"For though these vacant years may seem to make me guilty of thy censure, neither will I excuse myself from all blemishe; yet if thou doe but cast thine eye upon the former pages and see with what care I have kept the Annalls of mine owne time, and rectifyed sundry errors of former times, thou wilt begin to think ther is some reason why he that began to build so well should not be able to make an ende.
"The truth is that besyde the miserys and distractions of these ptermitted years which it may be God in his owne wisdom would not suffer to be kept uppon record, the special ground of that permission ought to be imputed to Richard Finch, the p'rishe Clarke, whose office it was by long pscrition to gather the ephemeris or dyary by the dayly passages, and to exhibit them once a year to be transcribed into this registry; and though I have often called upon him agayne and agayne to remember his chadge, and he always told me that he had the accompts lying by him, yet at last p'ceaving his excuses, and revolving upon suspicion of his words to put him home to a full tryall I found to my great griefe that all his accompts were written in sand, and his words committed to the empty winds. God is witness to the truth of this apologie, and that I made it knowne at some parish meetings before his own face, who could not deny it, neither do I write it to blemishe him, but to cleere my own integritie as far as I may, and to give accompt of this miscarryage to after ages by the subscription of my hand [62]."
[62] Social Life as told by Parish Registers, by T.F. Thiselton-Dyer, p. 57.
We may hope that all clerks were not so neglectful as poor Richard Finch, whose name is thus handed down as an "awful example" to all careless clerks. The same practice of the parish clerks recording the particulars of weddings, christenings, and burials seems to have prevailed at St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, London, in 1542, as the following order shows:
"They shall every week certify to the curate and the churchwardens all the names and sir-names of them that be wedded, christened, and buried in the same parish that week sub pena of a 1 d. to be paid to the churche."
In this case the curate doubtless entered the items in the register as they were delivered to him.
At St. Margaret's, Lothbury, the clerk seems to have kept the register himself. Amongst the ordinances made by "the hole consent of the parrishiners" in 1571, appears the following:
"Item the Clarcke shall kepe the register of cristeninge weddinge and burynge perfectlye, and shall present the same everie Sondaie to the churche wardens to be perused by them, and shall have for his paines in this behaufe yearelye 0. 03. 4."
It is evident that in some cases in the sixteenth century the clerk kept the register. But in far the larger number of parishes the records were inserted by the vicar or rector, and in many books the records are made in Latin. The "clerk's notes" from which the entries were made are still preserved in some parishes.
In times of laxity and confusion wrought by the Civil War and Puritan persecution, the clerk would doubtless be the only person capable of keeping the registers. In my own parish the earliest book begins in the year 1538, and is kept with great accuracy, the entries being written in a neat scholarly hand. As time goes on the writing is still very good, but it does not seem to be that of the rector, who signs his name at the foot of the page. If it be that of the clerk, he is a very clerkly clerk. The writing gradually gets worse, especially during the Commonwealth period; but it is no careless scribble. The clerk evidently took pains and fashioned his letters after the model of the old court-hand. An entry appears which tells of the appointment of a Parish Registrar, or "Register" as he was called. This is the announcement:
"Whereas Robt. Williams of the p ish of Barkham in the County of Berks was elected and chosen by the Inhabitants of the same P ish to be their p ish Register, he therefore ye sd Ro: Wms was approved and sworne this sixteenth day of Novemb.. 1653
Snd R. Bigg."
Judging from the similarity of the writing immediately above and below this entry, I imagine that Robert Williams must have been the old clerk who was so beloved by the inhabitants that in an era of change, when the rector was banished from his parish, they elected him "Parish Register," and thus preserved in some measure the traditions of the place. The children are now entered as "borne" and not baptised as formerly.
The writing gradually gets more illiterate and careless, until the Restoration takes place. A little space is left, and then the entries are recorded in a scholarly handwriting, evidently the work of the new rector. Subsequently the register appears to have been usually kept by the rector, though occasionally there are lapses and indifferent writing appears. Sometimes the clerk has evidently supplied the deficiencies of his master, recording a burial or a wedding which the rector had omitted. In later times, when pluralism was general, and this living was held in conjunction with three or four other parishes, the rector must have been very dependent upon the clerk for information concerning the functions to be recorded. Moreover, when a former rector who was a noted sportsman and one of the best riders and keenest hunters in the county, sometimes took a wedding on his way to the meet, he would doubtless be so eager for the chase that he had little leisure to record the exact details of the names of the "happy pair," and must have trusted much to the clerk.
Some of the private registers kept by clerks are still preserved. There is one at Pattishall which contains entries of births, marriages, and burials, and was probably commenced in 1774, that date being on the front page together with the inscription: "John Clark's Register Book." The writing is of a good round-hand character, and far superior to the caligraphy of many present-day clerks. The book is bound in vellum [63]. The following entry, taken from the end of the volume, is worth recording:
"London, March 31th
"Yesterday the Rev'd Mr Hetherington ... transferred. 20,000 £. South-Sea Annuities into the Names of S'r Henry Banks Kn't. Thos Burfoot, Joseph Eyre, Thos Coventry, and Samuel Salt. Esqu'rs in Trust to pay always to 50 Blind people, Objects of, Charity, not being Beggars, nor receiving, Alms from the Parish, 10 £. each for their lives, it may be said with great propriety of this truly benevolent Gentleman that 'he hath displeased abroad, and given to the poor and is Righteousness remaineth for ever; his Horn shall exalted with Honour.'"
[63] By the information of the Rev. B.W. Blyn-Stoyle, who has most kindly assisted me in many ways in discovering quaint records of old clerks.
Amongst the register books of Wednesbury there is a volume bound in parchment bearing this inscription:
"This Book seems to be the private register of Alexander Bunn, Parish Clerk, because it corresponds with another bearing the same dates; the private accounts written in this book by the said A. Bunn seem to corroborate my opinion.
"A.B. Haden
"Vicar of Wednesbury
"August 7th 1782."
These accounts appear to be of items incurred by the parish clerk in his official capacity, and which were due to him in repayment from the churchwardens. The accompanying remarks of this old Wednesbury parish clerk are often quaint and interesting.
The following extracts will show the nature of the book and of the systematic record the good clerk kept of his expenditure. The only item about which there is some uncertainty is the amount "spent at Freeman's Coming from Visitation." Is it possible that he was so much excited or intoxicated that he could not remember?
"1737. Land tax to hon. Adenbrook 0. 0. 11 Acount
What Mary Tunks as ad. Redy money 4/-, for a
hapern 2/-, for caps 1/6 and for shoes 2/6, and for
ye werk 6 d. Stokins and sues mendering 6 d, and
for string 2 d, and for a Gound 3/-, and for ale for
Hur father 2 d, for mending Gound 8 d, for stokens
10 d, for more Shuse strong 2/6, Shift mending
and maken 5 d, for Hur mother 1/6, for a Shift
2/7."
To this day old Wednesbury natives say "hapern" for apron, and "sues" for shoes.
"Sep. the 10th, 1745, then recd of Alex. Bunn the sum of
six pounds for one year's rent due at Midsmar.
Last past Ellin Moris. Wm. Selvester and his
man the first wick 14/-. Mr. Butler and Gilbut
Wrigh, church wardens for the year 1741, due to
Alex Bunn as under. Ringing for the Visitation
2/-, spent at Roshall, going to the visitation 1/6-,
spent at Henery Rutoll 1/-, paid at Litchfield to
the Horsbox (?) 6 d, Wm. Aston Had Ale at my
House 6 d, for Micklmas Supeles washing and
lining 1/8, for Ringing for the 11th of October
5/-, for Ringing for the 30th of October 5/-, for
half year's wages Due June ye 24 £ 1 12 s. 6.
Ringing for the 5th November, for washing the
Supelis and Lining and Bread at Chrsmus 1/3,
for Easter Supelis washing and Lining and Bread
1/8, for Joyle for the Clock and Bells 2/6, for
Leader for the 4th Bell Clapper 5 d, Ringing for
the 23rd of April 5/-, for making the Levy 2/-,
for a hors to Lichfield 11/6, pd John Stack
going to Dudley 2 times for the Clockman 1/-.
For a monthly (?) meeting to Ralph Momford
Sep. the 15th 2/-, Spent at freeman's Coming from
the Visitation-----" [64]
[64] Olden Wednesbury, by F.W. Hackwood, who kindly sent me this information.
But we have grievous things to record with regard to the clerks and the registers, not that they were to blame so much as the proper custodians, who neglected their duties and left these precious books in the hands of ignorant clerks to be preserved in poor overcrowded cottages. But the parish clerks sinned grievously. One Phillips, clerk of Lambeth parish, ran away with the register book, so Francis Sadler tells us in his curious book, The Exaction and Imposition of Parish Fees Discovered, published in 1738, "whereby the parish became great sufferers; and in such a case no person that is fifty years old, and born in the parish, can have a transcript of the Register to prove themselves heir to an estate." Moreover, Master Sadler, who was very severe on parish clerks, tells of the iniquities of the Battersea clerk who used to register boys for girls and girls for boys, and not one-half of the register book, in his time, was correct and authentic, as it ought to be.
What shall be said of the carelessness of an incumbent who allowed the register to be kept by the clerk in his poor cottage? When a gentleman called to obtain an extract from the book, the clerk produced the valuable tome from a drawer in an old table, where it was reposing with a mass of rubbish. Another old parchment register was discovered in a cottage in a Northamptonshire parish, some of the pages of which were tacked together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead. The clerk in another parish followed the calling of a tailor, and found the old register book useful for the purpose of providing himself with measures. With this object he cut out sixteen leaves of the old book, which he regarded in the light of waste paper.
A gentleman on one occasion visited a church in order to examine the registers of an Essex parish. He found the record for which he was searching, and asked the clerk to make the extract for him. Unfortunately this official had no ink or paper at hand with which to copy out the entry, and casually observed:
"Oh, you may as well have the leaf as it is," and without any hesitation took out his pocket-knife, cut out the leaf and gave the gentleman the two entire pages [65].
[65] History of Parish Registers, by Burn; Social Life as told by Parish Registers, by T.F. Thiselton-Dyer, p. 2.
Another scandalous case was that of the clerk who combined his ecclesiastical duties with those of the village grocer. The pages of the parish register he found most useful for wrapping up his goods for his customers. He was, however, no worse than the curate's wife, who ought to have known better, and who used the leaves of the registers for making her husband's kettle-holders.
What shall be said for the guardians of the church documents of Blythburgh, Suffolk? The parish chest preserved in the church was at one time full of valuable documents in addition to very complete registers. So Suckling, the historian of Suffolk, reported. Alas! these have nearly all disappeared. Scarcely anything remains of the earliest volume of the register which concludes with the end of the seventeenth century, and the old deeds have gone also. How could this terrible loss have occurred? It appears that a parish clerk, "in showing this fine old church to visitors, presented those curious in old papers and autographs with a leaf from the register, or some other document, as a memento of their visit [66]."
[66] Social Life as told by Parish Registers; also Standard, 8 Jan., 1880.
Another clerk was extremely popular with the old ladies of the village, and used to cut out the parchment leaves of the registers and present them to his old lady friends for wrapping their knitting pins. He was also the village schoolmaster, as many of his predecessors had been, but this wretch used to cover the backs of his pupil's lesson-books with leaves of parchment taken from the parish chest. Another clerk found the leaves of the registers very useful for "singeing a goose."
The value of old registers for proving titles to estates and other property is of course inestimable. Sometimes incomes of thousands of pounds depend upon a little entry in one of these old books, and it is terrible to think of the jeopardy in which they stand when they rest in the custody of a careless clerk or apathetic vicar.
The present writer owes much to the faithful care of a good clerk, who guarded well the registers of a defunct City church of London. My father was endeavouring to prove his title to an estate in the north country, and had to obtain the certificates of the births, deaths, and marriages of the family during about a century. One wedding could not be proved. Report stated that it had been a runaway marriage, and that the bride and bridegroom had fled to London to be married in a City church. My father casually heard of the name of some church where it was thought that the wedding might have taken place. He wrote to the authorities of that church. It had, however, ceased to exist. The church had disappeared, but the old clerk was alive and knew where the books were. He searched, and found the missing register, and the chain of evidence was complete and the title to the property fully established, which was confirmed after much troublesome litigation by the Court of Chancery.
Sometimes litigants have sought to remove troublesome entries in those invaluable books which record with equal impartiality the entrance into the world and the departure from it of peer or peasant. And in such dramas the clerk frequently appears. The old man has to be bribed or cajoled to allow the books to be tampered with. A stranger arrives one evening at Rochester, and demands of the clerk to be shown the registers. The stranger finds the entry upon which much depends. In its present form it does not support his case. It must be altered in order to meet his requirements. The clerk hovers about the vestry, alert, vigilant. He must be got rid of. The stranger proposes various inducements; the temptation of a comfortable seat in a cosy corner of the nearest inn, a stimulating glass, but all in vain. There is something suspicious about the stranger's looks and manners; so the clerk thinks. He sticks to his elbow like a leech, and nothing can shake him off. At length the stranger offers the poor clerk a goodly bribe if only he will help him to alter a few words in that all-important register. I am not sure whether the clerk yielded to the temptation.
There was a still more dramatic scene in the old vestry of Lainston Church, where a few years previously a Miss Chudleigh had been married to Lieutenant Hervey. This young lady, who was not remarkable for her virtue, arrived one day at the church accompanied by a fascinating friend who, while Mrs. Hervey examined the register, exercised her blandishments on the clerk. She expressed much interest in the church, and asked him endless questions about its architecture, the state of his health, his family, his duties; and while this little by-play was proceeding Mrs. Hervey was carefully and noiselessly cutting out the page in the register which contained the entry of her marriage. Having removed the tell-tale page she hastily closed the book, summoned her fascinating friend, and hastened back to London. The clerk, still thinking of the beautiful lady who had been so friendly and given him such a handsome present, locked the safe, and never discovered the theft. But time brought its revenge. Lieutenant Hervey succeeded unexpectedly to the title of the earldom of Bristol. His wife was overcome with remorse. By her foolish scheme she had sacrificed a coronet. That missing paper must be restored; and so the lady pays another visit to Lainston Church, on this occasion in the company of a lawyer. The old clerk unlocks again the parish chest. The books are again produced; confession is made of the former theft; the lawyer looks threateningly at the clerk, and tells him that if it should ever be discovered he will suffer as an accomplice; and then, with the promise of a substantial bribe, the clerk consents to give his aid. The missing paper is produced and deftly inserted in its former place in the book, and Miss Chudleigh becomes the Countess of Bristol. It is a curious story, but it has the merit of being true. Many strange romances are bound up within the stained and battered parchment covers of an old register.
Sometimes the clerk seems to have recorded in the register book some entries which scarcely relate to ecclesiastical usages or spiritual concerns. Agreements or bargains were inserted occasionally, and the fact that it was recorded in the church books testified to the binding nature of the transaction. Thus in the book of St. Mary Magdalene, Cambridge, in the year 1692, it is announced that Thomas Smith promises to supply John Wingate "with hatts for twenty shillings the yeare during life." Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, who records this transaction in his book on Social Life as told by Parish Registers, conjectures with evident truth that the aforenamed men made this bargain at an ale-house, and the parish clerk, being present, undertook to register the agreement.
A most remarkable clerk lived at Grafton Underwood in the eighteenth century, one Thomas Carley, who was born in that village in 1755, having no hands and one deformed leg. Notwithstanding that nature seemed to have deprived him of all means of manual labour, he rose to the position of parish schoolmaster and parish clerk. He contrived a pair of leather rings, into which he thrust the stumps of his arms, which ended at the elbow, and with the aid of these he held a pen, ruler, knife and fork, etc. The register books of the parish show admirable specimens of his wonderful writing, and I have in my possession a tracing made by Mr. Wise, of Weekley, from the label fixed inside the cover of one of the large folio Prayer Books which used to be in the Duke of Buccleuch's pew before the church was restored, and were then removed to Boughton House. These books contain many beautifully written papers, chiefly supplying lost ones from the Psalms. The writing is simply like copper-plate engraving. In the British Museum, amongst the "additional MSS." is an interleaved edition of Bridge's History of Northamptonshire, bound in five volumes. In the fourth volume, under the account of Grafton Underwood, some particulars have been inserted of the life of this extraordinary man, with a water-colour portrait of him taken by one of his pupils, E. Bradley. There is also a specimen of his writing, the Lord's Prayer inscribed within a circle about the size of a shilling. There is also in existence "a mariner's compass," most accurately drawn by him. He died in 1823.