RIGHT OF REFUGE IN THE CHURCH PORCH.
(Vol. ix., p. 325.)
The following entry appears in a Corporation Book of this city, under the year 1662:
"Thomas Corbold, who hath a loathesome disease, have, with his wife and two children, layne in the Porch of St. Peters per Mountegate above one year; it is now ordered by the Court that he be put into some place in the Pest-houses during the pleasure of the Court, untill the Lazar-houses be repaired."
How they were supported during the year does not appear, or if he belonged to the parish; nor is it said that it was considered he gained settlement on the parish by continuing in the porch one year.
I have heard of similar instances under an idea that any person may lodge in a church porch, and are not removable; but I believe it is an erroneous idea.
Goddard Johnson.
In proof of the idea being current among the lower orders, that the church porch is a place of refuge for any houseless parishioners, I beg to state that a poor woman of the adjoining parish of Langford, came the other day to ask whether I, as a magistrate, could render her any assistance, as, in consequence of her husband's father and mother having gone to America, she and her family had become houseless, and were obliged to take up their abode in the church porch.
A. S.
West Tofts Rectory, Brandon, Norfolk.
I know an instance where a person found a temporary, but at the same time an involuntary, home in a church porch. There was a dispute between the parishes of Frodingham and Broughton, co. Lincoln, some twelve months ago, as to the settlement of an old woman. She had been living for some time in, and had become chargeable to the latter parish, but was said to belong to the former. By some means or other the woman's son was induced to convey his mother to the parish of Frodingham, which he did; and as he knew quite well that the overseer of the parish would not receive her at his hands, he adopted the somewhat strange course of leaving her in the church porch, where she remained until evening, when the overseer of Frodingham took her away, fearing that her life might be in danger from exposure to the cold, she being far advanced in years. Until I saw Cheverells' Query, I thought the depository of the old woman in the church porch was, so far as the place of deposit was concerned, more accidental than designed; but after all it may be the remnant of some such custom as that of which he speaks, and I, for one, should be glad to see farther inquiry made into it. To which of J. H. Parker's Parochial Tales does Cheverells allude?
W. E. Howlett.
Kirton-in-Lindsey.