| 1559.—"For ledd, and making of tokens at Easter | vid." |
What these tokens were required for at Easter I cannot ascertain, but suppose them to have been for some religious purpose. Tokens for change do not occur before the time of Charles I, and they were made by tradesmen, not parishes, and had nothing to do with Easter.
In the year 1660, John Martin, bell founder, was employed in "casting and hanging the second bell." This was at the Worcester foundry, which was in operation a few years only, which is still called "Bellfounders' Yard," Silver Street. Lastly, in 1769, one of the vestry meetings was attended (or at least the minutes are signed by) seven women and seven men. This introduction of the feminine element, however, seems to have been a very rare exception to the rule in those days.
The present rector of St. Michael's is the Rev. George St. John; churchwardens, Mr. Henry Bennett and Mr. Curtis. Population in 1851, 483. The office of clerk has been in the family of Bond for nearly a century; and the records state that, in 1763, Nathaniel Bond (an ancestor of the present clerk, Mr. Capel Bond) was appointed clerk and sexton, at a salary of £4 a year and fees.
St. Swithin's.
This register commences with the year 1538, but it is obvious from the fact of the items for three quarters of a century being in the same handwriting and the same ink, that it was copied from an older one, for the same reason as in the case of St. Michael's register, before-mentioned. During the Civil Wars there are fewer entries of marriages than usual, but no other feature of interest presents itself.
The churchwardens' account book begins in 1673, and contains much that is noteworthy. In those days the churchwardens seem to have been the regular factotums of the parish. They received from the Mayor, at Midsummer and Christmas, the benefaction known as Lord Coventry's money, and distributed to nine poor persons, whose names are entered in the book, at the rate of 3s. 4d. each; and there is a longer list of those who received charity on St. Thomas's Day. Irish vagrants greatly infested the city, and drew largely on the parochial funds; maimed and disabled soldiers and sailors, and numbers of distressed persons who had seen better days, or who had been "ruinated by fire," constantly appealed to the popular benevolence.