Strenuous exertions were made here, as throughout the city generally, to check the increase of the pauper population. Men were paid to watch vagrant women who were in an interesting situation, and escort them out of the parish—no matter where so that they were not in St. Helen's; but notwithstanding the utmost precautions the number of foundlings and illegitimates was very great. Where the fathers of these were known it was very long odds against their escaping from the wardens, who generally succeeded in tying that hymeneal knot for them which they themselves ought to have fastened some time earlier. The prospect of a capital wedding dinner, all expenses to be paid for them, and a liberal fee put in their pocket, for the most part converted these lascivious libertines into honest Benedicts, and saved the parish the maintenance of the pauper infant. The accounts abound with such items as these:
"Spent with Ben. James, p'swading him to marry Han. Hill, 1s."
"At ye marriage of Bury with Brawler of Powick—for licence, £1. 2s. 6d.; spent at ye wedding, 6s. 6d.; to ye bridewell keeper, 1s.; to ye parson, 5s.; to ye clerke, 1s."
"Expenses for eating and drink, Corfield's marriage with Gould, 3s. 7d.; two men for watching, 2s.; drink when Corfield was taken, 1s. 3d; for ye warrant, 4d.; to cash given ym and marrying, 8s. 6d."
In 1720, the sum of 3d. was paid "to ye clerke for keeping a w—— out of ye parish;" and "expenses in preventing Tomkins marying a w—— of All Saints, 9d." The whole of the parish disbursements in 1682 amounted to but £31. 18s. 1d., but by 1740 they had reached to £273. Perambulation expenses increased during the same period from 12s. to £3. 8s.; and the principal drinking places were the Globe, King's Head, and Adam and Eve. The churchwardens were in the habit of sending the mayor a brace of capons at Christmas "for the house in Dolday," but in 1719 this chief rent was commuted into an annual payment of 2s., being the usual cost of the capons. In 1703 "it was agreed to mayntain the lamps with oyle and dressing from All Hollantide to Candlemas from the Town Hall to the Colledge gates, at the parish charge by the churchwardens for the time being;" and in 1740, a sum was "paid ye clerk for two nights lighting the lamps ye time of ye musick meeting," that being about the period when the Festivals were on the point of being established on a permanent and enlarged basis. What can be the meaning of the following entry?
1727.—"Paid John Speed for putting flower in ye tub of water severall times, 1s."
The Pentecostals or Whitsun farthings paid in this parish in 1701 amounted to 3s., which, at a farthing per head, would show 144 paying householders then in the parish, unless indeed the payment had become a fixed one. There were said to be 255 houses here in 1779. Whitsun farthings (alluded to in pages 14 and 23) have been made from chapelries to their mother church up to a comparatively recent date. In the Castle Morton parish register is an entry of such payment at the commencement of the present century. Nash states that the Whitsun farthings belonging to the Cathedral of Worcester in 1649, when an act was passed for selling the lands, &c., of bishops, deans, and chapters, were estimated at about £5. 5s. per annum. He also gives a list of the amount due from each parish in the then nine deaneries. The share paid by the city of Worcester was 15s. 2-1/2d.
The present rector of St. Helen's is the Rev. J. H. Wilding; churchwardens, Mr. Woods and Mr. T. Bickley. Population in 1851, 1368.
