Miss Elton, of Bath, tells me of the clerk of Bierton, near Aylesbury, of which her father had sole charge for a time at the end of the forties. His predecessor had been a Mr. Stephens. The place had been neglected, and church matters were at a low ebb. Mr. Elton instituted a service on Saints' Days, which was quite an innovation at that time, and the first of these was held on St. Stephen's Day. The old clerk came into the vestry after the service and said, "I be sorry, sir, to hear the unkid (= awful) tale of poor Mussar (Mister) Stephens. He be come to a sad end surely." He had evidently confounded the first martyr, St. Stephen, with the late curate of the parish, having apparently never heard of the former.
A new vicar had been appointed to a parish about eight miles from Oxford, who had been for many years a Fellow of his college, and in consequence knew little of village folk or parochial matters. Dr. A. was much disturbed to find that so few of the villagers attended church, and consulted the clerk on the subject, who suggested that it might encourage the people to attend if Dr. A. was to offer to give sixpence a Sunday to all who came to church. The plan was tried and found to succeed; the congregations improved rapidly, and the church was well filled, to Dr. A.'s satisfaction. But after a while the numbers fell off, and to Dr. A.'s chagrin people left off attending church. He again called the clerk into his counsels, and asked what could be the reason of the falling off of the congregation, as he had always given sixpence every Sunday, as he promised, to all who came to the service. "Well, sir," said the clerk, "it is like this: they tells me as how they finds they can't do it for the money."
The following reminiscences are supplied by the Rev. W. Frederick Green, and are worthy of record:
I well remember the parish clerk of Woburn, in Bedfordshire, more than sixty years ago. His name was Joe Brewer--a bald-headed, short, stumpy man, who wore black knee-breeches, grey stockings, and shoes. He was also the town crier. He always gave out the hymns from the front of the west gallery. "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, hymn--" Once I heard him call out instead, "O yes! O yes! O yes! This is to give notice," and then, recollecting he was in church, with a loud "O crikey!" he began "Let us sing," etc.
Collections in church were made by him in a china soup plate from each pew. Ours was a large square family pew. One Sunday my brother put into the plate a new coin (I think a florin), which Brewer had never seen before, and which he thought was a token or medal, and thinking my brother was playing a trick upon him, said in a loud voice, "Now, Master Charles, none of them larks here."
I have also seen him at afternoon service (there was no evening service in those days), when it unexpectedly came on too dark for the clergyman to see his MS. in the pulpit, go to the altar--an ordinary table with drawers--throw up the cloth, open a drawer, take out two candles and a box of matches, go up the pulpit stairs, fix them in the candlesticks, and light them.
During the winter months part of his duty was to tend the fire during service in the Duke of Bedford's large curtained, carpeted pew in the chancel.
When I was a boy I was staying in Northamptonshire, and went one Sunday morning into a village church for service (I think it was Fotheringhay). There was a three-decker, and the clerk from his desk led the singing of the congregation, which he faced. There was no musical instrument of any kind. The hymn, which of course was from Tate and Brady, was the metrical version of Psalm xlii. The clerk gave out the Psalm, then read the first line to the congregation, then sang it solo, and then the congregation sang it altogether; and so on line after line for the whole eleven verses.
More attention must have been paid in those days to the requirement of the ninety-first Canon, that the clerk should be known, if may be, "for his competent skill in singing."