LANCASTRIENSIS.
West Chester (Vol. iii., p. 353.).—So called in contradistinction to Chester-le-Street, Chester Magna, Chester Parva, Chesterfield, Chesterton, and a hundred other Chesters throughout England. To be sent to West Chester (frequently so called in the beginning of the last century), was to be sent into banishment, i. e. into Ireland; of which Chester was in those days the usual, and indeed almost the only, route.
C.
Registry of Dissenters (Vol. iii., p. 370.).
—I beg to inform D. X. that I have met with several instances of Dissenters' burials being entered in parish registers, at a time when a more amicable feeling than now exists prevailed between churchmen and themselves. In the register of Warbleton, co. Sussex, in particular, there are several entries of Quakers who were buried in their own cemetery in that parish, about 150 years since.
M. A. LOWER.
Lewes.
Registry of Ministerial Offices performed by Dissenters (Vol. iii., p. 370.).—The note of D. X. has led me to examine the baptismal registers of Ecclesfield parish, and I find on the parchment fly-leaf of the book which contains the baptisms, that date from nearly the beginning of the seventeenth century, the following heading—"Births of the children of some Dissenters enter'd as given." Then comes a list of the names of fourteen children, with the dates of their births; and, after several miscellaneous entries of baptisms, I find,
"January 3. 1750-1, Samuel, son of Thomas Sayles, said to be baptised at Sheffield by ye Popish priest."
The enrolment of births is, no doubt, quite improper. But the entering of dissenting baptisms in the parish register (mentioned by D. X.) would not, I think, be equally open to reprobation; inasmuch as the registering has always been of baptisms in the parish, and not merely in the church. Hence, if dissenting baptism be, as no doubt it is, a valid title to burial by the clergyman, he might, not unreasonably, be disposed to keep a list of such irregular administrations. That the law has regarded them as irregular, is evident from the fact, that when in 1812 an act was passed "for the better regulating and preserving parish and other registers of births, baptisms, marriages, and burials in England," the 146th chap. of the same distinctly declares, that when a baptism is performed by any other than the licensed minister of the parish, the certificate of its performance must state that it was "according to the rites of the United Church of England and Ireland." No dissenting baptism, therefore, could now be registered by the clergyman.