Parish register

“ Thiselton-Dyer, who records this transaction in his book on Social Life as told by Parish Registers, conjectures with evident truth that the aforenamed men made this bargain at an ale-house, and the parish clerk, being present, undertook to register the agreement.
A most remarkable clerk lived at Grafton Underwood in the eighteenth century, one Thomas Carley, who was born in that village in 1755, having no hands and one deformed leg. Notwithstanding that nature seemed to have deprived him of all means of manual labour, he rose to the position of parish schoolmaster and parish clerk. ”

“ The churchwardens of every Parish-Church shall, some one Sunday, or other Festival day, every month, go about the Church, and make request to every of the Parish for their charitable Contribution to the Poor; and the sum so collected shall be put in the Chest of Alms for that purpose provided. And for as much as the Parish-Clerk shall not hereafter go about the Parish with his Holy Water as hath been accustomed, he shall, instead of that labour, accompany the said Church-Wardens, and in a Book Register the name and Sum of every man that giveth any thing to the Poor, and the same shall intable ”

“ The Register of the Privy Council records the localities of the meetings of that body, but it must be borne in mind that the registration was not very perfect (cf. ch. ii) , and also that, although the Council ordinarily followed the court, meetings were occasionally held in Westminster or London, either at the Star Chamber or in the house of a councillor or even a citizen, when the court happened to be out of town. (d) Church bells were rung when the sovereign moved into or out of a parish, and the churchwardens entered the ringers’ fees in their accounts. ”

“ Subsequently the register appears to have been usually kept by the rector, though occasionally there are lapses and indifferent writing appears. Sometimes the clerk has evidently supplied the deficiencies of his master, recording a burial or a wedding which the rector had omitted. In later times, when pluralism was general, and this living was held in conjunction with three or four other parishes, the rector must have been very dependent upon the clerk for information concerning the functions to be recorded. ”

“ One and all they are national records, the preservation of which ought to be assured to the nation by very different precautions from any which now are provided. Whom do the parish registers belong to? What guarantee have we that X or Y or Z may not sell “his”214 registers to the highest bidder? In point of fact, parish registers have been bought and sold again and again. Who are the owners of such a splendid collection of historic MSS. as is to be found in the archives of St. Lawrence’s Church, Reading? ”

“ Parish registers and other documents; church books, or library.
13. Church plate.
14. Church yard, (a) cross, (b) remarkable monuments or epitaphs, (c) yew tree, (d) lychgate, (e) sundial.
15. More recent fittings or ornaments, such as altar appurtenances, organ, etc.; the previous headings [96] being supposed to be confined to older details possessing some historic value. But if the date, or probable date, is given of each particular, it might perhaps be as well to describe everything (if a complete account up to date is desired) under its proper head ”

“ For the form and wording of such a licence see Parish Registers and Documents of Kingston-upon-Thames, etc.: Surrey Arch. Coll., ii (1864) , 92 (1591) . The fee according to royal proclamation was 6s. 8d.: St. Margaret, Lothbury, Vestry Minutes, 9. For receipts from this source see St. Ethelburga-within-Bishopsgate Acc'ts, 5, et passim, as well as the other London acc'ts already cited. Cf. Cardwell, Doc. Ann., i, 370-2, for Council's letter to the archbishop of Canterbury on the observance of Ember Days and Lent. ”

“ The boundaries of the old ecclesiastical parish were nowhere recorded, and the descriptions in the titles of private properties which appear to lie in the parish have sometimes to be taken as evidence, and sometimes the fact that the inhabitants attended a particular church or made payments in favour of a particular minister. Where there has been a union or disjunction and erection of parishes the evidence of the boundaries is the relative statute, order in council, or decree of commission or of court of teinds. The parishes proper vary to a great degree both in size and population. ”

“ The parochial history of the towns is very obscure. The facts point to the conclusion that the origin of parishes here was the same as in the country. There the lord of an estate built a church and provided a maintenance for a priest to minister to his family and dependents; and the priest’s spiritual authority was conterminous with the area of his patron’s civil jurisdiction; i.e. the estates were the parishes. The ancient towns, it is found, were frequently divided between several principal proprietors, who had rights of jurisdiction over their own land and the people living on it. ”

“ All documents required by any enactment or instrument to be deposited with the proper officer of a parish or community shall, in the case of a parish or community not having a separate parish or community council, be deposited in England with the chairman of the parish meeting or in Wales with the proper officer of the district council. ”

“ The provision of parish books and of a vestry room or parochial office, parish chest, and the holding or management of parish property not being property relating to affairs of the Church or held for an Ecclesiastical charity, are also in rural parishes transferred to the Parish Council. ”

“ Many parishes contain more than one township, and this is especially the case in the northern counties, where the separate townships are organized for administrative purposes under an act passed in 1662. In the southern and midland districts the parishes are for the most part subdivided into hamlets or other local divisions known as “ty things,“ “boroughs,” and the like; the distinction between a parish and a subordinate district lies chiefly in the fact that the latter will be found to have never had a church or a constable to itself. ”

“ The inhabitants therefore of a district parish have no more right to have their banns asked or their marriage solemnised in the mother Church than they have in any other Church in England, so long as they reside in that district. ”

“ Where, as is the case in many populous districts, part of a parish as defined for civil purposes has been constituted by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners a separate and distinct parish for ecclesiastical purposes, persons resident in such ecclesiastical parish must publish their banns in the church of that parish and not in "the mother parish." ”

“ In the first place, it teaches us that parochial divisions are artificial and comparatively modern. The formula that the parish is the township in its ecclesiastical capacity is (if unconsciously adopted) not historically true. Antiquaries familiar with the Norman period, or with the study of local history, must be acquainted with the ruins or the record of churches or chapels (the same building, I may observe in passing, is sometimes called both ecclesia and capella [20] ) , which formerly gave townships now merged in parishes a separate or quasi-separate ecclesiastical existence. ”

“ If a parish has a population which incldues not more than 150 local government electors, the district council may by order establish a separate parish council for that parish if the parish meeting so resolve. ”

“ To the authors of the History of English Law their existence is due to the natural outcome of the responsibility placed upon the people. “If the parishioners are compelled to provide precious books, robes, vessels, etc., they will naturally desire to have their say about the custody of these articles; parsons have been known to sell the church plate.”
In the fifteenth century the churchwardens were chosen annually in a parish meeting at which, no doubt, the rector or vicar would have presided; all adult members of the parish having a voice in the election. ”

“ The fact that the two systems, the parish and the township, have existed for more than a thousand years side by side, identical in area and administered by the same persons, and yet separate in character and machinery, is a sufficient proof that no legislative act could have been needed in the first place ”

“ Before the passing of the Local Government Act 1894 there was really nothing in the form of local government for a parish. It is true that the inhabitants in vestry had certain powers. They could adopt various acts, which will be more particularly referred to hereafter, and they could The parish and the parish council. appoint the persons who were to carry these acts into execution. They elected the churchwardens and overseers, the highway surveyor, if the parish was a separate unit for highway purposes, and the waywardens if it was included in a highway district. ”

“ In this clause the time for registration was limited to two months, but by a subsequent Act it was extended to six months.
The sixth section of the seventh of Ann, chap. 20, (the Act referred to) , provides that the “Registrar or Master shall keep an Alphabetical Kalendar of all the Parishes, Extra-parochial Places and Townships within the said County, with reference to the number of every Memorial that concerns the Donor’s Manors, Lands, Tenements, or Hereditaments in every such Parish, &c.” ”

“ At the annual parish meeting the parish council, if there is one, is elected, and the members of the council, who originally held office for one year only, now, under a subsequent act, hold office for three years. Any person who is a parochial elector, or who has for twelve months preceding the election resided in the parish, or within 3 m. thereof, may be elected parish councillor, and the number of councillors is to be fixed from time to time by the county council, not being less than five nor more than fifteen. Women, whether married or single, are eligible. ”

“ XXX. Cure of Souls shall remain in Incumbents of former Parishes. Provided always, and be it enacted, That this Act shall not be construed so as to discharge any Rector or Incumbent of any such adjoining Parish, or his Successors, from the Cure of Souls, or any other Parochial Duties within the Portions of their respective Parishes which shall make Part of such intended District, but such Cure of Souls and Duties shall remain in them respectively as before the passing of this Act. ”

“ The executive powers, which in the country districts are vested in the fogeds, in the towns are committed to the judges of the courts of first instance. The management of the affairs of the parish is placed in the hands of a council, chosen by the peasants, which deliberates on all matters which concern the parish, such as the making of new roads, the application to the central government for assistance, and the repairing of the parish church. ”

“ At the end of each parish I have added the common statistics:—the number of acres from the measurement of Mr. Hitchins; the value of the real property; the account of poor rate, and of the population at the four periods of numeration, from the Parliamentary Returns. And through the great kindness and liberality of Doctor Boase, I have been enabled to subjoin to these the geology of each parish, deduced from an actual survey in person of the whole county, by that very intelligent and experienced geologist, chemist, and physiologist. ”

“ In a new ecclesiastical parish or district a meeting in the nature of a vestry is composed of the same persons as would, if the parish or district were an ancient parish, be entitled to vote in the vestry thereof. ”

“ The state, by another division, is formed into parishes, many of which are commensurate with the counties; but sometimes a county comprehends more than one parish, and sometimes a parish more than one county. This division had relation to the religion of the state, a parson of the Anglican church, with a fixed salary, having been heretofore established in each parish. The care of the poor was another object of the parochial division. ”

“ It was the common practice in country districts, even down to the commencement of the nineteenth century, for the parish clerk, on a Sunday morning, to mount a grave stone, and for the worshippers to gather round him and listen to the announcements of coming auction sales, particulars of rewards offered for the conviction of persons who had been guilty of trespassing and committing wilful damage in the district—indeed, all kinds of workaday matters were made known. ”

“ XXV. Such Districts to be distinct, and the Churches or Chapels to be deemed Perpetual Cures. And be it further enacted, That upon and after the Registry and Inrolment of any such Instrument, the District therein set out and described shall be deemed and reputed to he a several and distinct District or Parish for the Purposes of this Act, and shall be called and known by such Name as shall he given thereto by such Instrument; and every Church or Chapel to be erected in such District shall be deemed a Perpetual Cure ”

“ There are various Inventories of Church Goods in the P. R. O., taken by Commission at the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., some on detached slips of parchment, others in paper books. The inventories are not absolutely perfect for all parishes in any one county; in several counties the churches of one or more Hundreds are missing ”

“ Hundreds, for it is a large parish. The bluffs which separate the hollows are not unpeopled; they have their cottages and gardens dotted over them without order at the caprice of former peasant owners. ”