^"d S. N« 62., Mab. 7. 'SrO 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



181 



LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1857. 

 PARISH KEGISTERS. 



I see by " N. & Q." tbat this subject is again 

 reviving. Some twenty-five years since, several 

 gentlemen associated with some dignitaries of the 

 Church, and printed a circular as to the enforcing 

 the transmission of bishops' transcripts, as a pro- 

 vision against the destruction, loss, or falsification 

 of parish registers. These circulars were sent to 

 every one of the bishops ; but althoujih the evils 

 complained of were admitted, and although the 

 subject '^pressed heavily on the mind" of one of 

 the most influential of the prelates, yet nothing 

 was done : and in some dioceses the registrar has 

 continued to receive a large income, while the 

 duty imposed on him by the Act of 1813 has been 

 wholly neglected. That duty was to cause the 

 copies of registers, transmitted to the bishop, to 

 be securely deposited and preserved, and carefully 

 arranged ; and correct and alphabetical lists of all 

 persons and places mentioned in such copies to be 

 made for public use, and to report yearly to the 

 bishop if any parishes failed to send in copies.* 



It must, however, be admitted that the Act of 

 1813, while it directs minutely how the copies 

 shall be made and sent, gives no power to the 

 registrar to enforce the transmission of them ; in- 

 deed, the only penalty in the Act is seven years' 

 transportation, which is sagely divided between 

 the informer and the poor of the parish ! It must 

 also be noticed, that in some dioceses, the regis- 

 trar's duties are imposed on a deputy, who re- 

 ceives a small salary, and who cannot therefore 

 be expected to be at any expense in carrying out 

 the provisions of this Act ; but this leads me to 

 the directions given by the Act of 1813 to the 

 bishops. They, together with the Custodes Rotu- 

 lorum of the several counties within each diocese, 

 and the chancellor thereof, were, before February, 

 1813, to cause a careful survey to be made of the 

 several places in which the parochial registers 

 were kept, and to report to the Privy Council 

 whether such buildings were safe and proper, or 

 at what expense they might be made so ; together 

 with their opinion upon the most suitable mode of 

 remunerating the officers employed in each re- 

 gistry for their additional trouble and expense in 

 carrying the provisions of the Act into execution. 



Thus it appears that had the bishops done their 

 duty, the Act would have- ensured the benefits 



* Many of these transcripts accumulated some years 

 ago at the General Post Office, in consequence of their 

 being liable to postage from not being formally directed, 

 and the Post Office authorities actually committed them 

 to the flames ! ! Had the registrars reported to the 

 bishop, and looked after these transcripts, this would not 

 have happened. 



accruing from the original injunction in 1597 for 

 the transmission of transcripts ; and it is hardly 

 an excuse to the public to urge that the bishops' 

 registrars have no means of providing for the ex- 

 pense of these transcripts, when the bishops have 

 neglected the consideration of the means by which 

 the expense might be met.* 



With the circular to which I at first referred, 

 was sent a printed paper containing " Notes of 

 Forgeries in Parish Registers, detected, in some 

 instances, by Reference to the Bishops' Tran- 

 scripts thereof." This paper would interest many 

 of your readers, if its length should not preclude 

 its admission into your columns.f It very forcibly 

 demonstrates the immense importance of these 

 transcripts. § 



The measures to be now adopted for remedying 

 the neglect of the past, and providing for the 

 future, must be considered in another article. 



J. S. BUEN. 



" Notes of several of the Forgeries which have been made 

 in Parish Registers, and detected, in some instances, by 

 reference to the Bishops' Transcripts thereof; showing, 

 therefore, the use and importance of those Transcripts, 

 and the necessity for making returns of them with regu- 

 larity, and securing their safe custody.§ 



" In the Stafford Peerage Case in 1825, on the counter- 

 claim set up by Mrs. Mac Carthy, the House of Lords 

 was dissatisfied with certain entries in the parish register 

 of Saint Andrew's, Worcester, which had been produced 

 as evidence before them, and required the production of 

 the bishop's transcript; fortunately a transcript had been 

 transmitted to the registry at Worcester, and was accord- 

 ingly produced, when it evidently showed that the ori- 

 ginal register had been interpolated by the insertion of 

 the marriage in question: '1686. Edward Rawlins and 

 Anne Howard, daughter of the Honourable Henry Ho- 

 ward, April 2nd.' The clergyman, as appeared by the 

 evidence, had allowed a stranger to take the register 

 away, who no doubt committed the forgery in question. 

 A second entry was produced referring to a marriage in 

 the parish register of Evesham : ' 1691. Dec. 12th. Thomas 

 Gordon, Gentleman, and Anne Rawlins, Widow of Edward 

 Rawlins, Grand-daughter of the late Lord Viscount 

 Stafford.' The transcript from Worcester was referred 

 to, which showed that this entry also had been subse- 

 quently inserted in the parish register. 



" In another case of suspicion, a reference Avas made to 

 the transcript in the registry of Sarum, when it turned 

 out that the true name had been altered to another bv an 



* Many years ago I inquired at the Privy Council 

 Office, but could not find that a single report had been 

 sent in from the bishops. 



f See Grimaldi's Origines Geneal., and Burn's Sist. of 

 Par. Reg., p. 163. 



[{ We have been obliged to omit, at least for the pre- 

 sent, the statement of the transcripts in the several 

 dioceses.] 



§ The transmission of annual transcripts of registers to 

 the bishop of the diocese was first directed by a canon of 

 Elizabeth, in 1597, as a protection of property against 

 fraud or forgery in the parish register. Although, how- 

 ever, this canon has been confirmed by several Acts of 

 Parliament, its salutary enactments have been much 

 neglected, as will appear by the tables published in 1829, 

 in Burn's History of Parish Registers, p. 163. 



