2-d a w 60., Apbii. 25. '67,3 NOTES AND QUERIUa 



321 



LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1857. 



PARISH REGISTERS.* 



" I conceive there is nothing of more importance than 

 the endeavouring to deposit in some secure place the re- 

 gisters of births, baptisms, and funerals." — Mr. Baron 

 Garrow. 



« All the property in this country, or a large part of it, 

 depends on registers, and we must see our way clear be- 

 fore we shake the authenticity of registers." — Lord Chief 

 Justice Best. 



I have perused the communications on this sub- 

 ject with great attention and much pleasure, the 

 more so from being greatly interested in these 

 registers, and my daily avocations for many years 

 past having been more or less connected there- 

 with. Under these circumstances, and consider- 

 ing the importance of these documents to all 

 classes of society, particularly to the middle and 

 lower classes, who have very often no other title- 

 deeds than these registers, I trust you will be kind 

 enough to indulge me with a little more space than 

 usual. 



There can be no doubt as to the desirability of 

 making these records more easily accessible to the 

 public, which I think would be best accomplished 

 by placing them in the custody of the Registrar- 

 General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages at Lon- 

 don, who has already all the non-parochial registers 

 of England and Wales from the earliest period to 

 July 1, 1837, when the civil registers of births, 

 deaths, and marriages commence. In this respect 

 the Dissenters are better off than the members of 

 the Established Church. 



Parochial registers of baptisms, marriages, and 

 burials were first established in 1538, and have 

 been continued to the present time in the eleven 

 thousand parishes of England and Wales. I would 

 have all the registers from 1538 to 1837 deposited 

 with the Registrar- General ; but I am doubtful 

 whether Parliament would pass a compulsory bill 

 to this effect without compensation to the clergy, 

 which of course is out of the question : they might, 

 however, require the register books of every 

 parish to be delivered upv on the next avoidance 

 of the living after the passing of the Act, and 

 allow them to be given up before. But for my 

 own part I consider the evidence of the culpable 

 carelessness and negligence of the clergy, and the 

 gross ignorance of their illiterate clerks, so over- 

 whelming, that the register books should be re- 

 moved from their custody without further delay. 

 One of the witnesses before the Select Committee 

 on Parochial Registration, 1833, observed that 

 evidence of births, marriages, and deaths was in 

 constant request, and that it was of the highest 

 importance to have it correctly kept and readily 

 produced ; yet, as another witness observed, every 



[♦ See 2^^ S. ii. 66. 118. 151. 217. 318. 378. ; iii. 181.] 



day's experience concurs with antecedent proba- 

 bility in showing that the parish books have been, 

 and are, kept in a very uncertain and imperfect 

 manner, and that their preservation (which at the 

 best depends on a chest in a damp church) is very 

 hazardous and incomplete. 



The Population Abstract of 1801 contains the 

 names of some hundreds of parishes whose regis- 

 ters are deficient, stating the particular periods at 

 which the defects occur. This abstract represents 

 only the last century, and yet shows chasms of 

 fifty, sixty, and even more than eighty years ! 

 With regard to the registers anterior to the year 

 1600, Mr. Rickman states (in his preface to the 

 Population Returns for 1831) that one-half of them 

 have disappeared! 



Here is a specimen of the care taken of the re- 

 gisters in the county of Northampton. Mr, Baker, 

 the historian of that county, in his examination 

 before the Parochial Registration Committee, 

 stated, 



" I had an opportunity of comparing the state of the 

 registry now with what it was a century back, in the 

 collections for the historj' of the county by Mr. Bridges. 

 I find that out of between seventy or eighty parishes there 

 are thirteen of the old registries which have been lost 

 since that time, and three which have been accidentally 

 burnt. I find that in the time of Mr. Bridges there were 

 nine which commenced in 1538 ; they are now reduced to 

 four. In the parish of Barby the register was actually 

 burnt by the clergyman, a son of the former incumbent : 

 he entered his own baptism in the fly-leaf of the new re- 

 gister, and burnt the old one. I knew another case of a 

 parish in our neighbourhood, where there had not been a 

 resident clergyman for a length of time ; the register was 

 kept by the parish clerk, whose daughter was a lace- 

 maker, and she made use of all the old ^Igisters for her 

 lace parchments." 



In the same county, a clergyman discovered 

 at the house of one of his parishioners an old 

 parchment register, sewed together as a covering 

 for the tester of a bedstead. This is pretty well 

 for one county. Here are a few extracts to show 

 the care taken of the registers in other places. 



Plungar, Leicestershire. The clerk was a 

 grocer, and had no idea of the use of a parish 

 register, beyond that of its affording waste paper 

 for wrapping up his grocery commodities. 



Ragdale, same county. The register, prior to 

 1784, was in the possession of Earl Ferrers ; who 

 desired the Rev. William Casson, the curate, to 

 say that it was mislaid. 



At another place in Leicestershire, Thoresby, 

 the historian of that county, was told by the clerk, 

 on observing that the register must be deficient, 



that Farmer kept the register lately ; and 



he, to save the tax, put no name down for two 

 years. 



The Rev. S. Denne rescued the registers of two 

 parishes in Leicestershire : one from the shop of a 

 bookseller, and the other from the corner cup- 

 board of a working blacksmith, where it had lain 



