The Office of Awakener. 243 
** Parish of Claverly, County of Salop :— 
**Richard Dovey of Farmeote in this Parish, by feoffment dated 23rd August, 
1659, gave a house and land situate at Claverly and Alverley, to John Saunders 
and others their heirs and assigns in trust (inter alia), ‘to pay yearly the sum 
of eight shillings to a poor man of the said parish, who should undertake to 
awaken sleepers, and to whip the dogs from the Church of Claverley during 
divine service.’ ”’ Char. Com. Rep. IV., p. 248. 
** Parish of Trysull, County of Stafford :— 
‘John Rudge, by his will dated 17th April, 1725, charges his lands at Seisdon 
with an Annuity of £7 10s.: viz. 30s. to each of three alms houses; £2 to the 
poor; and the further sum of 20s., being the remainder of the said Annuity, he 
gaye, payable at five shillings a quarter, to a poor man to go about the Parish 
Church of Trysull during sermon, to keep people awake and to keep the dogs 
out of the Church. 
‘The present owner is Cornelius Cartwright, Esq., by whom the Annuity is 
duly paid, in sums of 30s. each to the three alms houses; £1 to a poor man for 
awakening sleepers in the church and keeping out dogs; and £2 to the Trustees 
for the use of the Poor.” Id.V., p. 634, 
It should not be forgotten, that in the time of the Puritans the 
sermons were of much greater length than at present, and from 
the Reformation, and in particular during the Commonwealth, an 
hour-glass was placed in a frame near the pulpit, which the clergy- 
man set running at the commencement of his sermon, and when it 
had run the hour, turned it for a second hour. In many places 
these hour-glasses, or at least their stands, remain to this day. 
In the Churchwardens accounts of Ogbourne St. George in this 
county, (which have been recently mis-laid), there are, between 
the years 1622 and 1657, several entries of 
£6 Paid. for & howar-Glass . < «ji sf-,<'s «0/0192 i010 x4., is» or viiid- ” 
Mr. Rushworth, the Secretary of the Lord General Fairfax, in 
his Collections, (vol. VII, p. 772), gives the following statement as 
to two Puritanical sermons being preached before the House of 
Commons, one immediately after the other. 
1647, August 11th. Ordered by both Houses, that the two Sermons to be 
preached before the Houses to-morrow, being Thanksgiving Day, should be 
immediately one after the other without intermission,” 
Here the services of an awakener might possibly have been 
required. Did such an office ever exist in Wiltshire, or in the 
Diocese of Sarum ? F. A. Carrineton. 
Piggy, 
