98 BUCKLAND NEWTON PARISH REGISTER. 



registrar or incumbent ; while from 1695 to 9th March, 1736-7, 

 Latin is regularly used, at which last-mentioned date English 

 obtains undisputed sway, and has not since been dethroned. 

 There is one unfortunate defect in this otherwise well-kept Register. 

 No entries occur between 29th June, 1625, and 9th February, 

 1653-4, except one in 1628. Xo reason can now be assigned for so 

 unfortunate a circumstance, for, though it is often the case that 

 registers were neglected during the civil war, this defect commences 

 at a much earlier date. The cause must be sought in some special 

 circumstance relating to the parish or incumbents, and it may be 

 observed that the period of non-registration synchronizes in the 

 main with the incumbencies of Charles Robson, inducted 22nd 

 April, 1624, and his successor, Thomas Ridout, who was buried 

 21st December, 1654. It should be noted that from 1754 a 

 separate Register has been kept for marriages, though a few of 

 them continued to be entered in he old volume. "With this 

 exception the book comprises all the genealogical particulars relat- 

 ing to the inhabitants of this extensive parish for a period of 

 nearly 250 years. 



How Buckland XeAvton came to be possessed of a Register so 

 carefully ordered is explained by the fact that in 1574 was 

 instituted, as Vicar, John Phillipps, who had not long before 

 (10th February, 1573), been appointed a notary public by faculty 

 issued by Archbishop Parker. A copy of the document so appoint- 

 ing him, in which he is described as being of the Diocese of 

 Hereford, signed "\Yillrnus Larke ad facilitates Regis'arius," is 

 entered in the Buckland Register. He may be supposed to have 

 had some legal training or attainments to fit him for this office, and 

 if that is the case the effect is seen in the methodical way in which, 

 a few years later, he carried out the Constitution of Convocation in 

 the matter of Parochial Registers. In Burn's " History of Parish 

 Registers." 2nd edition, 1862, pages 22 and 23, it is set forth that 

 on 25th October, 1597, an important order was made by the 

 Archbishop, Bishops, and Clergy of the Province of Canterbury, 

 from which the following paragraph is taken : " Deinde ut libri 



