Chap. 2.] ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 51 



road to which lie was knocked off his horse and narrowly escaijed being 

 murdered. At the time of his sequestration he was sixty years old, 

 with a wife and numerous family, hut he had a small paternal estate 

 at Colne, in this county, to which he withdrew, and where he died in 

 1667. He is said to have been learned in medicine and law as well as 

 his own profession, and a man of very blameless life. 



" Ingham, on the contrary, was so illiterate as to be scarcely able to 

 write his name ; and in principle so pliant that the vicarage of Rib- 

 chester, having been augmented by the usurping powers with forty 

 pounds per annum, their usual allowance for small benefices, he found 

 it worth his while to conform at the Eestoration and kept possession of 

 it."^ (Walker, Sufferings of the Parochial Clergy.) 



The following extract fi-om the parish registers at Ribchester relate 

 to LoDgridge Ecclesiastical history of this time : — 

 1685. 



Spent on Thos. Kings, Minister at Longridge 00 06 4 



Spent on the King's Minister and Mr. Kippax, at Longridge 00 14 00 



Paid when we elected Mr. Ffelgate to be our Curate 00 04 00 



1690. 



Spent at bringing a Chist to Longridge Chappell 00 00 03 



Spent at Longridge Chappell on Mr. White and others of the parish 00 02 06 



The difficulty, great in any case, of finding out the ecclesiastical 

 history of Longridge in the 17th and 18th centuries, is considerably 

 enhanced by the fact of its being only a chapel of ease under 

 Ribchester. Accordingly, the registers of baptisms, marriages and 

 biu'ials are preserved at Ribchester, and signed generally by the 

 vicars of that parish. However, by carefully comparing the names of 

 the various " officiating," i.e., temporary ministers, who performed 

 services at Ribchester, with the names of known vicars of Goosnargh, 

 Chipping, Balderstone, and other places in the vicinity, I find the 

 following persons who were in all likelihood curates of Longridge. 

 The registers, etc., of the church do not begin till 1760, and they do 

 not contain anything of importance except the commencement of the 

 present mode of choosing the churchwardens. No mention is made in 

 them of any curate of Longridge prior to the Eev. Robt. Parkinson. 



'LTnlilie Timothy Smith, at the neigh- 

 bouring chapel of Longridge. 



