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LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1894. CONTENT 8.-N° 112. Peat the trouble they would have during their year of office the clavers were to divide four shillings, and a bequest was left for the purpose. The old book in which the accounts were kept was lost, and the new book begins at 1555, in which year the amount of money which might be borrowed at one time was increased to five pounds, Words, 126. and the time for repayment extended to six months. QUERIES:-Shakspeare v. Lambert-Heraldic - OathsTen years later the amount of money in the chest Jacobite Societies - Godfrey-Elizabeth Jennens, 127Cake-bread-Houses on Piles-Protestants of Polonia- was one hundred pounds, towards which John Prote-Edward Grey-The Kraken-Richard King-"Who Underwood, the first suffragan bishop (he was goes home?" 128-Fortescues of Fallapit - Sir James Craufurd Eltweed -Fulham Volunteers Authors suffragan to Bishop Nix, and degraded Bilney, the Wanted, 129. martyr), had left five pounds, and Thomas Codd, REPLIES:-The Man with the Iron Mask, 129-William who was mayor at the time of Kett's rebellion, Parsons-"Level best," 130-Bayham Abbey-Vicar of Newcastle-Plots of Dramas-Wragg Family, 131-Counts gave ten pounds. In 1566, the parish, being short Palatine-Name of Watchmaker"Tib's Eve"-Little of money, borrowed five pounds on the security of Chelsea-Holt-Hill-Burial in Point Lace, 132-Palmer the "best cope of cloth of Tyssew, and j cope of Sir E. Frewen-St. Thomas of Canterbury-"Carbonizer -Extraordinary Field, 133-"Bother"-Jay-St. Peters- whyght damask." It is easy to understand that burg-" "To quarrel"-Abbey Churches-Markwick-Hats whenever the parish was in want of money it went in the House of Commons, 134-Parallels in Tennyson to the chest for it. It does not appear from the Charles Owen-Creole, 135-Juvenile Authors-"Chacun à son goût"-Sinclair-Sir W. Bury-Dulcarnon-Armorial entries that the parish returned the money Bearings, 136" Gingham"-"Ondoyé," 137-Miniature promptly, nor that the pledge was forfeited in Volumes-Arms of Cities-Udal Tenure, 138-Portraits of NOTES ON BOOKS:-Funk's 'Standard Dictionary'. Hotes. A PAROCHIAL PAWN SHOP. John Cambridge, who was Alderman, Sheriff, and Mayor of Norwich, died in 1442, and left in his will a bequest of ten pounds, which was to be kept in a chest behind the altar in St. Anne's Chapel, in the Church of St. Andrew, Norwich, to be lent to parishioners on approved security. He made a long will, which contains minute directions as to the carrying out of his bequests. He desired that the money should be kept in the Chapel of St. Anne, in charge of two persons, who were to be chosen upon his "yereday." If the borrower left a sufficient security the custodians might lend not more than forty shillings, and for not longer than three months. At the time of borrowing, and also at the time of paying back, the key-keepers were directed to charge the borrower to say á paternoster, an ave, and a crede for his soul, and for the souls of his relatives. He also left a bequest for a "Dirige" to be said on the Tuesday in Easter week, and on the Wednesday for a mass to be said by six priests, to whom the two persons in charge of the chest were to pay fourpence each. In addition he requested that after the "Dirige" the two persons should buy four pennyworth of bread, eight gallons of ale, two gallons of wine, “to cheren with my neighboures and the pore pupill"; and a torch of the value of "vs." was to be given to the church. For all consequence. Amongst other curious items mentioned by Mr. Beecheno is Robert Thompson's bill relating to Mr. Yates, who will be remembered in connexion with the Montagu controversy: Pinned into the leaf under date 1616 is one Robert Thompson's bill : payd for charges the 9 of maye for bring of mr yattes from walden to norwihe manes meate & horsse meat from Walden to Bartten Mills, 38, 3d. at Attellborow & so home to Norwich, 5s, 5d. for 12 nights grass for mr yates his horse when he cam vpon tryell, 5s. Od. provender 18d. saddle mending 4d. shoing the horsse, 4d., 2s. 2d. lent to mr Cock which he did send in the name of the parrish to M" Yattes for tocken the some 22s. Od. Mr. Yates appears to have been a great favourite with the parishioners, who, in 1617, gave him 66 a gratewety "of 101, 13s. 4d. towards removing to Norwich, and because he had been to Yorkshire with Mrs. Yates. 66 In 1650 there was in the chest only fifty pounds, while six years later the money was found to have been misappropriated, and an order was made for its restoration in ten days." The stock in 1668 was five pounds, but three years later the amount had risen to twenty-two pounds. In 1739 there was ten pounds in the hands of the churchwardens, but what became of the money or the chest no one seems to know. I have applied for information on this point to the vicar, and also to a gentleman who was for many years churchwarden of St. Andrew. Canon Copeman knows nothing of its ultimate destination, and the gentleman to whom I refer tells me there is no trace of it. One may shrewdly suspect that during one of its periods of necessity the ten pounds was borrowed for use for the church. For most of the particulars in this note I am indebted to Mr. Beecheno's Cambridge Chest (privately printed). PAUL BIERLEY. PARISH COUNCILS AND PAROCHIAL RECORDS. (Concluded from p. 63.) The House of Commons has now amended the clause dealing with parochial records, so as to specifically exclude the parish registers, both new and old, from the control of the parish councils. Mr. Macdona's amendment to remove the registers dating before 1837 to the Public Record Office after the parish councils should have made authenticated copies was, I learn, ruled to be beyond the scope of the Bill, and was, therefore, not considered. The existing system, which makes the incumbent the sole custodian of all church registers, thus remains for the time unchanged. I have already shown that under this system the registers are neither as safe nor as accessible as is needful to the prosecution of historical research. I am, moreover, informed that the present system often proves unsatisfactory to solicitors, whose claims to consideration will be acknowledged by a wider public than the one interested in historical research. Mr. Macdona has undertaken to introduce a Bill on the lines of his suppressed amendment, and such an effort to ensure the safety and accessibility of an invaluable portion of the national archives ought to command general support. No question of party politics is involved. It is true that a few of the clergy threaten opposition to any change in the methods of keeping the registers, but that attitude is inconsistent with the traditions of a Church that has at every period reckoned eminent his torians among her leaders, and those who speak with authority on her behalf show, as far as I can learn, every desire to reform a system that is calculated to obstruct the progress of historical learning. That the English parish registers before 1837 are purely ecclesiastical documents, and should therefore be vested perpetually in the hands of the Church, is an untenable proposition. Instituted by civil ordinance in 1588, they were expressly devised to supply a system of registration that should include every resident within the parish. Practically no other system of registration was recognized in the Law Courts for nearly three centuries. Despite the spread of sectarian differences, the advantages of parochial registration were consequently extended for a long period to all who claimed them, whether or no they adhered to the beliefs and practices of the Established Church. The registers thus contain entries affecting many persons who were not members of the Church of England, and in the burial-books the fact that the deceased was a Roman Catholic or Dissenter is often noted, especially in cases where religious rites at the funeral were dispensed with, either at the wish of the family or by order of an over-scrupulous incumbent. Till the beginning of this century, furthermore, it was the habit of many incumbents, with the concurrence of the Bishops, to enter in their registers interesting facts respecting the secular history of the parish and neighbourhood-the object being, as Bishop White Kennet stated in 1718, to increase the utility of the registers for posterity. Since 1837 the registers, in the presence of a civil system of registration, have acquired a more distinctively ecclesiastical character, and there may be no good ground for interfering with the existing rights of the Church over the registers of the last fifty-six years. Mr. Macdona's scheme may present difficulties and may need modification. But it is none the les, in my belief, the best yet suggested. The manner of defraying the cost of the proposed transcripts may be open to argument, but it will be, parish by parish, very small, and the authenticated copies will be more useful for local reference than the originals, which are often difficult to decipher. No serious diminution in the small revenues now derivable by the incumbents from searchers need be anticipated after the transcripts have been substituted for the registere. But to allay the fears of the clergy on this score, a scheme might be old scale for consulting the registers might, when the devised whereby, for a fixed term of years, fees on the books are deposited in the Record Office, be payable to the officials there, and handed over, in whole or part, to the incumbents of the parishes concerned. In the proposal to transfer the registers to a central home there is nothing revolutionary. In 1854 Parliament directed that all parochial registers in Scotland before 1824 should be deposited with the RegistrarGeneral in Edinburgh, where they are now safely housed and readily accessible to the public. Moreover, y Acts of Parliament, dated respectively in 1840 and 1858, 3,265 registers of earlier date belonging to Nonvinistic Methodists and Quakers) were removed to conformist bodies (including the Wesleyan and Cal Somerset House. In France and Germany, I am told, every provision is adopted by the State to keep all local records in safety and duly accessible to the public. Successive English lying on them of rendering safe and accessible State Governments have, so far, recognized the obligation papers, wills, legal documents, the parochial registers of Scotland, and English Nonconformist registers of births, deaths, and marriages. It therefore seems reasonable to expect that any Government on whose attention the matter is adequately pressed would recognize as imperative a duty in regard to English parochial registers neglect. A Bill, introduced into Parliament by Mr. before 1837, which have hitherto suffered unaccountable W. C. Borlase in 1882, dealt with the question in many ways satisfactorily, but its promoters failed to adequately impress the Government of the day, and it was dropped. Perhaps a conference of those who sympathize with endeavours to draw public attention to the need of the action. I should be glad to hear from any who share that reform might now determine on an effective mode of view.-SIDNEY LEE, Dictionary of National Biography, 15, Waterloo Place, S.W. P.S.-It may be right to mention a recent incident, although at a hasty glance it may appear to tell against a part of my contention. Mr. Urwick, a Nonconformist clergyman, and a distinguished historian of Nonconformity, was recently refused access to the registers of his own church, which were in 1840, by Parliamentary enactment, removed to Somerset House. It seems that for many years the Nonconformist registers, like the wills in the Probate Registry, or the State papers in the Public Record Office, were freely accessible to literary students -an arrangement at once reasonable and necessary. But in a reply to a question in the House of Commons, obviously suggested by Mr. Urwick's treatment, Mr. Asquith stated last Friday that the RegistrarGeneral had withdrawn this privilege, owing to "want of space "and of "the requisite staff." To a layman both obstacles seem superable in a great public department, assumably conducted in the public interest. The moral, however, to be drawn from this case by those proposing new legislation respecting the registers is that, even when public documents are entrusted to the care of the State for the convenience of the public, the interests of literary students, unless more carefully than hitherto safeguarded by law, may occasionally suffer from official obtuseness or incompetence.-Times, Dec. 30, 1893. H. T. |