England Ecclesiastical Records in the Parish Chest (National Institute)

Parish Registers
The records of christenings, confirmations, banns, marriages and burials kept in the parish registers form the bulk of the bound volumes in many parishes; St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Westminster, Middlesex, for example, has 75 large books still kept in a huge safe in the vestry, but happily now being microfilmed.

Vestry
The Vestry has been called the ‘parish parliament’ and was the forerunner of the village or town council. It had various ecclesiastical functions and also assumed some of the civil responsibilities of the manorial court, such as upkeep of the roads, and care of the sick and the poor. During the course of the 19th century these civil duties were gradually transferred to other bodies, and in 1894 all civil functions were transferred to the new parish councils and parish meetings. The Church of England tended to resist any change that transferred power from ecclesiastical to civil authorities since it undermined their influence over the population. Increasingly during the 19th century people were freed from having to obey church edicts in order to qualify for temporal assistance, and there was a concomitant shift to nonconformity and even atheism.

Vestry membership was of two types:


 * A Closed or Select Vestry comprised the parson, churchwardens and often 12 (sometimes up to 24) invited leading parishioners. Some select vestries were committees chosen by open vestries.


 * An Open Vestry consisted of the parson, churchwardens and all male ratepayers who could all attend and vote, thus evidencing a more democratically run parish, but sometimes producing long and raucous meetings.

The room in the church in which they met (if it had one) was also called the vestry. At first all vestry members were unpaid except the parish clerk, whom Prendergast so aptly describes, and there could be a number of assistants with various duties. There was the sexton who dug graves as well as caring for the vessels, vestments and churchyard. Another was the typically officious beadle who summoned parishioners to vestry meetings, whipped vagrants, kept children in order with his cane etc. and may have doubled as the parish constable; his type has been well described by Cornelius Webbe in The Beadle of the Parish in Portraits of the English - Vol I Parish Characters.. However, it was not uncommon for the meeting to open in the vestry, then adjourn and promptly re-open in the comfort of the local inn with vittles (victuals of bread, cheese and ale) appearing later in the churchwarden’s accounts!

Records of Vestry Members
The items encountered were as variable as the individual parishes. There are nominations of officers for example those for Kelvedon Hatch, Essex 1736-60 are still extant; notices; and minutes of vestry meetings.

Vestry Minutes Whippingham 1810, Isle of Wight, Hampshire

Vestry Minutes
All the parish business was discussed at the vestry before any action was taken by the overseers, churchwardens or constable, so they are a fruitful hunting ground for paupers’ problems. Items discussed include:


 * Sabbath observance.
 * Sermons.
 * Sacraments.
 * Instruction of psalm singers.
 * Repairs to the church.
 * Fees for burial in the church.
 * Boarding and lodging of the poor. A shocking report of the vestry’s annual boarding out of pauper children at Hellingly, Sussex referred to by the author as ‘the auction of cheap farm labour’ is given by David Packham’s article Parish Children at Hellingly.
 * Provision of clothing for paupers and their children being sent out in service.
 * Pauper apprentices.
 * Grants to assist pauper emigration.
 * Charities.
 * Medical treatment.
 * Disposal of nuisances.
 * Payments for meals, drink heat at vestry meetings.
 * Establishing a school and hiring schoolmasters. Read William Howitt’s The Country Schoolmaster in Portraits of the English - Vol I Parish Characters, for a good description of a country schoolmaster.
 * Repair of roads and bridges.
 * Construction of parish lock-ups (gaols).
 * Water supply.
 * Housing.
 * Sanitation.
 * Policing.
 * Setting parish rates, (taxes based at so many pence in the pound of property value), for various purposes as needed, for example, poor rate, paving rate, highway rate. Tonbridge had a gaol rate 1817, and a lighting rate 1857-1871 indicating when gas street lights were installed.

Some minutes are curt and to the point, whilst others reveal why certain actions were taken and can therefore be a real gold mine for family historians. The decisions can be followed up in the churchwardens’ and overseers’ accounts. To quote Tate, No subject was too great, and none too small, for the attention of a really keen vestry!

Most parishes provided their poor with clothes (often secondhand) or cloth to make them, food, wood for fuel, and with the services of midwives or nurses when needed, and parishes usually had a contract with a local doctor to care for the sick poor. A moving case of a family’s plight over many years discussed in the vestry minutes of Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire is well-told by Goddard. Keith-Lucas mentions various allowances in kind to paupers which attempted to let them fend for themselves:


 * The vestry of Old Romney, Kent gave Widow Chillenden a fat hog in 1748.


 * In the villages of Pluckley and Lamberhurst in Kent, the vestry gave sacks of beans to feed the paupers’ hogs—’obviously more economical than letting the pig die, and then having to feed its owner’.


 * The overseers at Wye, Kent provided Stephen Rains with a horse and cart so that he could carry on his trade in 1801.

The following are examples of items found in vestry minutes.

Fire Needed in July 1796 Vestry Minutes East Hendred, Berkshire

Charity Apprentice 1807 Vestry Minutes Whippingham, Isle of Wight, Hampshire

School and Shoolmaster 1808 Vestry Minutes Whippingham, Hampshire

Setting Poor Rates 1810 Vestry Minutes Whippingham 

Disposal of Paupers’ Dogs 1825 Vestry Minutes of East Peckham, Kent

It seems that the local landowners objected to him trying to augment his poor relief with a little poached rabbit or fowl for his family!

Infirmary Recommendation 1830 Vestry Minutes of Potton, Bedfordshire

Details of Pauper Families 1826 Vestry Minutes, East Peckham, Kent A List of the families who receive parochial relief taken Easter 1826. The five columns list Parents’ names, Residence (if out of village), Names and ages of children, Allowances of cash and flour.

Poor Relief in 1830s Vestry Minutes of East Peckham, Kent                                                    Dec 4th 1830

At each fortnightly meeting there were several requests and the decisions were noted by each, as in the following example. Sometimes the request was repeated for several months before it was granted.

Dec 18th 1830


 * 25th February 1832

In the poor and populous London east end parish of St. George in the East, Middlesex there is an account book in with the vestry minutes which includes payments to the churchwarden for pauper burials. There were 568 in the two-and-a-half year period 1 Jun 1830-Oct 1832 at 4/- each, a total of £113.12s.

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