An Old Vestry Book

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18950, 20 May 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

An Old Vestry Book

WHEN a well-known firm of solicitors long established in the City of London removed from their old premises In Birchin Lane to new ones In Gracechurch Street they found In their strong room the old vellum-bound Vestry Book of St. Benet, Gracechurch Street. Presumably, it had been left there by a former clerk who acted also as Parish Clerk, and forgotten. The church itself was demolished during last century. The book, a worn veteran of faded parchment, comprises 420 pages and covers the period of 1607 to 1758. Many of the entries are written In such an archaic and difficult hand as to be hardly decipherable; others are In an artistlo, painstaking script with ornamental heads and scroll-like tails. One P. Golltnson, a churchwarden, recoro3 inside the front cover that the “Book was New Bound 1729,” and there is also a note: “St. Bennetts Grace Church Cost £3583 9s 5d Building.”

Dealing With Vagrants

Most of the entries are typically parochial, of 'course, and concern tlie granting of reliefs of “widdows,” sending old parishioners |,(V the workhouse and young ones to apprenticeship, imposing and collecting the poor rate, and electing new “lecturers” and churchwardens —the latter by votes recorded by strokes of the pen through a horizontal line. But here and there is one reflecting the quaintness of a Hogarth print. In 1720, for instance, these occur: — Ordered that the Woman & the Two Children named Wise yt were Taken up on the Church Stepps be provided for In their Extremity. Ordered that Churohwaxdens Do remove the Stepps at the Church Door & make them within the Church Door, to prevent aney Charge that may agalne happen if not removed, by vagrants Lodging and setting on them. Apparently in those days it was easier to remove the steps bodily Inside the church than to remove vagrant women and children who decided to camp on them. Who Pays for the Bell? “For a considerable time there appears to have been something resembling a fend between St. Benel's and an adjoining parish. An entry of .1694 reads: — “Ordered that the great Bell be not rung for any of the parish of St. Leonards Easlchcapo unless 12s lie first paid to the Churchwarden for the same, that parish having not paid their proportion for the said Bell.” And another 1723, nearly thirty years later: —“Whereas Some Persons of the parish of St. l.eonard-Hastelieap of Late have Refused P> pay Double Duly for Die r.real Bell 'According lo AnDenl, Custom V ,\u Agreement made by Die Parilioiiurs of both Parishes it is therefore Now Ordered

A Parish Squabble : A Puritan Sweepstake,

that for the Time to Come the Clerk or Sexion Do Receive Die Double Dutys of all Persons Living out of the Parish of St. Bennet Grace Church Before they Bing the Great Bell."

The Poor Bate was a recurring problem. In 1715 a treble-rate had to he imposed as Die double-rate of previous years had been found inadequate to Hie needs. In 1757 it was fixed at Eighteen Pence in the Pound and ordered to apply to empty houses, the future 'occupiers apparently having to pay arrears on entering. There is an entry recording the holding of £2O worth of stock in tiie South Sea Company of “Bubble” fame in the name of Lord Onslow in trust for Sir Thomas Foot’s gift to two parishes. The Church Without a Bell. In or about 1734 a quaintly-worded petl«Don was received fraom a clixirclx at Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y., also called Grace ■Church, asking that the people of St. Benet’s send them a hell to complete their new house of worship. The colonists devoutly describe themselves as “a Body of Poor people who Dio’ settled at a great Distance from our mother country the Kingdom of England arc yet very Desirous (for the more decent and orderly Worship of God) to conie as near that Nation in Its Religious Usages & Customs as we possibly can," and proceed:— “We humbly conceive our selves to be under no Necessity of Using any Strong A persuasive terms, to move you upon this occasion to make a Collection for our poor Church; You, who very well know that as the Church is now In its Infant State here, so It must have many Difficulty's & Oppositions to Encounter with & must want the help & Assistance of all good Christians; of all good friends and well wishers to the Chur oh of England; besides you know <Sfc are well Acquainted with the word of St. Paul, wherein he Exhorteth to & Enforceth this kind of Charity of one Church to another in want, saying 2 Cor: 9 Chap: A 12 verse For the Administration of this Service, not only Supplyeth the want of the Saints, but Is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto (the Glory of) God. . . .’’ Bought by Lottery. The Vestry Book does not tell us whether those devout colonists of the New England got their “small bell” or not. When the present Rector at the Jamaica church was recently sent a copy of the petition, he wrote: “Apparently ttie hell was-not forthcoming, as a newspaper notice of 1747 advertises the holding of a lot lory with prizes—‘There are 1300 tickets at 8s each, equal lo £520. From each prize 124 per cenl. will he. deducted for purchasing a bell for Grace Church.’ ” Even Die descendants of the mid Puritans thsir BiYSSPstake®!.