Moreton, Essex Genealogy

England   Essex   Essex Parishes



Parish History
Moreton St Mary the Virgin is an Ancient Parish in Essex.

The diocese of Chelmsford was created in 1914, prior to this Essex parishes were in the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London until 1845 when they transferred to the diocese of Rochester. The diocese of Chelmsford has 474 parishes and 600 churches and is the second largest region in the church of England outside London.

The parish church of ST. MARY THE VIRGIN consists of nave, chancel, west tower, south porch, and north vestry. The nave and chancel, which are structurally undivided, are of flint rubble. The dressings of clunch have now mostly been replaced with more durable stone. The tower and vestry are of red brick. The south porch is of wood. Nothing remains of the pre-13th-century church except the font (see below). The present nave and chancel date from the first half of the 13th century, the nave having been built first. The nave has two restored lancet windows in the north wall and one in the south. The position of the north and south doorways is probably original. The east wall of the chancel has three lancets, a central one in the gable and two below. The north wall of the chancel has two lancets, one of them being behind the organ. In the 15th century the chancel and nave were probably reroofed. The chancel retains one moulded tie-beam of this date. The nave has two 15th-century roof trusses near the west end. These have long struts from the tie-beams to the heads of the octagonal kingposts as well as one short strut each to the central purlin. In both chancel and nave the rafters are ceiled in. The roof of the south porch retains some 15th-century timbers. The two-light window near the east end of the north wall of the nave was inserted in the late 15th century. The single-light window on the south side of the chancel is also of this date. The perishable nature of the clunch of which the windows were constructed accounts for their replacement at different dates and for the extremely varied character of the windows on the south side of the church. The westernmost window in the nave, recently replaced, was probably originally of the 15th century. Two other windows, one of the 18th and one of the 19th century, may also have replaced windows of the 15th century or earlier. The tower may originally have been of the 16th or early 17th century. Morant (1768) described the tower as 'of brick, plaistered over, with a spire shingled'. ( Parts of the nave and chancel roofs date from the 17th century. The south doorway with its six-panelled door is of 18th-century date. The weather-boarded south porch, incorporating earlier timbers, may have been reconstructed at the same time. In 1727 twisted communion rails, chancel wainscoting, box pews, and a west gallery were given by Mrs. Judith Elford. In 1786 part of the tower fell in a gale. It was rebuilt by James Marrable in 1787 'upon the model of the old'. It is of red brick, in three stages, and has a castellated parapet and a short shingled spire. The doorway into the nave was built at the same time. The two-light window near the east end of the nave on the south side is like the wooden west window of the tower and is probably of about the same period. In 1868-9 there was a thorough restoration of the interior of the church. Many of the fittings, including the box pews, the chancel wainscoting, the lists of benefactions to the poor, texts and hatchments, were removed. New pine seating was installed. The pulpit was reconstructed and the sounding-board removed. The vestry may have been built at the same time. Between 1877 and 1891 the north wall of the chancel was rebuilt, the lancet windows being restored and reset at the expense of the rector, the Revd. A. Calvert. The easternmost window on the south side of the chancel appears also to be of late-19th-century date, probably replacing a 15th-century two-light window. In 1897 the west gallery was removed. In 1904 a new organ was built. In 1953 the two lower lancets at the east end and the quoins at the west end of the church were restored in Clipsham stone. The westernmost window on the south side of the nave was replaced by a copy of a square-headed two-light late-15th-century window in the same material. The tower was restored and the spire reshingled. There are six bells. Two were recast in 1928 when the wooden framework supporting the bells was replaced by steel. The inscription on one of these, 'Miles Graye and William Harbert me fecit 1627', has been cut out and mounted on a pedestal in the church. Of the remainder one is inscribed 'Miles Graye 1632', one 'Thomas Gardiner Sudbury 1712', and one 'Thomas Lester 1751'. The sixth bell (No. 1) was presented by the ringers themselves in 1933. The Purbeck marble font is of the late 12th century. It consists of a square bowl standing on a circular base, which has four detached shafts. Two sides of the bowl are ornamented with fleur-de-lis, one has roundheaded arcading, and the fourth a crescent, disk, and spiral. The surface is much decayed and the carving incomplete. The oak pulpit is hexagonal and probably dates from the restoration of 1868. It incorporates four carved panels and a cornice of about 1600. The painting above the altar is a copy of the Holy Family by Andrea del Sarto and was acquired in 1951. On the south wall of the nave is an inscribed tablet to George Goodwin, rector (1625). The plate consists of an almsdish of 1648 with a shield of arms, a cup of 1663, a paten of 1663 (dated 1664), and a flagon of 1719 presented by A. Heron, rector (1698-1733). A Chancery decree of 1638 recognized the Church Lands Charity, the origin of which was then unknown. Its property was then and afterwards stated to be 'a tenement and 6 acres of land called the Church Land', held in trust for the repair of the church. The property was at the west end of North Lane. In deeds from 1787 until 1832 it comprised a freehold cottage or tenement called 'the Church House', a close of pasture adjoining, 2 acres by estimation, and two other closes or crofts of arable, 4 acres by estimation, on the other side of the road leading towards Moreton windmill. The estate seems always to have been let together and in the 19th century was called Church Farm. In 1646 it was rented at £5 12s. a year. (fn. 55) The annual rent remained at this figure until 1811 when it rose to £12. By 1879 it had risen to £20 but it fell to £18 before 1895 when it was further reduced to £12, after the farm-house had been destroyed by fire. In 1947 the rent was £15. After 1895 the income from rent was supplemented by the interest on £112 2s. fire-insurance, which was invested. In 1869 £113 3s. 9d. stock, representing accumulations of surplus income, was sold and, supplemented by voluntary contributions, was used to erect new pews. The sum of £50, invested in 1874, was also used in 1878 for large repairs. In 1950 the income of £2 12s. 8d. from stock was spent in part payment of repairs, but apparently no rent was received from the lands of the charity. The payment to the verger from Wilson's charity (1822) is mentioned below (Charities). William Talbot, by will proved 1894, left £100 stock to the rector and churchwardens in trust for the maintenance of the churchyard. In 1950 the income of £3 11s. 2d. was spent in part payment for its upkeep.

From: 'Moreton: Church', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 4: Ongar Hundred (1956), pp. 134-137. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15606&amp;amp;strquery=moreton Date accessed: 06 February 2011.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
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Online images are available Seax - Essex Archives Online From the Essex Record Office

Census records
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Index for the Census may be searched at FamilySearch Historical Records

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Ongar Poor Law Union, Essex

The earliest parish book (1666-1815) for Moreton was kept and written by the rector. In it the rectors from Jacob Houblon to William Salisbury recorded every Easter from 1666 until 1761 the annual elections of officers and summaries of the previous year's accounts. The few vestry resolutions which they entered related to the repair and cleaning of the church, the renting of the glebe and the responsibility for the maintenance of the churchyard fencing. After 1761 the rectors, William Salisbury (to 1796) and William Wilson (1796-1822) used the few remaining pages to record occasional vestry minutes, notes of their own and amounts collected on charitable briefs. The only other surviving parish books are a volume of overseers' accounts for the period 1715-49 and a later parish book which was begun in 1828 but which contained vestry minutes only from 1845. Thus from the middle of the 18th century there is no record of the general government of the parish. The annual audit of accounts in the rector's book was not signed by the parishioners present but the few vestry resolutions were signed. It seems from these signatures that normally no more than 6 persons attended the meetings. In 1761 and 1762 8 or 9 persons attended the important meetings held to consider the repair of the bridge. There were probably other vestry meetings held during the year but not recorded in the rector's book, for in 1724-5 the overseer mentioned in his account book expenses incurred at 9 vestries. William Wilson gave a patriotic lead to the parish during the Napoleonic Wars, heading subscription lists for the dependants of those who fell at Trafalgar and Waterloo and for the relief of prisoners, and sponsoring voluntary bread rationing in 1800. In his will also he left funds to provide annuities for the clerk and the beadle. A distinction between the various officers' accounts and rates was not always maintained. In 1743 a surveyor's deficit was met out of the churchwarden's rate, and, conversely, in 1744 the surveyor was granted a 4d. rate and was ordered to pay any surplus to the churchwarden. When Jonas Crouchman was both churchwarden and constable between 1743 and 1751, the surplus of one of his accounts was allowed to balance a deficiency in the other. In 1739 a rate of 3d. in the pound produced just over £9; the rateable value of the parish had only advanced to £860 by 1803. In 1840 a new valuation was made by order of the Ongar Union, when the rateable value was fixed at almost £2,180. This had risen to £2,452 by 1874. The usual officers were appointed at Easter and Christmas and often remained in office for more than a year at a time. A woman occasionally served as surveyor or overseer. In 1673 a scale of expenses was fixed for journeys made by parish officers. Regular payments were made to the parish doctor from 1741. The average annual expenditure on poor relief in the second half of the 17th century was £25. This had risen to about £100 by 1749 when the detailed overseers' accounts ceased. In the overseers' account book (1715-49), each overseer kept his accounts in two sections called the 'standing' and the 'bye' collections; the former contained the regular weekly pensions, the latter all other payments. Information about parish expenditure on the poor after 1749 depends on summaries given in official returns. In 1776 the cost of poor relief was £105. In the three years 1783-5 the average annual cost was £140. In the year 1801-2 the cost was £380. This was not exceeded until 1812-13 when nearly £560 or the equivalent of a rate of 13s. in the pound was spent. In December 1800, following a royal proclamation, the vestry agreed to a form of bread rationing reducing consumption by 25 per cent. The same meeting also agreed to offer encouragement 'to render their poor industrious' by providing them with wool for spinning and allowing them to retain their earnings in full. In 1828 and 1829 meetings were held nearly every month, with the overseer presiding, to hear requests for clothing, footwear, and medical attention. Few of these requests were refused. After 1829 the meetings became less frequent and finally ceased in 1835. The overseer's accounts for 1726 included a bill for £19 for building a parish house. In 1809 'the able young persons who had been occupying three of the parish houses rent-free to the exclusion of widows and old poor people who had to be furnished with rooms at the parish expense' were ordered to give up possession or pay a weekly rent of 1s. In 1840 there were two parish cottages at Padlers End. They were sold in 1856. In 1836 Moreton became part of the Ongar Poor Law Union.

From: 'Moreton: Parish government and poor relief', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 4: Ongar Hundred (1956), pp. 137-138. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15608 Date accessed: 06 February 2011.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Essex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

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Web sites
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