England Miscellaneous Ecclesiastical Records M to Z - International Institute

Parish Magazines
Monthly, or sometimes quarterly, parish magazines were produced from the late 19th century and can be a mine of useful family history information. Many had a preprinted national section to which the local parish added its own news in the form of christenings, marriages and burials, obituaries, profiles of the church officials or other parish worthies, notices and reports about local events. Naturally the activities of the clergymen are easily found, as in the examples below.

Weybridge, Surrey Parish Magazines 1889-1894

Holy Trinity, Wimbledon, Surrey Parish Magazines 1892-1899

Renovations of Church Buildings
Often notes are found regarding alterations or repairs, and sometimes of disasters befalling the buildings such as being struck by lightning. When a church is being rebuilt this is usually noted somewhere, and explains why certain events can’t be found in a person’s home parish at this time.

Note on Church Burning Down St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, Middlesex 1744

Planting of trees, repair of churchyard walls and other work on the glebe lands, or Church of England School may be noted.

Notes on Renovations at Great Bookham, Surrey 1733/4 and 1899-1910

Seating and Pew Rents
Until the 14th centuries there was no seating in churches for the common people. Most stood or squatted in the nave for the service, although sometimes stone benches along the walls were provided, hence the expression the weak to the wall. In the early 14th century wooden benches started to be built by the wealthier parishioners and several 15-16th century ones survive. It wasn’t until the 17th century that churches were filled with pews, with inevitable parochial squabbling over who had the right to sit where! Minutes of parish meetings contain resolutions of these disputes, and it became standard that the right to sit in a certain pew was part of the property of a farm or cottage. In the towns the front rows were reserved for the mayor and aldermen. In the countryside they were occupied by the owners or tenants of the largest farms, the smallholders sat in the middle and the cottagers at the back or sides, mirroring the social structure within the parish. Gough’s beautiful account of the families of Myddle village in Shropshire is based on the 1701 church seating plan.

Population growth during the 18th century saw the additions of galleries, but the Victorians often removed them as unsightly, so present seating arrangements typically date from the late 19th century. Seating plans have been found in parish chests and in ecclesiastical court records, and payments called Pew Rents are often recorded in various parish books or papers such as that for St. Margaret, Westminster in chart HH. This is the ‘Parish Church of Parliament’, being situated between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. William Wilberforce M.P. was an active campaigner against the Slave Trade in 1788-9 whilst renting two seats in this church.

Pew Rent Book, St. Margaret, Westminster, Middlesex

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English: Poor Law and Parish Chest Records offered by The International Institute of Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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