22501305897 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Wellcome Library https://archive.org/details/b29006326 THE publications ' OF THE FOUNDED A.D. MDCCCCIII. ©olunu FOR THE YEAR MDCCCCIII. Q«nersi Coiioctioar M 2osi^ : Cilt ^ansl) of iRtcfjmonli ^urre^. EDITED BY J. CHALLENOR C. SMITH, F.S.A., CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. Folumr h LONDON : LONDON MITCHELL HUGHES AND CLARKE, PRINTERS 140 WARDOUk STREET, W. ) r I I^iefacc. pARISH Registers constitute what is perhaps the least trustworthy kind of “ legal evidence,’* and Richmond supplies a typical example of an ill-kept parochial record. Its parish clerks were for about two centuries members of one family, who passed on, each generation to the next, a tradition of slovenliness and neglect in regard to their duty. The “ method ” adopted during the whole of the period mentioned would seem to have been to compile the Registers, at intervals of many vears, from such memoranda and notes as had not been mislaid or lost.* There are some hundreds of instances in which christian-name, or surname, or both, are unrecorded, whilst Wills, Letters of Administration, and Monumental Inscriptions have revealed many essential errors in regard to the extant entries.f We may, therefore, infer that verv many more blunders remain undetected. The Canon of 1603 enjoining the transcription of registers into a parchment book was duly acted upon by the then Minister,” but thirty years later the use of paper was resumed by the Clerk, with the result that many entries circa 1635—55 are lost through the decay of portions of some of the leaves. The successive Ministers, too, must be blamed for con- tributory negligence. In regard to one of them, I have a letter that was written by a Richmond lady in 1824, in which she says: “ I am cpiite unsuccessful in my seareh at * Under date 1783 are allusions to the Vestry Clerk’s “Rough Copy.” This is probably still in the possession of his descendants. to such entries within t I have in many cases appended corrections brackets. a — — VI PREFACE. Richmond. Mr. Camidge the Minister shewed me the books, but he says there are omissions and chasms in the year.* years 1750 and 1751, one of which is certainly the Mr. Comer was the Minister at that time .... and I have often heard my mother say how extremely intoxicated he used to be in evenings—not able to walk home.^^t Tt was, however, a conscientious minister of later date who at length brought the disgraceful neglect of the parish clerks to an end. In 1783 the Rev. Thomas Wakefield, who then held the Cure, made this note in the book : [“N.B.—This Register, in the registering by Clem* Smith the Vestry Clerk, has been found in many instances and various respects to be exceedingly incorrect, owing, as there was much reason to suppose, to his having registered the whole at one time from Memorandum-books and even loose papers, which he was at length constrained to copy in consequence of Thomas Wakefield the Minister requiring all the parish Registers to be delivered into his own care in the year 1783.—^T. W.”] Even then, Clement Smith before-named did not divulge that he had in his possession the volumes covering 1583 1682, so when Lysons was compiling his account of Richmond for the Environs, Mr. Wakefield told him that there was no register of previous date to 1682, and that there ” was consequently no extant entry of Stella^s baptism. In December 1796 a son of the above-named Clement Smith delivered the earlier registers into Mr. Wakefield^s hands, and Lysons was then able to publish the Stella entry among some Addenda.^’ In spite of so much that has contributed to its imperfec- tion, the Richmond Register is one of unusual value and of far more than local interest. The palace was more or less in occupation by Royalty until almost the end of the reign of Charles I., for which reason a large number of entries in the * All record of the marriages between June 13, 17SI) and May ii, 1754, is lost. Mr. Comers M.I. t in Kingston Church hints at some imperfection of character—a very unusual circumstance. PREFACE. vii contemporary register relate to persons who were about the Court. During the Protectorate there wei\; living in Rich- mond and Shene several families whose names were identified with one side or the other in the Civil War, including two of the regicides, viz., Humphry Edwards and the “Cobbler- Colonel Hewson (the latter being styled in the V^estry Book of 1658, as in a lampoon of the same time, “ The Lord Hewson ^^*). Colonel Fdenry Washington (a cousin-german to the FresidenEs emigrant ancestor) who fought on the King^s side was also buried, as was Humphry Edwards, in the church or churchyard. It was only in the nature of things that Richmond should, by reason of its intrinsic, beauty and of its accessibility to London, develop into a favourite and fashionable suburb; and the Register, from the Restoration, continues to include a considerable proportion of entries that are of historical or of wide genealogical interest. t Later still will be found many entries which indicate that the Revolution involved the planting of several French refugee families within the parish. Contemporary writers allude to the picturesque sight afforded by the fleets of sailing barges, which were wont to carry their cargoes of fruit and vegetables from Richmond down to London during the eighteenth century, d'hat part of the Parish Register which covers the same period con- tains accordingly an abnormally large number of entries relating to watermen and “ gardeners,^^ i.e., nurserymen. In the same connection are a few burials of “ codders —poor women who journeyed to Richmond for the pea-gathering season. J * About 1659 there was published a ballad called “ The Cobbler’s last Will and Testament, or The Lord Hewson’s Translation.” At that time the term “translator” was a synonym of "cobbler.” t Within a few of the earlier years of the eighteenth century there were " buried at Richmond four painters who have found places in the Diet. Nat. Biog.,” viz., Laroon, Lilley, William Gibson, and Edward Gibson. As to the two latter the Dictionary gives the year-date of death incorrectly. J A similar custom of migration still lingers in the adjacent parish of Isleworth, whither a number of Salop girls, known locally as “ Sroppies,” journey year by year in canal boats at the time of tbe fruit harvest. — Vlll PREFACE. 3.nd I'he epidemic scourges which visited London in 1603 1625 swell the lists of burials at Richmond in those years. In the State Papers (Domestic Series) ‘‘circa 1640^^ is an undated letter which refers to another epidemic, which was 1 believe purely local. This letter is from Cornelius Holland, Paymaster for the Royal children, to Sir Henry Vane, Treasurer of the Household, and reads thus : “ It has pleased God to visit the town of Richmond with the plague in two houses near to the pond at the entrance into the town; two died this forenoon full of the tokens out of one house, and two more out of another house this afternoon since Dr. Chambers was with the King, and another child now lies full of the tokens ready to depart; and in a third house a woman lies sick, whom we fear is infected from those other houses, and indeed we suspect all this to have happened from the barber^s man of the tent, who died in one of these houses about Tuesday was sen-night.^’ A glance at the Register suggests that this visitation of the ‘^plague’” must have occurred in July, August, and September 1640. Apparently the great plague of 1665 did not greatly afiect the death-rate in Richmond. The usual very high rate of infant mortality is (once again) illustrated by the Richmond Register; see for exam})le pages 197, 216, 257, 258, etc. A marriage in 1680 exemplifies the promptitude with which a lady who lost her husband was wont to transfer her affection to a fresh suitor. William Hardiman was buried at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on July 23. His widow applied four days later for a licence to marry William Brawne, and on August 2 the marriage tt)ok place. A revised version of a Latin phrase, which occurs in connection with a burial January 19, 1707-8, is almost too choice to “ be lost in the text : J'homas Hobbs hanged himself, and was found non posos rnenties” \ The burial of “ Mr. Warnan” is probably the clerk’s own voicing of the deceased gentleman’s name—Vernon. On a fiy-leat at the beginning of Register No. III. is a — 1 PREFACE. IX short list of collections made in Richmond Church upon sundry Briefs. These are (in shortened form) as follows : BRIEFS. £ s. d. Mch. 22, 1700 Upon the Breif of St. My. Mag. Bermondsey ..... 3 2 1 July 23, ... Breif of the Town of Lancaster. N. Brady, Min’"; John Gardner, John Drew ...... 3 2 3 t Aug. 31, 1700 Breif of Horsmonden in Kent . 2 15 9i Sep. 21, 1701 Breif of Eli Cathedrall 3 1 loi Aug. 24, 1701 Breif of Bickles .... 3 2 4 Sep. 28, .... Breif of Bromley Church in Stafford- shire ...... I 6 Oct. I, 1701 Breif of Leominster Church 5 4 j Breif of Chepstow Church 2 10 j Illy 21, 1702 9i 1702 Colectted upon Blazdon breif . I ^5 Colectted upon Chester Cathedrall .