In another Notts church, during service, there was an encounter between two clerks. The regular clerk having been taken ill was unequal to his duties for some weeks, and appointed a man to carry them out for him. On the restoration to health of the real clerk he came into church to resume his duties, but found the man he had appointed occupying the box--the so-called desk. Whereupon they had a scuffle in the aisle.
The Rev. William Selwyn recollects the following incidents in the parish of F-----, near Cambridge:
Here up to the end of the sixties and well into the seventies a most quaint service was in fashion. The morning service began with a metrical Psalm--Tate and Brady--led by the clerk (of these more hereafter). This being ended, the vicar commenced the service always with the sentence "O Lord, correct me"--never any other. Then all things went on in the regular course till the end of the Litany, when the clerk would be heard stamping down the church and ascending the gallery in order to be ready for the second metrical Psalm. That ended, the vicar would commence with the ante-Communion service from thereading-desk. This went on in due course till the end of the Nicene Creed, when without sermon, prayers, or blessing, the morning service came to an abrupt termination. The afternoon service was identical, save that it ended with a sermon and the blessing.
But the chief peculiarity was the clerk and the singing. The metrical Psalm chosen was invariably one for the day of the month whatever it might be. The clerk would give it out, "Let's sing to the praise and glory of God," and then would read the first two lines.The usual village band--fiddle, trombone, etc. etc.--would accompany him, which thing done, the next two lines would follow, and so on. Usually the number of verses was four, but sometimes the clerk would go on to six, or even seven. Once, I remember, this led to a somewhat ludicrous result. It was the seventh day of the month, consequently the thirty-fifth was the metrical Psalm to be sung. I think my late revered relative, Canon Selwyn, learnt then with astonishment, as I did myself, of the existence of the following lines within the folds of the Prayer Book:
"And when through dark and slippery waysThey strive His rage to shun,His vengeful ministers of wrathShall goad them as they run."
It is hard to think that such a service could have been possible within seven miles of a University town, and I need hardly say it was very trying to the younger ones.
In the afternoon the band migrated to the dissenting chapel. On one occasion the band failed to appear, and the clerk was left alone. However, he made the best of it, with scant support from the congregation, so turning to them at the end, said in a loud voice, "Thank you for your help!"
THE PARISH OF BROMFIELD, SALOP.
From these ludicrous scenes it is refreshing to turn to a service which, though primitive, was conducted with the utmost reverence and decency. When I was instituted in 1866 all the singing was conducted, and most reverently conducted, under the auspices of the clerk. He was a handsome man, with a flowing beard, magnificent bass voice, and a wooden leg. With twoor three sons, daughters, and others in the village he carried on the choir, and though there were only hymns, nothing could be better. Of its kind I have seldom heard anything better. They had to yield to the inexorable march of time, but I parted from them with regret. Though we now have a surpliced choir of men and boys, with a trained organist and choirmaster, I always look back to my good old friend with his daughters and their companions, who were the leaders of the singing in the early days of my incumbency.
The Parish Clerk Of Quedgeley
The Rev. Canon Hemmans tell his reminiscences of Thomas Evison, parish clerk of Wragby, Lincolnshire, who died in 1865, aged eighty-two years. He speaks of him as "a dear old friend, for whom I had a profound regard, and to whom I was grateful for much help during my noviciate at my first and only curacy."
Thomas Evison was a shoemaker, and in his early years a great pot-house orator. Settled on his well-known corner seat in the "Red Lion," he would be seen each evening smoking his pipe and laying down the law in the character of the village oracle. He must have had some determination and force of character, as one evening he laid down his pipe on the hob and said, "I'll smoke no more." He also retired from his corner seat at the inn, but he was true to his political opinions, and remained an ardent Radical to the last. This action showed some courage, as almost all the parish belonged to the squire, who was a strong Tory of the old school. Canon Hemmans was curate of Wragby with the Rev. G.B. Yard from 1851 to 1860, succeeding the present Dean of St. Paul's. Mr. Yard was a High Churchman, a personal friend of Manning, the Wilberforces,R. Sibthorpe, and Keble, and when expounding then unaccustomed and forgotten truths, he found the clerk a most intelligent and attentive hearer. Evison used to attend the daily services, except the Wednesday and Friday Litany, which service was too short for him. During the vicar's absence Canon Hemmans, who was then a deacon, found the clerk a most reliable adviser and instructor in Lincolnshire customs and words and ways of thought. When he was baptizing a child privately, the name Thirza was given to the child, which he did not recognise as a Bible name. He consulted Evison, who said, "Oh, yes, it is so; it's the name of Abel's wife." On the next day Evison bought a book, Gesner'sDeath of Abel, a translation of some Swedish or German work, in which the tragedy of the early chapters of Genesis is woven into a story with pious reflections. This is not an uncommon book, and the clerk said these people believed it was as true as the Bible, because it claimed to be about Bible characters.
Evison was a diligent reader of newspapers, which were much fewer in his day, and studied diligently the sermons reported in the local Press. He was much puzzled by the reference to "the leg end" of the story of the raising of Lazarus in a sermon preached by the Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop Tait. A reference to Bailey's Dictionary and the finding of the wordlegendmade matters clear. Of course he miscalled words. During the Russian War he told Mr. Hemmans that we were not fighting for "territororial possessions," and he always read "Moabites and Hungarians" in his rendering of the sixth verse of the 83rd Psalm.
After the resignation of Mr. Yard in 1859 a LowChurchman was appointed, who restored the use of the black gown. Mr. Hemmans had to preach in the evening of the first Sunday, and was undecided as to whether he ought to continue to use the surplice. He consulted Evison, whose brave advice was, "Stick to your colours."
The clerk stuck stoutly to his Radical principles, and one day went to Lincoln to take part in a contested election. On the following Sunday the vicar spoke of "the filthy stream of politics." The old man was rather moved by this, and said afterwards, "Well, I am not too old to learn." Though staunch to his own principles, he was evidently considerate towards the opinions of others. He used to keep a pony and gig, and his foreman, one Solomon Bingham, was a local preacher. When there came a rough Sunday morning the kind old clerk would say: "Well, Solomon, where are you going to seminate your schism to-day? You may have my trap." Canon Hemmans retains a very affectionate regard for the memory of the old clerk.
Mrs. Ellen M. Burrows sends me a charming description of an old-fashioned service, and some clerkly manners which are worth recording.
From twenty-five to thirty years ago the small Bedfordshire village of Tingrith had quaint customs and ceremonies which to-day exist only in the memory of the few.
The lady of the manor was perhaps best described by a neighbouring squire as a "potentate in petticoats."
Being sole owner of the village, she found employment for all the men, enforced cleanliness on all the women, greatly encouraged the industry of lace-makingand hat-sewing, paid for the schooling of the children, and looked after the morals of everybody generally.
Legend has it that one ancient schoolmaster whom this good lady appointed was not overgood at spelling, and would allow a pupil to laboriously spell out a word and wait for him to explain. If the master could not do this he would pretend to be preoccupied, and advise the pupil to "say 'wheelbarrow' and go on."
On a Sunday each and every cottager was expected at church. The women sat on one side of the centre aisle and the men on the other, the former attired in clean cotton gowns and the latter in their Sunday smocks.
The three bells were clanged inharmoniously until a boy who was stationed at a point of vantage told the ringer "she's a-comin'." Then one bell only was rung to announce the near arrival of the lady of the manor.
The rector would take his place at the desk, and the occupants of the centre aisle would rise respectfully to their feet in anticipation.
A white-haired butler and a younger footman--with many brass buttons on their coat-tails--would fling wide the double doors and stand one on either side until the old lady swept in; then one door was closed and the other only left open for less-important worshippers to enter. As she passed between the men and women to the big pew joining the chancel screen, they all touched their forelocks or dropped curtsies before resuming their seats. Before this aristocratic personage began her devotions she would face round and with the aid of a large monocle, which hung round her neck on a broad black ribbon, would make a silent call over, and for the tardy, or non-arrivals, there was a lecture in store. The servants of her household had the whole of one side aisle allotted to their use. Thefarmers had the other. There were two "strangers' pews," two "christening pews," and the rest were for the children. When a hymn was given out the schoolmaster would vigorously apply a tuning-fork to his knee, and having thus got the key would start the tune, which was taken up lustily by the children round him. This was all the singing they had in the service. The clerk said all the amens except when he was asleep. The rector was never known to preach more than ten minutes at a time, and this was always so simple an exposition of the Scripture that the most illiterate could understand.
But no pen can pay tribute enough to the sweet earnestness of those little sermons, or, having heard them, ever go away unimpressed.
At the end of the service no one of the congregation moved until the lady of the manor sailed out of the great square pew. Then the men and women rose as before and bowed and bobbed as she passed down the aisle. The two menservants again flung wide the double doors and stood stiffly on either side as she passed out; then sedately walked home behind her at a respectful distance.
On each Good Friday the male community of the villagers were given a holiday from their work, and a shilling was the reward for every man who made his appearance at the eleven o'clock service; needless to say, it was well attended.
Another church (Newport Pagnell, Bucks) in an adjoining county--probably some years previous to this date--was lighted by tallow candles stuck in tin sconces on the walls, and twice during the service the clerk went round with a pair of long-handled snuffersto "smitch," as he called it, the wicks of these evil-smelling lights.
For his own better accommodation he had a candle all to himself stuck in a bottle, which he lighted when about to sing a hymn, and with candle in one hand and book in the other, and both held at arm's length, he would bellow most lustily and with reason, for he was supposed to lead the singing. This finished he would blow out his candle with most audible vigour, and every one in his neighbourhood would have their handkerchiefs ready to drop their noses into.
This same clerk also took up his stand by the chancel steps with a black rod in his hand, and with tremendous importance marched in front of the rector down the aisle to the vestry under the belfry, and waited outside while the clergyman changed his surplice for a black cassock, then escorted him again to the pulpit stairs.
The Rev. E.H.L. Reeve, rector of Stondon Massey, Essex, contributes the following excellent stories of old-time services.
The Rev. Thomas Wallace was rector of Listen, in Essex, from 1783, the date of his father's death, onward. The following story is well authenticated in the annals of the family, and must belong to the latter part of the eighteenth century or the commencement of the nineteenth century.
It was, of course, a well-established custom in those old times for the church clerk to give out the number of the hymn to be sung, which he did with much unction and long preamble. The moments thus employed would be turned to account in the afternoon by the officiating clergyman, who would take the opportunityof retiring to the vestry to exchange his surplice for his academic gown wherein to preach.
On one occasion Mr. Wallace left his sermon, through inadvertence, at home; and, finding himself in the vestry, considered, perhaps, that the chance of escape was too good to be lost. At any rate, he let himself out into the churchyard, and returned no more! He may possibly have been unable to find a discourse, but these are details with which we are not concerned. The clerk and congregation with becoming loyalty lengthened out the already dreary hymn by sundry additions and doxologies to give their pastor time to don his robes, and it was long ere they perceived the true cause of his delay. They were somewhat nettled, as one may suppose, at being thus befooled, and here lies the gist of our story. Next Sunday the clerk did not give out the second hymn at the usual time, but waited in solemn silence till Mr. Wallace had returned in his black gown from the vestry and ascended the pulpit stairs. Then, and not till then, he closed the pulpit door with a slam; and,keeping his back against it, called out significantly, and with a tone of exultation in his voice, "We've got him, my boys;nowlet us sing to the praise and glory of God," etc.
William Wren held the office of church clerk at Stondon Massey in Essex for thirty-six years, from 1853 to 1889. He was a rough, uneducated man, but with a certain amount of native talent which raised him above the level of the majority of his class. I can see him now in his place Sunday after Sunday, rigged out in a suit of my father's cast-off clerical garments--a kind of "set-off" to him at the lower end of the church. In his earlier days Wren had played a flute in the village instrumental choir, and to the last he might beheard whiling away spare moments on a Sunday in the church (for he brought his dinner early in the morning and bivouacked there all day!) recalling to himself the departed glories of ancient time. He turned the handle of the barrel organ in the west gallery from the time of its purchase in 1850 to that of its disappearance in 1873, but I do not think that he ever appreciated this rude substitution of mechanical art for cornet, dulcimer, and pipe.
He led the hymns and read the Psalms, and repeated the responses with much fervour; perpetuating (long after it had ceased to be correct) the idea that he alone could be relied upon. Should the preacher inadvertently close his discourse with the sacred name either as part of a text or otherwise, a fervent "Amun" was certain to resound through the building, either because long custom had led him to regard the appendage as indispensable to it, or because like an old soldier suddenly roused to "attention," he awoke from a stolen slumber to jerk himself into the mental attitude most familiar to him. This last supposition, however, is a libel upon his fair character. I cannot believe that Wren ever slept on duty. He kept near to him a long hazel stick, wherewith to overawe any of the younger members of the congregation who were inclined either to speak or titter. On Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, when the school attended morning service, and, in the absence of older people, occupied the principal seats instead of their Sunday places in the gallery, Wren's rod was frequently called into active play, and I have heard the stick resound on the luckless head of many an offending culprit.
Let me give one closing story of him on one of those weekday mornings.
It was St. John the Evangelist's Day, and a few of us met at church for matins. It was thought well to introduce a hymn for the festival (our hymn book in those days was Mercer's Church Psalter and Hymn Book) and Wren was to take charge, as usual, of the barrel-organ. My father gave out hymn 292 at the appointed place, but only silence followed. Again "292," and then came a voice from the west gallery, "The 283rd!" My father did not take the hint, and again, rather unfortunately, hazarded "Hymn 292." This was too much for our organist, who called in still louder tones, "'Tis the 283rd I tell you!" Fortunately, we were a small company, but matters would have been the same, I dare say, on a Sunday.
In the vestry subsequently Wren explained to my father, "You know there aretwo Johns; the 292nd hymn belongs to John theBaptist'sDay;thisis John theEvangelist's."
The confusion once over my father was much amused with the incident, and frequently entertained friends with it afterwards, when I am bound to say it did not lose its richness of detail. "Don't I keep a-telling on you?" was the fully developed question, as I last remember hearing the story told. The above, however, I can vouch for as strictly correct, being one of the select party privileged to witness the occurrence.
Mr. Frederick W. Hackwood, the historian of Wednesbury, has kindly sent the following description of the famous clerks of that place:
The office of parish clerk in Wednesbury has been held by at least two remarkable characters. "Old George Court," as he was called--and by some who are still alive--held the post in succession to his grandfatherfor a great number of years. His grandfather was George Watkins, in his time one of the principal tradesmen in the town. His hospitable house was the place of entertainment for a long succession of curates-in-charge and other officiating ministers for all the long years that the vicar (Rev. A. Bunn Haden) was a non-resident pluralist. But the position created by this state of things was remarkable. Watkins and the small coterie who acted with him became the absolute and dominant authority in all parochial matters. One curate complained of him and his nominee wardens (in 1806) that "these men had been so long in office, and had become so cruel and oppressive," that some of the parishioners resolved at last to dismiss them. The little oligarchy, however, was too strong to be ousted at any vestry that ever was called. As to the elected officials, the same curate records in a pamphlet which he published in his indignation, that "on Christmas Day, during divine service, the churchwardens entered the workhouse with constables and bailiffs, and a multitude of men equally pious with themselves, and turned the governor and his wife into the snow-covered streets." Another measure of iniquity laid to their charge was their "cruelty to Mr. Foster," the master of the charity school held in the old Market Cross, "a man of amiable disposition, and a teacher of considerable merit." These aggressive wardens grazed the churchyard for profit, looked coldly upon a proposal to put up Tables of Benefactions in the church, and altogether acted in a manner so high-handed as to call forth this historic protest. Although the fabric of the church was in so ruinous a condition that the rain streamed through the roof upon the head of our clerical pamphleteer as he was preaching, all these complaintswere to no purpose. When the absentee vicar was appealed to he declared his helplessness, and one sentence in his reply is significant; it was thus: "It is as much as my life is worth to come among them!" Allowance must be made for party rancour. It is probable that Watkins was but the official figure-head of this dominant party, and he is said to have been a man of real piety; and after holding the office of parish clerk for sixty years, he at last died in the vestry of the church he loved so much.
As a certified clerk George Court held the office as long as his grandfather before him. He was a man of the bluff and hearty sort, thoroughly typical of old Wednesbury, of Dutch build, yet commanding presence, in language more forcible than polite, and not restrained in the use of his strong language even by the presence of an austere and iron-willed vicar. The tales told of him are numerous enough, but are scarcely of the kind that look well in cold print. Although fond of the good things of this world himself, he could occasionally be very severe on the high feeding and deep drinking proclivities of "You--singers and ringers"! He was never known to fail in scolding any funeral procession that had kept him waiting at the church gates too long, and that in language as loud as it was vigorous. He, like his predecessor, was the autocrat of the parish.
The last of the long line of parish clerks who occupied the bottom desk of the fine old Jacobean three-decker was Thomas Parkes. He died in 1884. The peculiar resonant nasal twang with which he sang out the "Amens" gave rise to a sharp newspaper correspondence in theWednesbury Observerof 1857. Another controversy provoked by him was at the openingof the cemetery in 1868, when as vestry clerk he claimed a fee of 9 d. on every interment. The resistance of the Nonconformists led to an amicable compromise.
Mr. Wise, of Weekley, the author of several works on Kettering and the neighbourhood, tells me of an extraordinary incident which happened in a Sussex parish church when he was a boy about seventy years ago. The clerk was a decayed farmer who had a fine voice, but who was noted for his intemperate habits. He went up as usual to the singers' gallery just before the sermon and gave out the metrical Psalm. The Psalm was sung, the sermon commenced, when suddenly from the gallery rose the words of a popular song, given by a splendid tenor voice:
"Oh, give my back my Arab steed,My Prince defends his right,And I will ..."
"Some one, please, remove that drunken man from the gallery," the clergyman quietly said. It was afterwards found that some mischievous persons had promised the clerk a gallon of ale if he would sing a song during the sermon.
Miss Elton, of Bath, tells me of the clerk of Bierton, near Aylesbury, of which her father had sole charge for a time at the end of the forties. His predecessor had been a Mr. Stephens. The place had been neglected, and church matters were at a low ebb. Mr. Elton instituted a service on Saints' Days, which was quite an innovation at that time, and the first of these was held on St. Stephen's Day. The old clerk came into the vestry after the service and said, "I be sorry, sir, to hear the unkid (= awful) tale of poorMussar (Mister) Stephens. He be come to a sad end surely." He had evidently confounded the first martyr, St. Stephen, with the late curate of the parish, having apparently never heard of the former.
A new vicar had been appointed to a parish about eight miles from Oxford, who had been for many years a Fellow of his college, and in consequence knew little of village folk or parochial matters. Dr. A. was much disturbed to find that so few of the villagers attended church, and consulted the clerk on the subject, who suggested that it might encourage the people to attend if Dr. A. was to offer to give sixpence a Sunday to all who came to church. The plan was tried and found to succeed; the congregations improved rapidly, and the church was well filled, to Dr. A.'s satisfaction. But after a while the numbers fell off, and to Dr. A.'s chagrin people left off attending church. He again called the clerk into his counsels, and asked what could be the reason of the falling off of the congregation, as he had always given sixpence every Sunday, as he promised, to all who came to the service. "Well, sir," said the clerk, "it is like this: they tells me as how they finds theycan't do it for the money."
The following reminiscences are supplied by the Rev. W. Frederick Green, and are worthy of record:
I well remember the parish clerk of Woburn, in Bedfordshire, more than sixty years ago. His name was Joe Brewer--a bald-headed, short, stumpy man, who wore black knee-breeches, grey stockings, and shoes. He was also the town crier. He always gave out the hymns from the front of the west gallery. "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, hymn--" Once I heard him call out instead, "O yes! O yes! Oyes! This is to give notice," and then, recollecting he was in church, with a loud "O crikey!" he began "Let us sing," etc.
Collections in church were made by him in a china soup plate from each pew. Ours was a large square family pew. One Sunday my brother put into the plate a new coin (I think a florin), which Brewer had never seen before, and which he thought was a token or medal, and thinking my brother was playing a trick upon him, said in a loud voice, "Now, Master Charles, none of them larks here."
I have also seen him at afternoon service (there was no evening service in those days), when it unexpectedly came on too dark for the clergyman to see his MS. in the pulpit, go to the altar--an ordinary table with drawers--throw up the cloth, open a drawer, take out two candles and a box of matches, go up the pulpit stairs, fix them in the candlesticks, and light them.
During the winter months part of his duty was to tend the fire during service in the Duke of Bedford's large curtained, carpeted pew in the chancel.
When I was a boy I was staying in Northamptonshire, and went one Sunday morning into a village church for service (I think it was Fotheringhay). There was a three-decker, and the clerk from his desk led the singing of the congregation, which he faced. There was no musical instrument of any kind. The hymn, which of course was from Tate and Brady, was the metrical version of Psalm xlii. The clerk gave out the Psalm, then read the first line to the congregation, then sang it solo, and then the congregation sang it altogether; and so on line after line for the whole eleven verses.
More attention must have been paid in those days tothe requirement of the ninety-first Canon, that the clerk should be known, if may be, "for his competent skill in singing."
In 1873 I was curate-in-charge of an out-of-the-way Norfolk village. On my first Sunday I had an early celebration at 8 a.m. I arrived in church about 7.45, and to my amazement saw five old men sitting round the stove in the nave with their hats on, smoking their pipes. I expostulated with them quite gently, but they left the church before service and never came again. I discovered afterwards that they had been regular communicants, and that my predecessor always distributed the offertory to the poor present immediately after the service. When these men in the course of my remonstrance found that I was not going to continue the custom, they no longer cared to be communicants.
In 1870, in Norfolk, I went round with the rural dean visiting the churches. At one church the only person to receive the rural dean was the parish clerk, who was ready with the funeral pall to put over the rural dean's horse whilst waiting outside the church.
It was this same church which, in preparation for the rural dean's visit, had been recently and completely whitewashed throughout. Not only the walls and pillars, but also the pews, the school forms, the pulpit, and also the altar itself, a very small four-legged deal table without any covering. I suppose this was done by the churchwardens to conceal the dilapidated condition of everything; but they had omitted to remove the grass which was growing in the crevices of the floor paving.
Mr. Moxon (deceased), formerly rector of Hethersett, in Norfolk, told me that he had once preached for a friend in a Norfolk village church with the womanclerk holding an umbrella over his head in the pulpit throughout the sermon, because of the "dreep."
Miss E. Lloyd, of Woodburn, Crowborough, writes:
About the year 1833 a gentleman bought an estate in North Yorkshire, seven miles from any town, and built a house there. The parish was small, having a population of about a hundred souls, the church old and tumbledown, reeking with damp; the rain came through the roof; the seats were worm-eaten, and centipedes, with other like vermin, roamed about them near the wall. The vicar was non-resident, and an elderly curate-in-charge ministered to this parish and another in the neighbourhood. The customs of the church were much the same as those described by Canon Atkinson in hisForty Years in a Moorland Parishas existing on his arrival at Danby. There was no vestry. The surplice (washed twice a year) was hung over the altar rails, within which the curate robed, his hat or any parcel he happened to have in his hand being put down for the time on the Holy Table. The men sat for the most part together, the farmers and young men in the singing-loft, the labourers below, and the women in front. The wife of the chief yeoman farmer--an excellent and superior woman--still kept up the habit of "making a reverence" to the altar before she entered her pew. The surplice, which hung in the church all through the week, was apt to get very damp. On one occasion, when a strange clergyman staying at the Hall took the service, he declined to wear it, as it was so wet.
"He wadn't pit it on," said the old clerk Christopher (commonly called "Kitty") Hill. "I reckon he was afeard o' t' smittle" (infection).
The same clergyman, when he went up to the altarfor the Communion Service, knelt down, as his habit was, at the north end for private prayer whilst the congregation were singing a metrical Psalm (Old or New Version). On looking up he saw that Kitty Hill had followed him within the rails and was kneeling at the opposite end of the Holy Table staring at him with round eyes full of amazement at this unusual act of devotion. Both the curate and the clerk spoke the broadest Yorkshire. Psalm xxxii. 4 was thus rendered by Kitty: "Ma-maasture is like t' doong i' summer." He was an old man and quite bald, and used to sit in his desk with a blue-spotted pocket-handkerchief spread over his head, occasionally drawing down a corner of it for use, and then pulling it straight again. If the squire happened to come late to church--a thing which did not often happen--the curate would pause in his reading and apologise: "Good morning, Mr. ----. I am sorry, sir, that I began the service. I thought you were not coming this morning." One sentence of the sermon preached on the death of King William IV long remained in the memory of some of his young hearers: "Behold the King in all his pomp and glory, soodenly toombled from his high elevation, and mingled wi' the doost!"
In 1845 a new church was built on the old site, a new curate came, Kitty Hill died, and was succeeded in his office by his widow, who did all that she could do of the clerk's work, and showed remarkable taste in decorating the church at Christmas. No clerk was needed for the responses, as the congregation joined heartily in the service, and there was a much better attendance than there is now. She died in the early fifties.
Amongst other varied readings of the Psalms thatof an old parish clerk at Hartlepool may be given. He had been a sailor, and used to render Psalm civ. 26 as "There go the ships, and there is that lieutenant whom Thou hast made to take his pastime therein."
The late Dr. Gatty, in his record ofA Life at One Living, mentions that at Ecclesfield, as in many other places, the office of parish clerk was hereditary. The last holder of the office, who used to sit in his desk clad in a black bombazine gown, was a publican by trade, a decent, honest man, who during the fifty-one years he was clerk was only twice absent from service. He died in 1868, and the offices of clerk and sexton were then united and held by one person.
The register books of Weybridge, Surrey, were kept for a great part of the eighteenth century by the parish clerks, the son succeeding his father in office for three or four generations.
Now probably the clerks are no more clerks but vergers; and as a Yorkshireman remarked, "Vergingis a very honourable profession."
The portrait of John Gray, sometime clerk in Eton College Chapel, taken in his gown as he stood in his desk, has been engraved, and is well known to old Etonians.
Few people possess the gift of humour in the same degree as the late Bishop Walsham How, and his stories of the race of parish clerks and vergers must not be omitted, and are here published by permission of his son, Mr. F.D. How, editor ofLighter Moments.
When I was a deacon, and naturally shy, I was visiting my aunts at Workington, where my grandfather had been rector, and was asked to preach on Sunday evening in St. John's, a wretched modernchurch--a plain oblong with galleries, and a pulpit like a very tall wineglass, with a very narrow little straight staircase leading up to it, in the middle of the east part of the church. When the hymn before the sermon was given out I went as usual to the vestry to put on the black gown. Not knowing that the clergyman generally stayed there till the end of the hymn, I emerged as soon as I had vested myself and walked to the pulpit and ascended the stairs. When nearly at the summit, to my horror I discovered a very fat beadle in the pulpit lighting the candles. We could not possibly pass on the stairs, and the eyes of the whole congregation were upon me. It would be ignominious to retreat. So after a few minutes' reflection I saw my way out of the difficulty, which I overcame by a very simple mechanical contrivance. I entered the pulpit, which exactly fitted the beadle and myself, and then face to face we executed a rotary movement to the extent of a semicircle, when the beadle finding himself next the door of the pulpit was enabled to descend, and I remained master of the situation.
At Uffington, near Shrewsbury, during the incumbency of the Rev. J. Hopkins, the choir and organist, having been dissatisfied with some arrangement, determined not to take part in the service. So when the clerk, according to the usual custom of those days, gave out the hymn, there was a dead silence. This lasted a little while, and then the clerk, unable to bear it, rose up and appealed to the congregation, saying most imploringly, "Them ascansingdoye sing: it's misery to be a this'n" (Shropshire for "in this way").
At Wolstanton, in the Potteries, there was a somewhat fussy verger called Oakes. On one occasion,just at the time of the year when it was doubtful whether lights would be wanted or no, and when they had not yet been lighted for evening service, a stranger, who was a very smart young clergyman, was reading the lessons and had some difficulty in seeing. He had on a pair of delicate lavender kid gloves. The verger, perceiving his difficulty, went to the vestry, got two candles, lighted them, and walked to the lectern, before which he stood solemnly holding the candles (without candlesticks) in his hands. This was sufficiently trying to the congregation, but suddenly some one rattled the latch of the west door, when Oakes, feeling that it was absolutely necessary to go and see what was the matter, thrust the two candles into the poor young clergyman's delicately gloved hands, and left him!
At the church of Stratfieldsaye, where the Duke of Wellington was a regular attendant, a stranger was preaching, and the verger when he ended came up the stairs, opened the pulpit door a little way, slammed it to, and then opened it wide for the preacher to go out. He asked in the vestry why he had shut the door again while opening it, and the verger said, "We always do that, sir, to wake the duke."
A former young curate of Stoke being very anxious to do things rubrically, insisted on the ring being put on the "fourth finger" at a wedding he took. The woman resisted and said, "I would sooner die than be married on my little finger." The curate said, "But the rubric says so," whereupon thedeus ex machinâappeared in the shape of the parish clerk, who stepped forward and said, "In these cases, sir, the thoomb counts as a digit."
A gentleman going to see a ritualistic church in London was walking into the chancel when an official stepped forward and said, "You mustn't go in there." "Why not?" said the gentleman. "I'm put here to stop you," said the man. "Oh! I see," said the gentleman; "you're what they call therudescreen, aren't you?"
A clergyman in the diocese of Wakefield told me that when first he came to the parish he found things in a very neglected state, and among other changes he introduced an early celebration of the Holy Communion. An old clerk collected the offertory, and when he brought it up to the clergyman he said, "There's eight on 'em, but two 'asn't paid."
A verger was showing a lady over a church when she asked him if the vicar was a married man. "No, ma'am," he answered, "he's a chalybeate."
A verger showing a large church to a stranger, pointed out another man and said, "That is the other verger." The gentleman said, "I did not know there were two of you," and the verger replied, "Oh, yes, sir, he werges up one side of the church and I werges up the other."
On my first visit to Almondbury to preach, the verger came to me in the vestry and said, "A've put a platform in t' pulpit for ye; you'll excuse me, but a little man looks as if he was in a toob." (N.B. To prevent undue inferences I am five feet nine inches in height.)
One of the speakers at the meeting of the Catholic Truth Society at Bristol (Sept., 1895) told a story of a pious Catholic visiting Westminster Abbey, andkneeling in a quiet corner for private devotion, when he was summoned in stentorian tones to come and view the royal tombs and chapels. "But I have seen them," said the stranger, "and I only wish to say my prayers." "Prayers is over," said the verger. "Still, I suppose," said the stranger, "there can be no objection to my saying my prayers quietly here?" "No objection, sir!" said the irate verger. "Why, it would be an insult to the Dean and Chapter."
The Rev. M.E. Jenkins writes his remembrances of several old clerks.
There was dear old Robert Livesay, of Blackburn parish church, whom every one knew, his large rubicund face beaming with good nature and humour--a very kindly old soul. In 1870 I was appointed to an old-world Dale's parish, which had one of the real old Yorkshire clerks, Frank Hutchinson. He was lame and blind in one eye, and well do I recall his sonorous and tremulous response, his love for the Psalms (Tate and Brady's); he "reckoned nought o'Hymns Ancient and Modern." I used generally to find him with a long pipe in the vestry on my return from afternoon service. He was a great authority on the ancient history of the parish, and was formerly schoolmaster. He had brought up most respectably a large family of sons and daughters on the smallest means, many of whom still survive. I had a great respect for the old man, and so he had for me. He was very great at leading that peculiarly dirge-like wail at the huge Yorkshire funerals. I never could quite make out any words, but as a singularly effective and musical cadence in a minor key, it was no doubt a survival, as I once heard Canon Atkinson say, the famous vicar of Danby,my immediate neighbour on the moors. At last I attended Frank Hutchinson daily in his prolonged decay, and received his solemn blessing and commendation on my work; and he received at my hand a few hours before his death his last communion, surrounded by all his children and grandchildren, in his small bedroom, by the light of a single candle. I can still see his thin face uplifted. It is thirty-five years ago, and I can still hear the striking of his lucifer match in the midst of the afternoon service, and see him holding up close to his own eye the candle and the book, and can hear his tremulous "Amen," quite independent of the choral one sung by a small choir in the chancel. He was great in epitaphs. A favourite one, which he would reciteore rotunda, was:
"Let this record, what few vain marbles can,Here lies an honest man."
Another, which, by the way, is in Egton churchyard, ran as follows:
"Life is but a winter's day;Some breakfast and away,Others to dinner stop and are full fed,The oldest man but sups and goes to bed."
He was a genuine old Dalesman of a type passed away. His spirits really never survived the abolition of the stringed instruments in the western gallery with its galaxy of village musicians. "I hugged bass fiddle for many a year," he once told me. Peace be to his memory.
Canon Atkinson tells of his good and harmless but "feckless" parish clerk and schoolmaster at Danby, whom, when about to take a funeral, he discovered sitting in the sunny embrasure of the west window, with his hat on, of course, and comfortably smoking hispipe. The clerk was a brother of the old vicar of Danby, and they seem to have been a curious and irreverent pair. The historian of Danby, in hisForty Years in a Moorland Parish, fully describes his first visit to the clerk's school, and the strange custom of weird singing at funerals to which Mr. Jenkins alludes.
Another north-country clerk-schoolmaster was obliged to relinquish his scholastic duties and make way for a certified teacher. One day he heard the new master tell his pupils: "'A' is an indefinite article. 'A' is one, and can only be applied to one thing. You cannot say a cats or a dogs; but only a cat, a dog." The clerk at once reported the matter to his rector. "Here's a pretty fellow you've got to keep school! He says that you can only apply the article 'a' to nouns of the singular number; and here have I been singing 'A--men' all my life, and your reverence has never once corrected me."
Communicated by Mrs. Williamson, Lydgate Vicarage:
The old parish clerk of Radcliffe was secretary of the races committee, and would hurry out of church to attend these meetings. Mr. Foxley, the rector, was told of this weakness of his clerk, so one Wednesday evening, when the rector knew there was a meeting, he got into the pulpit (a three-decker was then in the church), and began his sermon. Half an hour went by, then the clerk began to be restless. Another half-hour passed; the clerk looked up from his seat under the pulpit, but still the rector went on preaching. It was too late then for the race-course meeting. So when the sermon was at length finished, the clerk got up and gave out "the'undred and nineteenth Psalm from yend to yend. He's preached all day, and we'll sing all neet" (night).
At Westhoughton Church, Lancashire, there was a clerk of the old school, one Platt, who just before the sermon would stretch his long arm and offer his snuff-box to his old friend Betty, and to other cronies who happened to be in his immediate neighbourhood.
The clerk at Stratfieldsaye, who was a character, once astonished a strange clergyman who was taking the duty. The choir sat in the gallery, and the numbers were few on that Sunday. "Mon I 'elp them chaps? they be terrible few," said the clerk. The clergyman quite agreed that he should render them his valuable assistance, and sit in the gallery. Presently a man came in late, and was kneeling down to say his private prayer, when the clergyman was horrified to see the clerk deliberately rise in the gallery and throw a book at the man's head. When remonstrated with after service the clerk replied carelessly, "Oh, it were only my way o' telling him to sing up, as we were terrible short this marning."