THE PARISH REGISTERS AND

CHURCHWARDENS'ACCOUNTS

The registers of Saint Win'fred's date from 1539, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, only a year after the original mandate creating parish registers was issued, by the King's Vicar-general, Thomas Cromwell. They are among the earliest and most complete in the county. Records were probably kept before 1539, but they have not survived. The first entry reads:

'I October 1539: John Duck baptised'

Until 1752, the year began in England on Lady Day, the 25th of March, not January I st, in accordance with the Julian calendar named after Julius Caesar. So the second baptism in the Saint Winifred's register seems earlier in date, but isn't-.

'19 February 1539: John Myco baptised'

Co-incidentally, the Duck family also manages to be first in the marriage register when it commences, in 1577:

'18 March 15 7 7: John Duck marries Johan Knight'

The Ducks only just missed out on the hat-trick, when the burials register begins the following year. They were a victim of the same calendar anomaly that had allowed them to snatch the honour of first baptism from John Myco-.

'2 7 March 15 78: William Payton buried

28 February 1578: Agnes Duck buried

Parish registers quickly became important, not just as records of baptisms, marriages and deaths, but as legal documents that could be cited in disputes. They have been called the Poor Man's Charter. For the illiterate, they took the place of the wealthy landowner's wills and title deeds, escheats and lierald's visitations. The parish registers could and did help establish claims to inheritance or legitimacy.

Their importance was recognised on the 5th of September 1558, when Elizabeth the First re-issued the order that parishes were to keep a register, since many had still not been started. A further royal decree, on the 25th of October 1597, ordered the records should be kept in a parchment book, with all previous records being copied into it. As the order gave the clergy the option of starting only from the beginning of her reign in 1558, many did not transcribe entries back to commencement which, if they existed at all, were written on poor quality paper which has not survived. About 800 registers exist from this time. From 1598, a copy of all entries was to be sent annually, at Easter, to the bishop. These are therefore known as Bishop's Transcripts, and sometimes have survived when the original registers have disappeared.

With the aid of the register, complete pedigrees of some of Branscombe's old families can be constructed, in some cases right up to recent times. Common surnames include:

'Bartlett, Braddick, Bucknell, Clapp, Ford, French, Mecho, Payton, Perryman, Parrott, Tucker, Veryard, Westcote, neaton, Whitmore'

The original Branscombe family of Edge Barton had left the parish by the end of the fourteenth century, and so do not appear in the registers. But the Wadhams, who bought the manor from

them and held it for the next eight generations, do. The families that lived in Hole House, the Holcombes and Bartletts, were also of some note. Few other families from the parish have risen

to affluence or produced any persons of national distinction until more recent times.

A statistical study of Branscombe's registers has shown that, contrary to popular belief, there was a remarkable amount of movement in and out of the parish by ordinary families before the nineteenth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, forty per cent of the family names disappeared from the registers within a hundred years. The average rate for the whole of Devon was sixty per cent. Over this two hundred year span, two out of three family names in Branscombe disappeared. They often moved to nearby parishes but began to go farther afield after the agricultural slump of the 1820s, although most stayed within the county boundary. The 1851 census revealed that eighty-six per cent of Devon's inhabitants were born in Devon. Of the thirteen per cent of Devon-born people registered outside the county, half were in London.

The registers can sometimes give unexpected insights into the otherwise anonymous lives of the parish's ordinary inhabitants. For example, the entry noting the burial of William Cawley, on the 2 1 st of June 1801:

'William Cawley, aged 40, an inhabitant of Beer, a

native of this parish, the son of John & Sarah Cawley. Died

]9th of June. He had been on a smuggling expedition and was

found dead, early in the morning, by John Halse, in a field of

oats called Five Acres, on the west side o Markel's Hill, lying

on his back with his head downhill an cask of spirit at some

distance from him, below'

A particularly tragic death in 1805 was recorded in detail by the vicar, Thomas Puddicombe:

'2 December: Rachel Perry, aged 20, daughter Of William & Susannah Perry. She lost her life by a fatal accident. A young man named Henry Northcott, her Sweetheart, going into the house of James Gush where she was sitting by the side of Gush's wife, who had a young child in her lap, by the fire; and taking down Gush's Fire-lock to see if it was clean, he incautiously touched the trigger, not suspecting that the Gun was loaded, and the Gun instantly going off, log’d its whole contents in her Bowels. The muzzle of the Gun was so close to her, when discharged, that the perforation (which was through the upper part of the thigh and over the groin, as she was sitting on a very low seat) was just as if it had been made by a Ball; tho' the Gun was loaded with Shot. She languished the whole of the day (it being about ten o'clock on the Monday morning when the accident happened), and died about two o'clock the morning following, in the very bloom of life and in full health and strength. Buried 5 December.'

The importance of the parish register as a legal document continued until civil registration took over in 1837. By this time also, the tradition of smallholdings passed down through the eldest sons of a family had all but ceased. It is interesting to note that in 1793, the registers were in the possession of magistrate John Stuckey, who happened also to be the other major land-owner in the parish, besides the Church. They were described then as being in a 'lacerated' condition, and were surrendered by him for re-binding at the Church's expense. He never got them back. Stuckey was not a popular figure in the village. On his death, in 1 8 1 0, aged 9 1, Thomas Puddicombe wrote in the burials register:

'He died possessed of vast worldly property which, after he had long possessed without enjoying and without using, he was at length constrained to leave to others. Buried 3 February.'

Even after his death, Judge John Stuckey could raise the ire of individuals in the community. His large house at Weston, where he had died, was burned to the ground in the same year. It was said to have been destroyed by an illegitimate son, in his rage at discovering that he could not inherit the property, which had been willed to a distant relative in Somerset.

The only Branscombe recorded in the parish register occur in 1924, when three London-born children living in the village were christened. They moved back to London in 1932, although their grandmother, known locally as "granny Branscombe", stayed on at "Bauld Ash" cottage until 1936, when she moved to Colyton. She died there in 195 1, aged 9 1.

The original registers are no longer held by the church. A transcript and microfilmed copy can be seen at the Devon Records Office, in Exeter.

The Churchwardens' Book dates from 1763. Both churchwardens have always been appointed by the parish, perhaps a relic of the days, recorded in the fourteenth century, when the tenants supplied the "Blessed Bread" in turn? One entry for the 29th of April 1782 concerns the supply of bread to the poor of the parish, resulting from a fine on one of Branscombe's wealthier inhabitants:

'given to the poor of Branscombe ten shillings and six penny worth of Bread by Mr.

John Braddick, Edward Bartlett's smart money for Asaulting the said John Braddick'

The administration of parish-based welfare (there was no nationally-based social security until 1930) could sometimes also involve the generosity of other communities. An extract from the parish records of Huish dated the 28th of October 1683 is a good illustration of this:

'in response to a brief, the sum of 2s 3d was given towards the redemption of John Campin of Branscomb. it is supposed this man had been captured by Turkish pirates'

Since June 1837, all births, marriages and deaths in Britain have been recorded by a system of civil registration and the role of the parish in poor relief has also been taken over by secular bodies. The records of the Branscombe parish chest remain as an irreplaceable encyclopaedia of three hundred years of village life.