SAFFRON WALDEN
HISTORICAL JOURNAL online
The Saffron
Walden Historical Journal was launched in 2001 by the Saffron Walden
Historical Society and continues to be published twice a year. We are now able
to provide access to some of the early articles online freely available on open
access. Articles are reproduced by kind permission of the authors and remain the
copyright of themselves and the Journal. Their publication on this
website does not constitute permission to copy into any other medium, without
the express permission of the Editor, who can be contacted through this website.
Please note that in most cases the original illustrations are not included but
can be seen by consulting the original journals held at Saffron Walden Town
Library.
Jacqueline
Cooper, Editor;
Gordon Ridgewell, Deputy Editor.
Article from Saffron
Walden Historical Journal No 4
(Autumn 2002)
St
Mary's, Saffron Walden Burial Registers 1558-1892
by
John Read
This article arises
from the work I have done on transcribing the Saffron Walden burial registers
onto computer disc for the National Burial Index (NBI). The NBI is a nationwide
project organised by the Federation of Family History Societies to complement
the index of baptisms and marriages which has long been available in the form of
the Mormon Church’s International Genealogical Index (IGI), but which contains
few, if any, burials. Members of individual county Family History societies are
undertaking the transcription of the registers on behalf of the Federation, and
about 25% of Essex parishes have been started. Preliminary results for the whole
country are available on a CD-ROM issued by the Federation, containing over 5
million burial records from 4300 churchyards and cemeteries, and for the county
of Essex on a separate data-base created by the Essex Society for Family
History, which by May this year had half a million names in
it.
The
Saffron Walden burial registers commence from 17 November 1558, the date of the
accession of Queen Elizabeth I.1 This date is an extremely common
commencement date for parish registers, since, although the clergy were obliged
to keep registers by Thomas Cromwell’s Injunction twenty years earlier, many of
these were destroyed when an order was made in 1598 that all entries from the
earlier paper registers should be copied onto parchment, ‘especially since the
first year of Her Majesty’s reign’. Many copyists took this to mean that they
could omit any entries before Elizabeth’s accession, and this is probably what
happened with Saffron Walden.2 It is interesting that in 1559 – the
first full year of entries – 176 burials are recorded, this being by far the
highest number of burials in any year up to 1856. One possible explanation could
be that an epidemic struck Saffron Walden that year, but I think it is at least
possible that some of the 1559 entries related to pre-Elizabethan burials. The
entries from 1558 to 1598 are written in a very neat and uniform Secretary Hand,
with each page certified by the Revd Thomas Dove who was the incumbent between
1580 and 1607, and by the two churchwardens in office in 1598, Thomas Clark and
Richard Daye.
The burial registers
officially continue until the end of 1856, when the churchyard was closed for
burials due to overcrowding, and the incumbent, Revd Ralph Clutton, noted at the
end of that year: ‘The Burial Ground closed Jany. 1 1857’. Despite this, 18
further burials are recorded at sporadic intervals between 1858 and 1892,
although from 1857 onwards all other burials took place at the Saffron Walden
Cemetery in Radwinter Road. The reason these 18 burials took place in the closed
churchyard is not clear. I checked the Cemetery registers (still held at
Uttlesford District Council offices in Saffron Walden) to see if the 18 names
were duplicated therein, but they were not. The only explanation I can think of
is that the 18 were perhaps buried in family graves which were not full by 1856,
and still had some reserved spaces. A special dispensation was however granted
in 1982 when Lord Butler (better known as R A Butler), the former Cabinet
Minister and M.P. for Saffron Walden died, and he was buried in a plot on the
north-east side of the church.
The total number of
burials recorded in the period 1558 to 1856 is over 18000, an overall average of
60 per year, but paradoxically yearly averages in the 16th and 17th centuries
are in the 70s, the figures dipping into the 50s in the 18th century, then
rising again to the 60s in the 19th. There are two possible explanations for
this trend – firstly, the incidence of epidemics of the plague and other killer
diseases in the 16th and 17th centuries, and secondly, the opening of
Nonconformist burial grounds in the 18th century.3 However, as I
shall show later, there is evidence that in the early 18th century, many burials
in local Nonconformist burial grounds were recorded in St Mary’s registers.
Yearly totals increased once more when the new cemetery was opened in 1857,
possibly because Nonconformists were included once more.
Most people would
associate parish registers with family historians, and it is logical for family
historians to be transcribing the burials. I will mention but two examples of
the value of burial registers for family historians. One is the age of the
deceased, which is given from 1813 onwards, and although this is not always
reliable, it helps the researcher in the century before the start of Civil
Registration in 1837, by giving an idea of the year in which to search for the
baptism. The other is the practice of giving the names of one or both parents of
deceased infants or young children, and the names of husbands of married women,
which is commonplace throughout the entire period of the
registers.
However, the Saffron
Walden burial registers contain a wealth of information of general local
historical interest as well as the facts and figures associated with family
history.
Burials normally would
have taken place in the parish churchyard (see cover picture), but in Saffron
Walden and many other parishes it was customary for local gentry, civic
dignitaries, prominent tradespeople, and their families, to be buried inside the
church. As the largest church in Essex, the Parish Church had a lot of space
inside for such burials, but, even so, it is difficult to imagine how the
authorities found room for the 780 persons listed in the registers as having
been buried inside the church. And the actual total would certainly have been a
lot higher than that, as in the earlier period when references to in-church
burials are sparse, many people were no doubt buried inside the church without
that fact being recorded.
The first reference to
an in-church burial was in March 1603, when Nicholas Wathe was buried 'in the
church at the nether end on the north side', and the last was in June 1812, when
Sarah Hall was buried with the simple note 'in the church'. In between these
dates, the most prolific period for such burials was from 1644 to about 1800,
around 10 percent of all burials taking place inside the church for most of this
period. The registers go into incredible detail in noting the exact position
inside the church where each burial took place. We are told for example whether
a burial was sited in the north, south, middle, or cross 'alley', in the north,
south, or middle chancel, and its proximity to reference points such as the pew
of a prominent parishioner or civic dignitary, a pillar, the font, the steps up
to the chancel, the porch, someone else’s grave or monument. There is only space in this article for
a limited number of examples to be quoted, but the following items will give a
good idea of the type of information to be found:
April
1648. William Nightingale. In the Cross Alley after you are downe the stepps as
you come in at the North dore in the chancel against the seate where the
Treasurer and Chamb. Sit.
July
1649. Robert Goodman. In the North Alley, under the stone layde in memorial of his ancestors, the brass of
wch stone was lately taken up.
April
1651. Elizabeth Doughtie. In the north chancell, betweene the stones that lie in
memoriall of Mr Edmund Turner & the chests at the East end of the
Chancell.
February
1652/3. Mary Leader. In the north chancell, under the stone that hath so much
brass taken off it, which stone lyes in the memoriall of the Nicholases.
February
1653/4. Richard Plummer. As you enter the South dore, the next great stone
beyond the place where the font stood.
April
1665. Elizabeth Ellis. In the middle chancell, between the communion table & the seat on the South side
with her feet at the head of her father-in-law Mr John Benfeild, late Vicar of
this towne.
May
1675. Edward Holland. Coming down the stairs, with his feet right against the
monument of Mr Thomas Barron, & his head close to the end of the youngmen’s
sceat.
May
1697. William Stanes. Inn the Cross Alley coming downe from the midel chancell
one the left hand, his head att the corner of the Mayor’s
seatt.
June
1739. Edmund Harris. At the lower end of the church allmost under the lowest
arch on the North side by the gallery.
August
1740. Edward Freeman. In the North Chancel with his head close to the steps and
his feet within 3 feet of the North pillar.
N.B. The Goodman and
Leader examples, which date from the Civil War period, could throw some light on
the identification of several ledger stones in the church which have no
inscriptions on them, but have indentations from which brasses have been
removed.
With over 700 more
burial locations given similar to those quoted above, it can be readily seen
that it should in theory be possible to draw up a plan of the interior of the
church before the great restoration of 1792, though I have not attempted this
myself. During the most prolific period from 1644 to 1749, 662 persons were
buried inside the church, and I have analysed the distribution between different
sectors of the church as follows:
North chancel
90
Middle chancel and
quire
91
South chancel
44
North alley
46
Middle alley
91
South alley
36
Cross alley
69
Vault of the Earls of
Suffolk
28
N.B. The locations
given for the remaining 167 burials do not identify any specific chancel or
alley.
The north, south, and
middle chancels would have been the areas which are now the north and south
chapels and the choir chancel. The north, south and middle alleys would have
been the aisles of the nave, and the cross alley appears to have run between the
north and south doors. This alley is sometimes known as the 'lower cross alley',
and there was apparently also an 'upper cross alley’ just below the steps going
up to the chancel. The present north and south chapels are no more than about 30
feet square, and the mind boggles at the density of burials which must have
taken place in such small areas, though burials of members of the same family
would usually have been in one grave. The paving stones of the church must have
been constantly uplifted and replaced, and this would account for the numerous
references to burials under a broken stone. One of the later entries mentions a
bone vault, which suggests that old bones were removed to a central repository
from time to time.
Despite
the large numbers of in-church burials mentioned above, there are now only 61
ledger stones and under 20 wall memorials commemorating these people, to be
found in the church today. Although some of these memorials commemorate more
than one person, others are unidentifiable because the names were on brasses
which have disappeared, and it would be fair to say that only between 10 and 20
percent of the in-church burials entered in the registers have surviving
memorials. Some of the ledger stones which survive appear to have been moved
from their original positions. For example, out of the eight ledger stones which
are currently to be seen running across the west end of the nave just inside the
west door, all but one relate to persons who were originally buried in the
middle chancel (John & William Holgate, Walsingham, Mayo, Drake, Crane,
Osborne and Monteth – the odd one out being Freeman from the north
chancel).
The interments of all
the Earls of Suffolk from the 3rd in 1688/9 to the 9th in
1733 are listed as having taken place in the Howard vault, which was situated
underneath the middle chancel, and it must be assumed that the 1st,
2nd and 10th Earls are also laid to rest there. These three appear in
the registers for 1626, 1640 and 1745 respectively, but without any note that
they were buried in the Vault. (N.B. After the death of the 10th
Earl, the title passed to a distant cousin who did not however inherit Audley
End House.) The remaining interments during this period were of Howard wives,
children, and grandchildren. For example, Lady Elizabeth Felton, daughter of the
third Earl, who had married a baronet, Sir Thomas Felton, was buried there in
1681, and Henry Felton, probably her son, in 1678. Two other ladies buried there
were Lady Ann Walsingham, a daughter of the second Earl and wife of Colonel
Thomas Walsingham, in 1695, and Lady Dianah Pitt, daughter of the 6th
Earl, and wife of Colonel John Pitt, in 1710. In none of these cases were the
sons-in-law given a place in the vault, though Colonel Walsingham was buried in
the middle chancel of the church in 1691.
The Suffolks’
successor at Audley End, Sir John Griffin Griffin, Lord Howard de Walden, (who
had Howard blood only through a great-grandmother), as well as his two wives,
continued the tradition of being buried in the Howard vault, but the Howard
exclusivity was broken when Sir John’s second wife, Katherine Clayton, had Henry
Charles Fox, the young son of her sister Marianne, buried there in 1788. When
Sir John Griffin Griffin died in 1797, the Vicar, Revd William Gretton, wrote in
his register:
'The procession from
the house began at eleven o’clock and the concourse of people of all ranks who
were assembled at this awful solemnity, to offer the last mark of esteem for
that truly respectable nobleman, was very great.' Gretton goes on to praise His
Lordship’s qualities at great length, and ends up by observing that he (Gretton)
was 'his very humble and most obliged friend for 32 years, in the 26 last of
which he officiated daily as his domestic chaplain in the chapel in the Audley
End House'.
There follows in the
register a lengthy extract from the will of Sir John, who had left £300 to the
poor of the parish at the discretion of Gretton 'with the assistance of Mr
Thomas Pennystone'. The will extract is accompanied by a covering letter from a
lawyer in Lincolns Inn, who addresses Gretton as 'Archdeacon Gretton', alluding
to his recent appointment as Archdeacon of Essex.
The
last burial in the vault appears to have been that of Sir John’s second wife in
1807, there being no mention of any of the Neville Lords Braybrooke being buried
there. The external entrance to the vault was blocked off in 1860, as evidenced
by an inscription on the exterior east wall. There is no memorial statuary to
the Suffolks in the interior of the church, and one wonders whether there was
any in the blocked-off vault.
The Restoration of the Church in
1790-3
A few years earlier,
Revd William Gretton had inserted in the burial register his ‘Memoranda
respecting the Great Repair of the Parish Church of Saffron Walden which
commenced in October 1790’. This covers five folios in the register, and records
that Sir John Griffin Griffin had donated £1000 towards the repair of the nave
whilst his wife Katherine had paid for the east window in the north chancel. An
Act of Parliament was also passed to allow for the raising of £4000 in bonds of
£100 each. Unfortunately,
the repair was carried
on, but coolly from the very outset, by the contractor, who soon gave too
evident proofs of a disposition not too upright, which in the further progress
of the business became unequivocally apparent, & caused the committee &
the whole parish to lament bitterly that they had ever entered into any
agreements with Richard Dyche of West Ham in this county.
This was in 1791, and
it has been said that Dyche was subsequently dismissed, but Gretton mentions him
again in November 1792, only a few months before the work was completed,
recording that Dyche 'laid onto the church the Yorkshire stone for paving the
same, precisely on the day when by his contract he should have completed the
work instead of producing the materials. And from and after the 1st
of December he called off all his workmen who were absent during the whole
course of that month & part of January 1793.' The implication is perhaps
that the workmen returned later in January to lay the paving
stones.
Another tradition
which is not supported by Gretton’s Memoranda is that the congregation moved to
Littlebury during the restoration works. Gretton says that the congregation used
the chancel as a temporary church from 1790 to early 1792, when they moved into
the north aisle which had been 'Fitted up for Divine Worship', and finally back
to the nave in December 1792.
Two other interesting
pieces of information are mentioned by Gretton. Firstly he records that the two
chest tombs of John Leche and Lord Audley now in the north and south chapels
respectively, were moved from the middle chancel, and in both cases he states
'nothing was found enclosed nor any appearance of a grave or vault under
it'. Secondly he says that 'an
antique head of Henry 6th in stained glass, which was found in the
church and repaired by Pearson at Lord Howard’s charge, was put up in the west
window of the south side'. This was then matched by a new head of George III in
the west window of the north aisle. The antique glass remains in the west window
of the south aisle, though it is generally thought to be the head of Henry VI’s
Queen, Margaret of Anjou.
Between 1715 and 1734
another feature appeared in the burial registers – the vicar was recording the
names of persons buried in Nonconformist burial grounds in the town. These are
distinguished by the addition of the words 'in the meeting yard' or occasionally
'in the Quaker meeting yard'. It seems likely that most of these burials were of
Quakers. 'By the end of the 17th century, most meeting houses had (a
burial ground), the Quakers being the first denomination to open these on any
scale.'4 I have noted 38 burials of this category in the parish
church register between the above dates, names recorded more than once being
Cornell, Rowning, Lagden, Seamer, and Barns. Before the opening of burial
grounds, it was common for Quakers to be buried in orchards and gardens, and an
entry in September 1669 reads: 'Anthonie Penniston, a Quaker, buried his mother
like a dog in his garden'.
For this purpose I
have divided the years from 1558 up to 1856 into five periods, corresponding to
the Essex Record Office microfiches of the original registers. The sections are
accordingly as follows:
Period I
Fiche No D/P 192/1/1
1558-1630
Period II
Fiche No D/P 192/1/2
1630-1674
Fiche No D/P 192/1/3
Period III
Fiche No D/P 192/1/4
1674-1749
Period IV
Fiche No D/P 192/1/5
1749-1812
Fiche No D/P 192/1/6
Period V
Fiche No D/P 192/1/14
1813-1856
Fiche No D/P 192/1/15
The two most prolific
names which stand out throughout the 300-year period are Archer and Cornell.
Archer starts off in ninth place in the earliest period, but becomes the top
name between 1674 and 1812, and remains popular into the 19th century. In all
295 Archers are recorded in the burial registers. Cornell is prominent in
periods I-III, almost disappears in the 18th century, but reappears in the 19th
and is still a common Walden name to this day. The current Walden mayor is of
that name, and there are still 13 Cornells living in the town listed in the
current telephone directory.
Pomfrett was very
prolific in periods I-III, was just out of the list in eleventh place in period
IV, but disappears thereafter, to be replaced in the last two periods by
Erswell, Richardson and Barker. Another popular name throughout was Pettit,
which, although it appears only in periods II, III and IV above, was in the top
twenty names in the other two periods. And Adams, which appears in four of the
lists, was only just out of the top ten in Period III. The ten most commonly
occurring surnames in each of these five periods are given below (table
I).
1.
ERO D/P 192/1/1-5,11,15
2.
Steel, D. J. National Index of
Parish Registers,l I, p9
3.
Op.cit, p553
4.
Op.cit., p675
|
ORDER |
I:
1558-1630 |
II:
1630-1674 |
III:
1674-1749 |
IV:
1749-1812 |
V:
1813-1856 |
|
1 |
Turner |
Cornell |
Archer |
Archer |
Richardson |
|
2 |
Clarke |
Browne |
Pettit |
Smith |
Barker |
|
3 |
Pomfrett |
Archer |
Pomfrett |
Erswell |
Smith |
|
4 |
Parker |
Pomfrett |
Turner |
Barrett |
Adams |
|
5 |
Browne |
Parker |
Church |
Pettit |
Archer |
|
6 |
Smith |
Adams |
Cornell |
Barker |
Wright |
|
7 |
King |
Pettit |
Powell |
Richardson |
Cornell |
|
8 |
Adams |
White |
Carter |
Green |
Erswell |
|
9 |
Archer |
Carter |
Sheppard |
Adams |
Taylor |
|
10 |
Cornell |
Reader |
Wright |
Clarke |
Housden |
Table
1: St Mary's Saffron Walden Burial
Registers: ten most commonly occurring surnames
1558-1856
ADDITIONAL
NOTE
Extract
from the Saffron Walden burial register for February 1652 (ERO D/P 192/1/2
reproduced by permission of the Essex Record Office). These two entries are
enclosed by brackets on both left and right margins and
record:
The
Buriinge place of Jone ye wife of John Gammage the elder was after yow are
entered in the North dore of the Church wth her head aginst the Corner of the
Raiels that incloseth the Monnuments of the Woodhals and Byrds she was buried ye
28th day.
The
buriinge place of Mrs Sarah Younge widow was after yow are downe the north
Chancell steps in the entrance of the Cross Ally when yow are just ouer the
little peece of wood that lieth Cross that Ally she was buried ye 28th
day.
The Woodhall and Byrd
monuments are still to be seen on the north wall of the
Church.
©
Saffron Walden Historical Society & John Read 2002