Richmond Surrey Parish Registers

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
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In 1903 and 1905 the Surrey Parish Register Society published the parish registers of Richmond, Surrey, in two parts, compiled by John Challenor Covington.

The parish registers of Richmond, Surrey, part I 1573-1720 Surrey Parish Register Society 1903 https://archive.org/details/b29006326

The parish registers of Richmond, Surrey, part II 1720-1780 Surrey Parish Register Society 1905 http://www.familysearch.org/library/books/idurl/1/164645 https://archive.org/details/publicationssur03socigoog

The compilation for this period was a frustrating exercise and in the preface to the first volume John Challenor Covington makes plain his displeasure at the way the registers had been kept .

Extract from the preface to vol I p. vi https://archive.org/details/b29006326/page/n8/mode/1up

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 years, 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.t We may, therefore, infer that very 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 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 negligenee. In regard to one of them, I have a letter that was written by a Richmond lady in 1824, in which she says : : "am quite unsuccessful in my search at Richmond. Mr. Camidge the Minister shewed me the books, but he says there are omissions and chasms in the years 1750 and 1751, one of which is certainly the year. 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." It 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 Clemt. > 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 noregister 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."

Comment by Richard Clement Swetenham:

The clerk was Clement Smith (abt.1739-1787), my 4th great-grandfather, grandfather of Leslie (Smith) Morphy (1805-1877) .His son, another Clement, Clement Smith (1762-1826) was D. Mus. and the church organist. It is probably he who redeemed the family honour by handing over the 1583 - 1682 registry which his father had concealed from the vicar.

Clement the organist is in the British Musical Biography http://datatodata.com/uri/in-concert/bmb/entry/380-L-9