Transcript:Shropshire, England. Shropshire Parish Registers/Lichfield Diocese/01/Albrighton (near Shrewsbury)

Shropshire Parish Registers.

Diocese of Lichfield.

VOL. I. (1900)

The Register of Albrighton, near Shrewsbury.

Albrighton Registers.

Albrighton was formerly a Chapel of Ease to St. Mary's, in Shrewsbury. The townships of Wollascott and Leaton were connected with it. The old Register began in 1563, but the earliest volume is lost.

The Parish Register Abstract, 1831, gives this account of the Albrighton Registers :—“ Albrighton C. No. I. Register 1649–1760, 1763–1790 (defective until 1665.) No. II. 1791–1812. Burials are not recorded prior to 1788.”

The first volume of the existing Register is a paper book of about 50 pages, 16 inches by 6, in a parchment cover. The confusion of dates in the early part of the first volume may be explained as follows :—It seems probable that the book was begun 1666, the original date on the title page ; the entries for 1663, 4, and 5, were copied in from another book. The earlier entries, from 1649 to 1662, are merely a collection of the Gough and Davies families, also taken from an earlier book. When the church-yard was licensed for Burials, a new page of the book was begun, and it was at first intended to keep the Burial Register separate from that of Baptisms. The Baptism of Sarah Shore in 1672 was placed among the Burials accidentally. But in 1676, the division was given up. It appears that the entries were frequently written in this book in batches, and some time after the events to which they refer. Some were passed over and had to be written out of their proper order. Thus the baptisms on May 22, 1664, and January 5, 1667, had to be written on a fly-leaf, and for this reason the clergyman signed them ; but those which are out of their order in 1663 and 1685 were written in the body of the Register, so that it was unnecessary to sign them. The marriage entry in 1684, and the baptism in 1729, were not written by William Hughes. The list of the Briefs from 1674 to 1692 does not interfere with this theory, as the pages on which it is written may have been left blank when the Register was begun. The date on the title-page has been altered carelessly, probably by someone who noticed that the book contained a full list of entries for 1665. The variations in the writing and the ink seem to bear out the theory that the volume was begun in 1666.

The First Volume ends in 1790. It is in bad condition. Many pages are torn, and the edges are crumpled. The entries for 1691 and 2, part of 1693, for 1697, and part of 1698 are destroyed.

The Second Volume, 1790 to 1812, is bound in parchment covered cardboard, 15 inches by 10. It contains 12 paper-pages.

There are no marriage entries from 1742 to 1852. Probably no marriages took place in the church during this period. The transcript for 1806 seems to imply that this might be the case.

The Incumbents and Curates named in these Registers and Transcripts are :—

William Hughes, 1664–1692.

Roger Eddows, 1708–1726.

James Doughty, 1727–1729.

William Gibbs, 1731.

John Francis Paschoud, 1732–1740.

John Allen, 1754 ; died 20 March, 1778.

John Jones, 1778 ; died 11 February, 1793.

Samuel Johnson, 1793.

Henry Johnson, LL.B., 1799 ; died 1814.

John Rowland, 1799–1804.

H. Johnson, 1804.

Richard Parsons, 1806.

Henry Campbell, 1807-8.

John Wilde, 1808–1814.

Charles Bury, B.A., Worcester College, Oxford, 1833.

Benjamin Maddy, 1834.

James Craig, M.A., Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 1858.

Martin Whish Brigstocke, M.A., Trinity College, Dublin, 1867–78.

Frederic John Walker, M.A., Magdalen College, Cambridge, 1878–91.

Harry Ward, B.A., St. John's College, Cambridge, 1891–93.

George William Crofts Ward, B.A., St. John's College, Cambridge, 1893–95.

Edward Ford, M.A., St. John's College, Cambridge, 1893–99.

The transcripts of the Albrighton Registers were returned to St. Mary's, Shrewsbury. A list of the transcripts, which are still preserved at St. Mary's, is printed at the end of the Register, together with the names of the Incumbents and Churchwardens, who signed the parchment slips on which they are written.

The most important names that occur in the Registers are Ireland, Leigh, Bulkeley, Lloyd, Floyd and Oare. A silver chalice was given to the chapel in 1790, by Thomas Oare.

The new church of St. John the Baptist, which stands on the foundations of the older building, was opened in 1841. It contains the Ireland vault, and two memorial tablets to the Ireland family, bearing their arms. There are also tablets to George and Elizabeth Oare (1819), Henry Elfmore (1825), and William Spurrier (1848). The Font is Norman. A chancel was added by the late Mr. W. M. Sparrow, in memory of whom there are three stained windows.

Albrighton, with Perrill and Broad Oak, was formed into an ecclesiastical parish in 1860. Mr. W. A. Sparrow is lord of the manor and patron of the living. It is in the Pimhill hundred, the rural-deanery of Wem, and the archdeaconry of Salop. The population of Albrighton in 1881 was 102. The area of the parish is 769 acres. A History of Albrighton will be found in the Shropshire Archæological Society's Transactions, Second Series, Vol. I., p. 95, &c.

This transcript of the Registers was made, and collated with the transcripts preserved at St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, and the proofs, as they passed through the press, compared with the original registers, by

G. William S. Sparrow,

Albrighton Hall, 20th April, 1899.