Transcript:Shropshire, England. Shropshire Parish Registers/Lichfield Diocese/01/Battlefield

Shropshire Parish Registers.

Diocese of Lichfield.

VOL. I. (1900)

The Register of Battlefield.

Battlefield Registers.

The Parish Register Abstract, published in 1831, contains the following account of these Registers :—“ Battlefield P.C. No. I. Bap. Bur. 1663–1812. No. II. Marr. 1754–1812 ; ” but this account, as will be seen, is both inaccurate and incomplete.

The Parish Registers of Battlefield commence 24 Sept., 1663. The earliest Register is a paper-book, and extends from 1663 to 1747 ; it contains Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, and also a list of Churchwardens and Overseers from 1665 to 1687. The second volume is on parchment, and consists of a copy of the foregoing paper volume made in 1749 by Leonard Hotchkiss, Incumbent of Battlefield and Headmaster of Shrewsbury School ; it also contains Marriages from 1749 to 1753, and Baptisms and Burials from 1749 to 1812, in the handwriting of Leonard Hotchkiss, Beaumont Dixie, and Edward Williams, successively Incumbents. At the end of this volume are several terriers, statistics of population, and lists of curates and clerks ; also a tabulated statement of the annual number of Baptisms and Burials from 1663 to 1812. Vol. III. contains Banns and Marriages from 1754 to 1774, only 8 in number ; at the end is a tabulated statement of the annual number of Marriages from 1666 to 1812. Vol. IV. contains Marriages from 1814 to 1830, only 5 in number. The volumes in use now contain Baptisms from 1813, Burials from 1813, and Marriages from 1840, all to the present time. There is also in the Chest a volume of Churchwardens' and Poor Accounts, extending from 1772 to 1824. All the volumes are complete, and in good condition.

The most important entries in the Registers are those relating to the ancient family of Corbet, formerly of Albright Hussey in Battlefield parish, and afterwards of Sundorne Castle. Battlefield has always been a place of great interest to Salopians, on account of its historical relations, for here the battle of Shrewsbury was fought between King Henry IV. and Hotspur on 21 July, 1403, and Battlefield Church and College were erected and founded by leave of the King. The history of the parish is given in the Shropshire Archæological Transactions, Second Series, vols. I. and X., and a fuller list of the Incumbents than that given in the Registers, with additional information about the Church, may be found in Fletcher's Battlefield Church, 1889. For the battle, Wylie's History of England under Henry IV., and Owen and Blakeway's History of Shrewsbury, should be consulted. A list of the Battlefield parochial records, both ecclesiastical and secular, is given in the “ Interim Report ” of the County Council of Salop.

The Registers are printed by the kind permission of the Rev. Thomas Bainbridge, B.A., the present Vicar of Battlefield, from a copy in the Shrewsbury Free Library made by Mr. William Phillips, F.L.S., and the proofs have been compared with the original Registers by the Rev. W. G. D. Fletcher, F.S.A.