Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Historical Notices and Recollections Relating to the Parish of Southam, in the County of Warwick: Together With the Parochial Registers From A. D. 1539, and Churchwardens' Accounts A. D. 1580
While preparing this introduction for the press, a leading article has appeared in the Guardian newspaper, January 10, 1894, on the Custody of Parish Registers, ' to the following effect. After alluding to the relinquishment of a clause in the Parish Councils Bill, now before the House of Lords, committing the register books to the custody of the Council, out of the hands of the incumbent, churchwardens or parish clerk, the writer of the article proceeds to ask whether the present custody of these interesting documents is the most satisfactory that can be devised. For interesting document's they are. The records of the baptisms, marriages, and burials of all, 'or almost all, our parishes from 1538 - when they were inaugurated by an injunction of Thomas Cromwell - down to the present day must needs contain a great amount of information, valuable and even necessary to historical or literary students, and through them to the. Whole mass of the reading public. It is very desirable that these registers should be carefully preserved, and readily accessible. How little the first-condition has been fulfilled is sadly known to anyone whose antiquarian taste has led him to look up the early entries of any parish. Where has he found one that goes back in unbroken continuity to the reign of Elizabeth, to say nothing of the time of Thomas Cromwell? How often has he been disappointed by torn sheets, decayed and mouldv pages.
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