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  • Parish clerk

    I have just been looking at the Trade Directories and find that in Kelly's for 1905 one of my ancestors is listed as Parish Clerk. Was this a significant thing and where would I start to find out about it? A trip to the RO I guess?

    Would it have meant he was an upstanding member of the community???
    Rose

  • #2
    Don't know about 1905, but htese days Parish clerk is basically secretary to parish Council, paid post, hours probably differ depending on size of Parish. Think our Parish Clerk just looks at it as a job. People write to Parish Council c/o her, and she passes them on. Doesn't have any authority in her own right.
    Mavis
    Dust is a noun, never a verb;)

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    • #3
      yes, ours is like that. wondered about historically. Thanks

      must dash, didnt realise time.. vera's funeral!
      Rose

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      • #4
        Is this any help, Rose? -

        The Parish Clerk Index page

        It includes a brief description of the role before 1907
        Last edited by Muggins in Sussex; 28-01-08, 20:20.
        Joan died in July 2020.

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        • #5
          Just found this, too

          Parish Clerks Company - History
          Joan died in July 2020.

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          • #6
            I've a couple - father & son - from a working-class background (shoemakers) in the mid 19th C. Seems to have been a sort of retirement job for dad. (Well, from his 50's anyway.) The son gave it up to go to work in a nasty chemical factory 200 miles away. Presumably it paid better. It killed him.
            Vicky

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            • #7
              This may be of interest too, as it explains why civil and ecclesiastical parishes often have different boundaries

              Vision of Britain | Administrative Units Typology | Status definition: Civil Parish

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              • #8
                Thank you for those links, very interesting .

                Nothing at all to do with today's Clerk to the Parish Council! Tom, go and have a look at Joan's first link, you may find one of yours listed (I didn't :().

                Must look into this further, my G GF would have fitted the bill I reckon with him being a wheelwright.

                Thanks again.
                Rose

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                • #9
                  Here's the bit from the earlier link about the work a PC might be expected to do in Victorian times:

                  Parish Clerk - "They should be at least 20 years old. Known to the parson as a man of honest conversation and sufficient for his reading, writing and competant skill in singing" Canon 91(1603).
                  Functions - reading the lessons and epistles, singing in the choir, giving out the hymms, leading the responses, serving at the altar and other like duties, opening of the church, ringing the bell, digging graves if there be no sexton.

                  I would have thought the PC would usually have been a working class man, able to read and write and dependable. Maybe someone with a trade.

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