Monday 12 June 2017

Churchwarden's Accounts



The Churchwarden was a volunteer position and he had many duties in the church. There is an account of the role of a Churchwarden here. Being a man of importance he usually had a special pew in the church.

He had to keep track of all the inventory and property owned by the church, make sure taxes were paid and rents collected. The churchwarden kept an account book which hold names of some parishioners and amounts paid to people for goods or services.

Some older ones have been transcribed and the introductions have bits of interesting information ...





The churchwarden wrote in his accounts all monies paid out and received. This passage is from the churchwarden of St Martin's in Leicester, 1552


Fourth item down reads: Received of Mr Manbe ye 3rd day of May at ye burial of his son for 4 bells, 20 pence.

In these old records s = shillings and d = pence. The roman numerals are using a j as a number one. The sum of 20 pence in 1552 would have been valued at about £16.7 today.


In the French Catholic church he is called a Marguillier, and you may find the names of some of them in books of the history of the parish.


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9 comments:

  1. How interesting, particularly the information about the pews! My dad was a parish priest, so the senior warden was a frequent visitor to our house.

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    1. They kept wonderful records if we can find the ones we need.

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  2. So interesting! Dog-whippers are something I never would have imagined.

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    1. That's what I love about genealogy - there is a surprise around every corner!

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  3. I've seen similar records for Virginia parishes but did not know they may have been recorded by the churchwarden. A new record set to search for. Yeah! Thank you.

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  4. I enjoyed reading your post, as my father was a church warden for many years. Also I was delighted to discover in my “ancestral” church, a board listing churchwardens back to the 18th century, with my ggg grandfather and gggg grandfather named on it.

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  5. Churchwarden's records look interesting. I suppose they could be a challenge to find, though.

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    1. They may not be online, but if you ask at the church they may still have some.
      Even looking through the Canada records at Ancestry, I often come across an odd entry... like once I stumbled upon a list of foods and stuff given to the church and the names of the donors.

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