This lead me to the Composite Register which broadly covers the years from 1752-1912. The register is not capable of being digitally scanned and evaded the Genealogical Society of Utah filming at Bromley in the 1970's. It is preserved in two paper conservators ring bound volumes which contain the fragmentary pages in protective covers which are sealed and stitched.
The history of this volume has been pieced together from various sources. In the late 1890's to 1903 it was handled in the parish by antiquarian Henry Wilson who lived at Farnborough Lodge. In 1903 he completed a foreword for a book entitled the Parish Registers of Farnborough which was printed and published in 1904 and which he is designated as editor. Henry Wilson died in 1908 and a large gravestone remains in the churchyard of Farnborough Saint Giles the Abbot.
Henry describes the volume he handled as " 168 pages of parchment 12 and three quarter inches by 7 inches and bound in rough calf. It has marriages from 1752 to 1791 and at the other end marriages from 1792 to 1800. It also includes christenings from 1749 to 1812 and burials from 1792 to 1800."
Between 1903 and its arrival in 1974 at Bromley Archive the designated Diocesan Record Office for Bromley Borough Anglican parishes the volume was subject to fire and water damage. It was handed to the Maidstone Record Office when it left the parish and returned in 1978 for recovery and conservation. Although I have searched for any record of a fire at the Church and made enquiries of Farnborough residents; when and where this volume was damaged eludes me. The Kent Record Office at Maidstone included a paper conservater who took all steps to conserve the pages. The cover of the volume did not survive and conservation decisions omit any blank pages. The sequence of the entries in the original format has not been maintained so searches are complicated. Henry Wilson's transcript published in 1904 follows the entry sequence of the original and describes intervening marriage entries in both Baptism and Burial page sequences. As the burials were located largely at the end of the volume they are particularly affected by fire damage. Burial entries from 1801 to 1812 survive and I have been able to locate and transcribe them all but heat and water have curled both sides of the pages which means dates are complicated due to curling and shrinkage. The conservation treatment has also resulted in sorting pages in a sequence which is anything but chronological and Henry Wilson's page descriptions are useful in showing the undamaged volume sequence. There are gaps in the recording of the original register for the burial sequence and therefore some years are missing.
I have found Henry Wilson's transcript to have one or two surname errors and date errors but these are less than 1% of the total.
The sequence of christening entries owes its inconsistency to the original record keeping and is further complicated by treatment by the conservation. The condition of pages for the baptismal sequences in both of the two surviving conservation volumes are better than those for burials and with only a handful of entries is there any difficulty. Although difficult to search for an individual these pages will benefit from computer handling to sort the data into alphabetical order for publication on the Kent Online Parish Clerks Farnborough parish page in due course.
Henry Wilson also encountered a gap between 1624 and 1660 for entries and found at the mother parish of Chelsfield that Farnborough entries omitted from the earliest Composite register for the parish. The Chelsfield content includes marriages from 1538 to 1557 and many entries which largely fill the gap from 1624-1660 although entiries are incomplete in the later years of this period.
Despite the helpfulness of the Henry Wilson register the original publication is only available in photocopy form at the Society of Genealogists and the Bromley Historical Collections photocopy of the Society's photocopy suffers from the method of photocopying a bound volume.
It is hoped that work on the surviving record will enable online searchers to locate entries which are time consuming to locate in the original. Searching the volume for a single entry can take up to one hour research time so that an easy search for surnames will benefit many people who do not have access to Bromley Historical Collections.
I have found the challenge of the transcription rewarding. The inclusion of detail of cause of death after 1800 quite moving in several cases. I am once again reminded of the frequency of death by waggons running over people or ponds being site of drowning or suicide.
The Baptisms were originally added at head or foot of pages otherwise filled by marriage entries with witness signatures. There are several severely damaged pages which refer to marriages which are now virtually lost;however Henry Wilson could clearly read the entries and this helps overcome some problems. The Marriage entries are chaotically placed out of chronological sequence as Wilson found before the record was damaged. Baptismal entries on marriage pages are many years different from the dates of marriages and there is one whole page recording the Whiffen children a large family with wide date range.
I'm grateful to Bromley Historic Collections for access to these two conservation folders which are close to being unable to be handled and have a sense that few people have handled them since 1974-1978 when they came to Bromley. The register serves as a reminder how close we can come to losing records vital to family historians for significant periods of history.
My transcripts are now online at Kent Online Parish Clerks Farnborough parish page.
© Henry Mantell Downe Online Parish Clerk 2013-2017
