Leigh Saint Mary the Virgin parish Kent

For many the village and parish of Leigh in Kent is a source of mispronunciation. The correct pronunciation is  "lie".The name of the village which has settled with the Leigh spelling nowadays but the parish registers are recorded for Lyghe and indicate the pronunciation of the name.
The parish neighbours Chiddingstone and Penshurst and the De L'isle /Sidney families were significant landowners. The Parish is often linked to nearby Tonbridge which as neighbouring parish and market town is frequently mentioned in burial registers.
Leigh was the site of an industrial site  historically significant in the manufacture of gunpowder.

The burial register identifies residents of the site of "Powder Mills" which had worker cottages and a large dwelling for the site manager. The history of the site and it's development as an extremely rare surviving industrial site in Southern England are detailed in The Powder Mills Leigh Historical Society.
The manufacture of black powder or gun powder was dangerous and buried at Leigh are those who died durng explosions which were often reported at the time or coroner's inquest in newspapers.
The burial registers also offer evidence  of a long established parish poorhouse and Poor House land and cottages in the parish. Even after the formation of Poor Law Unions there is evidence of burials from the Poor-house in Leigh.
The passage of the 1834 Poor Law Act lead to Leigh joining the shortlived Edenbridge Union Workhouse at Bough Beech. The Poor Law Commissioners proposal for Leigh to join the Sevenoaks Poor Law Union eventually is accepted but it is notable that Leigh Vestry remain active in caring for the Poor and relatively little evidence of use of the Sundridge Workhouse unless for medical or nursing care. A detailed history of caring for Leigh's poor is available at Leigh and District Historical Society
The 1851 census of the occupancy of the former Leigh Workhouse buildngs 1851 census entries for Leigh Workhouse indicates the extent of use of parish resources. The parish doctor was Workhouse Medical Officer at Sundridge  the Sevenoaks Union Workhouse.
My transcript of the burial register from 1813-1853 is being prepared for publication on the Kent Online Parish Clerks website in due course.



© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Sevenoaks Saint Nicholas Burial Register 1813-1846

The burial register for Sevenoaks contains 2400 burials for Sevenoaks Town Liberty, Riverhead Liberty and Weald Liberty.
The Ancient parish during the course of this register erects two chapels of ease  at the Weald in 1821 and Riverhead in 1831. The Weald Chapel was dedicated to Saint George and saved inhabitants of Sevenoaks Weald the long climb up the hill to Saint Nicholas Parish Church. The chapel built with funding of the Lambarde family and Lord Amherst included a house for a perpetual curate and included 10 acres of land.
Many entries for the Weald Liberty in the Saint Nicholas burial register record burials certified by the curates of Saint Georges as burials at the Weald burial ground. These are denoted as Weald liberty of Sevenoaks W in the register and my transcript.

The second chapel at Riverhead is important as burials from the Sevenoaks Parish Workhouse at Saint John's Hill  are recorded as Riverhead Liberty or Sevenoaks R in the burial register. The Sevenoaks parish Workhouse was in fact the district Workhouse for most parishes surrounding the town. The Riverhead Chapel also had a clergy house and perpetual Curate and funded by Lord Amherst and the Lambarde family and had land for burials.

Also during the early years of the burial register Thomas Sackville Curteis Vicar of Sevenoaks had granted permission for part of the Glebe land to provide much needed burial land for Saint Nicholas to be brought into use.

My transcript can be found via a link on the newly created Sevenoaks parish page at Kent Online Parish Clerks or here.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Reverend Edward Henry Lee Rector of Chiddingstone 1875-1893

One aspect of research in archives is the discovery of something unexpected about an individual from unintended neglect or forgetfulness. On opening the Chiddingstone burial register from 1813 onwards one such discovery is made.
Reverend Henry Lee was appointed Rector of Chiddingstone in 1875 and it is probable that in handling the burial register he was locating the earlier burial of a family member to locate the burial place for a later burial as the burial register reference P89/1/E/2 at Kent Archives and Library Maidstone covers the years 1813-1847.
There is evidence of his search for members of the Eagleton family burials on a folded sheet of paper which is  on the reverse publicity for a private publication by the Reverend Henry Salkeld-Cooke BA 5 Agnes Street Burdett Road Mission Priest and Curate  of  Saint Pauls Bow Common in East London.
Perhaps to mark a place in the register he used the envelope which was to hand addressed to him as Reverend E Lee Chiddingstone Edenbridge. He left for posterity the delights of a sample McDougall's Insecticide Sheet and publicity for this and McDougalls manure.There are several publicity and testimonial sheets in addition to these. It appears that the letter is sent in the 1890's toward the end of Reverend Lee's life.

Edward Henry Lee was born on 16 March 1818 and baptised on 18 March 1818 at Saint Mary Newington Surrey. He graduated from New Inn Hall Oxford BA in 1841 although his Oxford alumni record appears as Henry Edward Lee. He married Mary Elizabeth Holmes on 30 September 1851.
 From 1850-1869 he was Curate in Charge at Cliffe before he became Vicar of Boughton under Blean 1869-1875. Whilst at Cliffe his efforts to restore and improve the church including addition of bells are recorded in Archeologica Cantiana XL, 158. Three of his four children are born at Cliffe Mary 1854,Harry Holmes 1856 and Alice 1859;in Chiddingstone the couple appear in the 1881 census at the Rectory Chiddingstone.
He died at Chiddingstone 7 November 1892 age 74 and is buried there with his wife Mary Elizabeth who died 21 April 1904 aged 86. Her entry in the burial register at Chiddingstone indicates that she lived at Grosvenor House Westerham which since 1954 has been a grade II* listed building in Westerham.
I find this insight in to the life of Reverend Lee quite touching. It is in my mind the only example of an English burial register deposited in an archive to contain a sheet of "self acting insecticide sheet" unless anyone knows of another.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Reverend Thomas Sackville Curteis Rector and Vicar of Sevenoaks Kent

The Curteis lineage can be traced back to William Curteis Bailff of  Tenterden in 1521 from whom the dynasty of Curteis Vicars of Sevenoaks descend.
Thomas Sackvlle Curteis and his cousin the Reverend Thomas Curteis MA JP for Kent born  1780 at Tenterden (who married Sarah Anne Lipscomb at Wilbury in Yorkshire) were both descendants of William Curteis.
Thomas Sackville Curteis graduated from Jesus College Cambridge and on appointment at Sevenoaks on 20 December 1751 united the office of Rector and Vicar. He succeeded his father Thomas Curteis who had been installed in 1716.The same family held the position for 190 years!
In 1769 he fell foul of  a mob of people who believed him to be the author of new regulation about the militia. The mob chased him out of a meeting at The Crown Hotel to the old Rectory which was damaged. Curteis fled across fields to Knole but the mob pursued him there until charged on horseback by a Captain Smith. The ringleaders were caught and punished and the riot ended. (page 39 Notes on the Parish Church of Saint Nicholas Sevenoaks by John Rooker MA Vicar of Sevenoaks 1910).
Sevenoaks had through his efforts a new set of bells recast and rehung in 1769 but by the 1800's the fabric of the church was in a dangerous state despite various efforts to maintain the structure. The opening statement in an Act of Parliament reads "it is become dangerous for the inhabitants to attend Divine Service therein;and the Tower of the said church is also in a dangerous and ruinous state". Curteis had been notably absent from Vestry meetings organised by the Parish Clerk. During work on the building a collapse nearly claimed the life of one of the builders. The Act of Parliament succeeded in 1811 and enabled funding for a parish church reconstruction.  Curteis had allowed part of the Glebe land to form a much needed graveyard extension in 1810/1811.

The vestry minutes record an uneasy relationship between Curteis and the town's inhabitants perhaps his memory of events at the hands of the mob in 1769 and criticism of the state of the Church influenced his attitude.
Reverend Thomas Curteis MA  succeeded him as Vicar of Sevenoaks upon his death in 1831.
Thomas Sackville Curteis and his wife are both buried at Sevenoaks.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Reverend Edward Repton MA Vicar of Shoreham

Reverend Edward Repton was the son of Humphry and Mary Repton (Clarke) and was baptized 25 June 1782 at Norwich Norfolk. He married Mary Ellis Herbert at Loughton Essex on 27 November 1808 and died on 6 August 1860 at Saint Leonards on Sea Sussex age 78.
He graduated from Magdalen College Oxford with a B.A. in 1804 and with a M.A. in 1806.
He was Rector at Maningsby Lincolnshire in 1817,curate at Saint Philip Chapel Regent Street Westminster in 1820 and was Prebendary Canon of Westminster in 1838 and Chaplain to the House of Commons. In 1843 he became Vicar of Shoreham upon the death of  Reverend Robert Price BA.
Shoreham Church has a war memorial under a window of the Choir vestry recorded and illustrated at war memorials online. His three sons are the subject of the Repton memorial and died in the British East India Company Campaigns 1757-1858 .
Edward is buried at Shoreham together with his wife Mary Ellis Repton who died 13 March 1875 Georgiana Ewart Repton who died 8 May 1848 and Edward Pakenham Repton who died aged 34; the memorial crosses within an enclosure are recorded by Leland Duncan in his survey of Shoreham prior to 1919 see Kent Archeological Society.
My transcript of two volumes of Shoreham burial registers are now online at the Shoreham Parish page of Kent Online Parish Clerks Shoreham Parish.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Reverend Robert Price BA vicar of Shoreham

Transcription of a parish register can become arduous if the person making original entries was unfamilar with the concept of knib and ink. The Reverend Robert Price on the other hand was the transcriber's dream. He is the only person to enter Shoreham burials from 1817 until his death;the remainder of burials in the register that preceded his entries are also meticulously and neatly inscribed by a curate; after Robert's death sadly penmanship is a stranger! My transcript of the 1813-1850 Shoreham Burial Register is now  available at the Kent Online Parish Clerks Shoreham page Shoreham Burials 1813-1850. A second register of Shoreham burials is also available online Shoreham Burials 1850-1889.
Robert Price was born in London the only son of James Price a London merchant according to Diocese of Rochester records and Cambridge University Alumni information. He gained his BA at Cambridge in 1796 and the same year became Curate at Saint Martin Outwich where he married Grace Ross. He served from 1796-1810 at Saint Martin Outwich London.
Robert Price was ordained a Deacon by the Bishop of London on 14 August 1796 and a priest by the Bishop of Rochester on 19 September 1802. He became a prebend of Durham in 1804 and one of three Canons nominated in 1807 to have episcopal oversight of Salisbury Diocese.
He served from 1802-1816 as curate of Croydon until he was appointed Vicar of Shoreham and instituted there on 8 June 1816 by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster who gave him the living. He served for 29 years until his death on 21 December 1842. His wife Grace entered Bromley College established for the widows of clergy and remained resident there until her death on 22 February 1862 aged 78. I have previously transcribed Grace's funeral account from Dunns undertaking business at Bromley Market Square which was paid by her son James  and details her coffin and conveyance to Shoreham for burial see two items for Grace Price funeral. In Bromley the surgeon who attended her was outfitted for attendance at the funeral and the parish church bell was tolled as the hearse and attendant coach and pair left Bromley for Shoreham.
The family burial plot at Shoreham also includes their son James Price a landscape painter who died 24 June 1879 aged 74. On 16 December 1817 the Shoreham register records the baptism of William Price to Robert and Grace;Robert baptises his own son.
The family appear in the 1841 census as resident at the Vicarage Shoreham. James Price aged 30 is unmarried and still lives with his parents;his sister Grace is aged 25 and William is aged 20. The 1841 census records that neither James or Grace were born in Kent. Grace married in 1863 at Sealkote India Thomas Wilson BA.
It appears likely that both elder children were born  in London or Croydon,during their father's ministry in those parishes.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020