There are many instances in Worcestershire of the offices of sexton and
clerk having been held as hereditary ones for very lengthened periods.
At Feckenham, the late Mr. David Clarkson (literally, the _clerk's
son_), who died in March, 1854, after having been a model clerk for
many years, could boast of his ancestors having occupied the same
office for two centuries. He served in his youth as drum-major in the
artillery, and when he succeeded his father in the clerkship, became
the tutor of choir after choir, and was the founder of that celebrity
which has long attached to the Feckenham singers. He was also leader
of the ringers. His death took place in his 79th year, and he was
greatly respected.--The late clerk of Wolverley, Thomas Worrall (whose
father had been thirty years clerk, and to whose memory some curious
verses are inscribed on a stone in the churchyard), was himself clerk
forty-eight years, schoolmaster for thirty-three, and registrar for
a long period, besides being leader of the choir and ringers. He was
never absent from his duties at church but twice!--The Field family
have been connected with the clerkship and beadledom of Kingsnorton for
upwards of two centuries. Two of them alone held it for _one hundred
and two years_! The last of the race, I think, died in 1818. The Fields
were an ancient family in that parish, for there is an indenture in
existence between William Wyllington and John Field of Kingsnorton,
dated the 30th year of Henry VIII.--The family of the Roses has
provided the church of Bromsgrove with clerks and sextons time out of
mind; and at Belbroughton the Osbornes have done the same thing. One
of this family was clerk till a very recent period. It appears, also,
that the Osbornes had been tailors from very remote time, and the late
clerk had several brothers who followed that very useful avocation.
From a letter of Mr. Tristram (then the patron of Belbroughton) to
Bishop Lyttelton, the Osbornes were tailors in the reign of Henry VIII,
but they can trace their descent much higher, having been lineally
descended from William Fitz-Osborne, who about seven centuries ago
unjustly deprived Ralf Fitz-Herbert of his right to the manor of
Bellem, in the above parish.--At Oldswinford, on December 28th, 1855,
died Charles Orford, aged seventy-three; he had been parish sexton from
his youth, having succeeded his father in that capacity, and leaving a
son to follow.--The office of clerk at St. Michael's, Worcester, has
been in the family of Bond for nearly a century.--John Tustin, the
present clerk and sexton of Broadway church, has held those offices
fifty-two years, and his father and grandfather also held them.
THE REV. DR. LEE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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