Among the charges pertaining to the church, in the same year, a new
clock and dial, three feet square, by Mr. John Steight, cost £13.
10s.; and three years afterwards the vestry made an order to "buy
a new pulpit of the Dean and Chapter for eight guineas, that they
had lately made and was not then in use." No such heavy expenses
were incurred in this parish as in St. Nicholas's for perambulation
purposes or other feasting, and indeed the scale of the disbursements
generally betokened St. Peter's to be much the poorer parish of the
two. £3. 9s. was charged in 1761 for "going the bounds." In 1774, I
find that the turnpikes to Feckenham cost 3d. for a horse; hire of the
animal, 2s.; hay and corn, 6d.; dinner and drink for the rider, 1s.
6d. The lamps first put up in this parish were under the care of the
churchwardens, who were ordered to appoint a person to trim them. Mr.
Nathaniel Wilkinson--who has been rendered famous by his erection of
the beautiful spire of St. Andrew's church--was an inhabitant of St.
Peter's; and in 1750 I find an order that Mr. Wilkinson's accounts
should be examined, "and if he do not submit them for inspection an
attorney be employed." It ever seems the fate of genius to contend with
pecuniary difficulties.
I now come to the management of the poor. As in all other parishes to
whose records I have had access, the greatest vigilance was exercised
to pass on tramps and get rid of paupers, especially that class of
females who evidently contemplated an increase of the population, and
these are invariably designated by a term which will not exactly suit
the fastidious readers of the nineteenth century. In 1739 Leonard
Darke is ordered "to have the badche (badge) put upon his sleeve as
the act of Parliament directs, before the churchwarden relieves him
or his wife; and that all other people that receive reliefe from
the parish be obliged to wear the badge." In the same year--"Paid
to gett a stranger out of the parish troubled with fitts, 1s." In
1746--"Ordered that the churchwardens do agree with the London carryer
in the best manner that he can to take Ann Nelson back to Christ Church
parish in London, from which she was sent by a pass directed to the
churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the city of Worcester." See
how the authorities of those days enforced seducers to make the _amende
honourable_:
1780.--"Paid to Ann Williams, examination and oath relative to
her parish, 2s.
"Her examination and oath touching the father of the child, 2s.
"A warrant to apprehend the father, and expenses of constables
and assistants in taking him, £1. 18s.
"Paid for the ring, 4s.
"Licence, £1. 8s.
"Pd parson, clerk, and sexton, 8s.
"For the wedding dinner and drink, 11s. 6d."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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