The registers and records of South Marston parish were recently deposited in the History Centre. Although the impact of this is somewhat lessened by the fact that we have had microfiche copies of the registers pre 1900 for over twenty years, nevertheless it is significant because it leaves only one Wiltshire parish, Ludgershall, outside the fold of the History Centre, quite an achievement in securing the permanent preservation of these vital records. Along with the registers, which go up to 1991, are records including a church rate book, 1847-1857, which is a useful source of names of parishioners at the end of the period of compulsory rating for Anglican churches.

 
A 'Defence of the Realm' register entry found in the Winterslow parish registers. It shows the Wiltshire returns of 1803.

If you are interested in parish registers, you might like to look at a new publication by our very own Steve Hobbs: “Gleanings from Wiltshire parish registers”, which forms volume 63 in the excellent series of Wiltshire Record Society publications, available for use in the History Centre. Steve has uncovered a wealth of information about life in Wiltshire which goes beyond the bare facts of baptisms, marriages and burials. For example, did you know that the 1695 assessments of tax on births, marriages and burials provided the first national census? Very few of the full assessments survive, but the register of Donhead St Mary includes the full asessment, and records the status of all parishioners and amount of tax due. The population of that parish in 1695 is stated as 814. To find out more, please 'read more'...

Other registers reflect the threat of invasion at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The register for Winterslow includes a statistical record of men able to serve, with arms and equipment they could provide, livestock, crops, wagons and corn mills, together with numbers of those who would require assistance in the event of a mass evacuation, plus aliens and Quakers. (The latter were singled out because their willingness to fight was in doubt!) The aim was to deny Napoleon’s army access to vital provisions and equipment and could have led to all the livestock in Wiltshire, including nearly 500,000 sheep and 65,000 cattle, being herded to Beckhampton Down, between Devizes and Amesbury. This would have been quite a sight, if it had come to pass!

The archives of the Lloyd family of Great Bedwyn have recently been listed. For over 150 years the family business of stone masons has been an important part of the village’s history, which culminated in the rather quirky museum established by Ben Lloyd. The records cover the century from 1820 and include work for many local clients, most notably the Savernake estate. It also includes records of the Great Bedwyn Friendly Society from 1879 to its dissolution in 1915, of which Benjamin Lloyd served as its secretary, and other material about the village, including photographs of its football and bowls teams.  (WSA3613)

The stories behind the survival of archives are sometimes almost as interesting as the documents themselves, but not quite. A case in point is an Assessed Taxes schedule for Charlton near Malmesbury 1804-5. Found in the wall of a cottage in Tetbury in 1949, it was recently deposited by the finder’s daughter. The schedule lists 93 persons with their occupation or status, 52 of whom are described as poor. [There were 88 families recorded in the 1801 census]. The taxes included duty on houses, windows, servants and carriages, and consequently the document provides a very detailed record of the social structure of the parish. By a strange double coincidence, a few weeks later a similar assessment for Tisbury for 1825 was deposited. It too was found in the wall space of a house, in which one of the assessors lived. Such lists rarely survive, possibly because they were so well hidden, making them of particular importance. (3825/1, 337/6/2)

And finally…

Evidence that the dangers of buying second hand means of transport are age old is provided in a letter written on 27 July 1667 by Joseph Ashe to his agent at Downton, John Snow. Snow had bought a horse on his behalf for 40s (£2). Reporting the assessment of his farrier that ‘he was rotten and streyned in the kidneys’, he continued ‘the next day his glanders appeared & began to run at the nose, this morning he fel down dead in the stable’. An autopsy was carried which revealed he was ‘rotten all over … his gutts are burnt as red as a red sky, hart liver and lungs putrified. If the farmer warranted him sound, if you Can Witnesse, & wil not make you some satisfaction’, Snow is to serve a writ and have him arrested. (WSA 490/909).

Authors: Steve Hobbs and Claire Skinner