Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/298

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [s.xi. APRIL n. UHB.

charity are not stated ; sixteen were to relieve sufferers from fire ; eight were to aid in the erection or repairs of churches ; two for sufferers from floods and inundations; one on account of shipwreck ; and one to assist the Lithuanians. The last-named is explained in the following copies of entries in the churchwardens' accounts of two parishes in Devonshire :

" Tavistock, Nov. 10, 1661. Collected for and

Towardes the releife and Support of the Protestant Churches in Lithuania and for the furthering and finishing the pious worke of Translating^ and printing there Bible the sume of 1 16*. ld. '

41 Woodbury, NOT. 17, 1661. Collected for the helpe of the Protestant Churches in the great Duke- dome of Lithuania being in number about 100 by a briefe vpon the peticon of John de Grains Krainsky minister of God's word and deputy of the nationall Synod there: the sum of I 11. 10. lid." Trans. Devon. Assoc., xxviii. (1896) 631." Further details can only be obtained by con- sulting the original documents, but, unfortu- nately, very few of those of a date prior to the period of the Restoration have been preserved. It may, however, be noted that with the gradual introduction of insurance offices the number of briefs granted for fires gradually diminished, whereas those on behalf of churches made a corresponding increase. The annual number of briefs issued by the Privy Council rarely exceeded twelve, so that the collections made on their behalf, as recorded in parish books, even of widely different districts, show but little variation in the objects noted in the same or proximate years. The Guildhall Library possesses a large number of the original documents issued in the years 1670 to 1716 ; another set, extending from 1753 to 1828, is preserved in the Library of the British Museum ; and the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres has another series covering the last-named period. Of the brief records entered in parish books of the sums gathered, and for what objects, there are 1,021 notices of such collections having been made in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, between the years 1644 and 1793, and 1,103 in East Budleigh Church, Devonshire, from 1669 to 1828.

T. N. BRUSHFIELD, M.D.

I am about to publish in the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society some very interesting extracts from the two oldest registers of the parish of Syderstone, Norfolk. These contain, besides curious entries as to fasting in Lent, burials in woollen, and other notable items, a very full list of seventeenth and eighteenth cen- tury church briefs for which collections were made in the parish. In some cases the

circumstance which called forth the collec- tion is mentioned, in many it is not ; but these may for the most part be discovered in Mr. W. A. Bewes's book on the subject. To take a few the objects of which are men- tioned in the Syderstone registers, and are also given in Bewes :

Fakenham, co. Norfolk. A destructive fire in the town. The churchwardens' receipt for the money is attached to the register.

Little Melton, in Norfolk. Fire.

Milton Abbas, cp. Dorset. Fire on 4 Au- gust, 1658, destroying upper part of town.

The town of Scarborough, co. Yorks. Church restoration. 2,500/. required.

Pontefract Church, co. Yorks. Repair.

The Lithuanians (100 Protestant churches). For translating and printing the Bible.

The harbour of Watchett, co. Somerset. Houses and quay destroyed by tempestuous seas.

Harwich, co. Essex. Church and steeple.

Grantham, co. Lincoln. Loss by fire.

Inhabitants of Weedon, 1665.

Sandwich, co. Kent. Church repair.

Wytham, co. Sussex. Church repair.

The list can be fully made up from Bewes.

H. J. DUKINFIELD ASTLEY. East Rudhani, Norfolk.

Withyham Church, Sussex, was partially burnt down by lightning 16 June, 1663, and the following entry is found in the parish register : " June ye 16, 1663, was Wytheham Church burnt down by a tempest of thunder and lightning."

The damage done to the fabric was esti- mated at 1,800/., and the parishioners, being unable to repair this serious loss, had to resort to the then common custom of peti- tioning for a royal brief to raise contributions in other churches.

The brief was granted, but the result seems to have been unsatisfactory, as in 1668 the parishioners again petitioned the king for another brief, which was given, authorizing them to collect within the cities of London and Westminster, the counties of Middlesex, Kent, Essex, Hertford, Hants, Norfolk, and Somerset, and the borough of South wark.

The above particulars are taken from Lower's ' Sussex ' and the Rev. C. N. Sutton's very interesting 'Historical Notes of Withy- ham, Hartfield,' &c. ST. CUTHMAN.

The collections made at West Haddon, in the years 1660-3, for Fakenham, Ilminster, Bolingbrook, Watchet, and Grantham had their counterpart in the parish of St. Ives, Cornwall, at the same period. The entries are given among the extracts from the