PARISH registers are one of our debts to Thomas Cromwell. He gave no reason why he ordered incumbents to keep them in 1538, but fear of Anabaptism and Roman Catholicism probably spurred him to ensure that infant baptisms, marriages, and funerals were all done within the Church of England after the Act of Supremacy. No formats were laid down. Some incumbents listed all three rites together in date order; others divided the three into separate lists.

Poor supervision caused registers to be lost. In 1598, the Church ordered parchment ones to be used, and copies of the entries to be sent every spring to the bishop. John Winthrip’s book continues the story from 1660, in a period of new developments. Interest now grew in how registers should be kept, and regulation increased.

Views on the subject differed. Parliamentary Bills on registration failed in 1753 and 1759. Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1754 was more successful. This forbade marriages other than under incumbents and required marriage registers to be kept separately. Married parties were now required to sign the registers along with two witnesses.

Genealogists and statisticians called for yet more detailed records: addresses and occupations, and the ages of the dead. Blank registers were published so that entries could be made in a uniform way. Twice, governments tried to use registration to raise money by taxing the process. Neither attempt was popular, and each was dropped after a few years. But, well into the 19th century, incumbents remained chiefly responsible for the records, with opt-outs for Quakers and Jews. It took the new era of Parliamentary reform to introduce civil registration in 1837.

Ideally, a study of this kind should provide more context than is given here. The history of parish registers in the period reflected the nature of the Protestant Church-State, the problem of religious dissent, the Georgian liking for order and neatness, and the growing interest in statistics, culminating in the first census of 1801.

As an explication of the records, however, the author covers his topic in full and lucid detail. His careful analysis of the variety of practices in different periods, dioceses, and parishes will be invaluable for anyone using the registers and seeking to understand their varied formats. Two comments: not all vicars worked in parishes with lay rectors. Some held benefices owned by cathedrals and colleges. And the suggestion that parents reused the forenames of dead children overlooks the fact that godparents often bestowed their own names, thereby producing repetitions. Samuel Pepys named one boy after himself and, on another occasion, when not asked to do so, replied by taking home his christening gift!

Dr Nicholas Orme is Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University.

A History of Parish Registers in England and Wales: From the Restoration to civil registration
John Wintrip
Lutterworth Press £25
(978-0-718-89848-9)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50