Just recently, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in 18th century Maldon.

Well, to be more precise, I’ve been delving into the town’s parish registers for the 1700s – hunting down a client’s ancestors.

A fascinating pastime it’s been.

Some of the surnames from the past, I recognise in many of today’s townsfolk.

Maldon is an unusual town as it has 3 Church of England parish churches. Whilst a few Essex and Suffolk towns have a couple of CofE parish churches, it is rare for any town to have 3 parishes. I can only think of Sudbury that has two parish churches. But there’s probably more.

Maldon’s three CofE parish churches were

• All Saints
• St Peter’s
• St Mary’s

The parish of St Mary’s was/is quite distinct from the other two as it’s at the bottom of town.

But with All Saints and St Peter’s, the two parishes were more fluid with our ancestors using either churches for baptisms, marriages and burials.

Today, St Peter’s is a redundant church and only its tower has survived. The site of the ancient St Peter’s church was purchased by Thomas Plume to house his worldwide famous Plume Library at the end of the 17th century.

Today, the building also has an Exhibition Hall that houses the excellent Maeldune Heritage Centre.

The Plume Library’s website (and Pevsner) states that St Peter’s Church was redundant by the time of Thomas Plume’s purchase in the 1690s and his death in 1704. And that the church had become redundant in the 16th century – shortly after the Reformation.

However, the parish registers stored at Essex Record Office tell a different story. The townsfolk of Maldon were using both All Saints and St Peters to baptise their children, marry their partners, and dispatch their dead long into the 18th century.

St Peter’s registers aren’t as comprehensive as All Saints. The townsfolk did use All Saints more then St Peters. Nonetheless, there are separate parish registers covering St Peter’s baptisms, marriages and burials up until the mid 18th century – showing that St Peter’s was still in use.

• The last burial in St Peter’s churchyard was William Sweeting on 13 May 1750
• The last baptism in St Peter’s was in 1755. Martha, the daughter of James and Margaret Cutler born on 3 March 1754. Although this baptism is an oddity – a final baptism in the (possibly by then) redundant church. The previous baptisms took place several years earlier during the first part of 1749/1750.
• The final wedding in St Peter’s took place 15 February 1709/10 between James Faulks and Susanna Brown. There were only 19 wedding at St Peter’s during the 18th century.

So, by the early 18th century, the registers show that St Peter’s was fast in decline. But townsfolk were still using the church for registering their hatching, matching and dispatching.

Whilst I was researching this information, it did occur to me that the parish registers were recording people who lived in St Peter’s parish, but that they were physically using All Saints Church.

But I discounted this when I saw that a few entries specifically stated that such and such person was from St Peter’s parish and baptised in All Saints Church or married in St Mary’s. The implication being that when a church wasn’t explicitly mentioned in St Peter’s registers, it was St Peter’s being used.

Unless you know otherwise?… Was St Peter’s still being used in the early 18th century? Or were these merely people from St Peter’s parish that were using either All Saints or St Mary’s but their details recorded in a register for St Peter’s?

Hmmm…..!

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Post: July 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019