Wisdom Wednesday: Brett Family and Non-Conformity, Part 1

At the beginning of the summer, I decided to explore the non-Anglican religions in Norfolk, England to see if my family in the market town of Swaffham might be involved. Because they were agricultural laborers and thus poor, they might have had a tendency to leave the Church of England (COE), either before or after they immigrated to the U.S. and Australia. In the chart below, I summarized the results by listing my GGGrandfather, Thomas BRETT, and his five daughters, including my great grandmother, Eliza BRETT LEWIS:

Name	Baptisms & Marriages- Norfolk, England	Religion as Older Adult-UK/USA/Australia
Thomas Brett, father	Church of England	Universalist (USA)
Sarah Brett Blyth	Church of England	Church of England (UK)
Rachel Brett Barker	Church of England	Universalist? (USA)
Hannah Brett Parsons	Church of England	Methodist (USA)
Susan Brett Griffin	Church of England/Particular Baptist	Church of England/ Wesleyan (Australia)
Eliza Brett Lewis	Church of England	Methodist (USA)

  

While living in England, all six family members were baptized and five were married in the COE. Susan BRETT was married in the Particular Baptist chapel. The five who left the UK were active and buried with rites of non-conformist denominations.

Thomas BRETT married Martha HAYLETT in Great Dunham, NFK on 8 Dec 1823 in the Church of England (COE) parish church. They lived in Swaffham, Thomas' home town, and had 7 children baptized in the COE parish church: Sarah (1824), Rachel (1826), Hannah (1829), Susan (1832), Thomas (1835), Eliza (1837), and James (1839). Martha HAYLETT BRETT died in 1850, and her burial is recorded in the COE register. The three eldest daughters married in the COE church in Swaffham. 

James’ birth, Martha’s death and the three girls weddings happened after 1837 when civil registration began so the fact that the events are recorded in the COE registers may be evidence that they were faithful COE members at those times. According to the 1851 Religious Census, there were non-conformist groups in the parish, if they had an inclination to participate.

On the other hand, between 1754 and 1837 all marriages had to occur in the COE to be recognized. This would include Thomas BRETT’s marriage to Martha HAYLETT in 1823. The COE was reluctant to marry people who had not been baptized in the church. The daughters may have been baptized in the COE to avoid future problems.

Then Susan BRETT married Allen GRIFFIN on 5 Mar 1854 at the Particular Baptist Chapel in Swaffham, the first documented evidence that I have found that anyone in the family had non-conformist tendencies. This couple emigrated to Australia in 1855, declaring themselves as Baptists on the ship’s manifest. However, the baptisms of their many children are recorded in the Wesleyan and two Anglican churches. The ministers at Susan and Allen’s funerals were listed as Wesleyan and Methodist respectively.

Who were the Particular Baptists: Baptists are set apart from other protestant groups because they believe in adult baptism by immersion. An Englishman founded this religion while in the Netherlands. One of his followers came back to London and established the first Baptist chapel there in 1612. About twenty years later, there was a split – one group was called the General Baptists and the other the Particular Baptists. The latter sect put a greater emphasis on predestination.

By 1851, the Particular Baptist Chapel in Swaffham, NFK was on White Cross Lane in its own separate building. Founded in 1823, it had Sunday Schools in two other locations.

Thomas Sr., Thomas Jr., Eliza, James, Hannah and her husband, John PARSONS, and her children arrived in the United States in 1854. Thomas Sr. died in upstate New York on 11 March 1875. The funeral was held two days later at the Universalist Church at North Ridge, Niagara, NY, and he was buried in a community cemetery behind the church, a second incidence of non-conformity.

It is in the lives of Thomas’ children, especially his five daughters that the religious diversity is further illustrated. His oldest daughter, Sarah BRETT, is the one exception. She married William BLYTH or BLIGH in Swaffham, remained in Ashill, Norfolk, England, and seemed to record events in the Church of England records throughout her life. Her first husband’s burial and her remarriage were recorded in the parish register also.

Note: This family’s immigration and religious beliefs are the subject of two future blog posts.

  ©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday: Non-Conformists and Dissenters in the Family

I have Non-Anglicans in my UK family tree. Their religious records are especially clear after they immigrate to the United States and Australia. How can you tell that your ancestors might not have attended the Church of England (COE)?  In my search, I found an obit clipped from an unknown Niagara County, New York newspaper in a family bible:

BRETT. – In Cambria, March 11^th, 1875, at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Rachel Barker, Mr. Thomas Brett, aged 75 years and 3 months.

            Funeral Saturday, March 13^th, at the Universalist church, Cambria, at 2 o’clock P.M. Friends are invited to attend

I found this very early while looking for documents my family already owned, but didn’t really think about its significance. Thomas Brett was baptized, married, and his wife was buried in the Church of England. All of his children were baptized in the COE. Did convenience enter into the decision to associate with a Universalist church? To some extent yes, I think. This crossroads in the county had three churches and a community cemetery. One Church was Roman Catholic; the second was ‘German” Lutheran still having services in German; and this Universalist congregation. Checking the 1878 History of Niagara County would give me an idea of how far away an Episcopal/Anglican Church was.

Did I only find records of Non-Anglican churches after they left England? That seems to be the case with one exception.

Thomas’ daughter, Susan, married Allen Griffin in the Particular Baptist Chapel, Swaffham, Norfolk in Mar 1854. The Griffins arrived in Geelong, Australia in June 1855, declaring themselves Baptists on the ship’s manifest. The baptisms of their many children are recorded in the Wesleyan and two Anglican churches. The ministers at Susan and Allen’s funerals were listed as Wesleyan and Methodist respectively.

Note: People who do not adhere to the Church of England are called non-conformists or dissenters. In the past, only Protestants were so labeled, but now Herber uses the terms to include everyone (Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews). Christensen uses the term Non-Anglican to cover all the groups. I will use all three terms to mean anyone not affiliated with the COE.

All birth, marriages and deaths were recorded by civil authorities after 1837 so the parish records are no longer as critical to genealogists.  Before Civil Registration, if you know that your family was Non-Anglican, you need to find out where the registers of their church are held. (I will discuss in a later post.)

If you can’t find them in the COE parish records and begin to suspect they might be non-conformist, you need to find out what denominations were active in their geographical area. The 1851 Religious Census that I introduced in my last post will be helpful here. If your ancestor flirted with a non-conformist sect for awhile, it might explain why eight of the ten known children are baptized in the COE records and two are missing.  

Many people have told me that the British could be baptized, marry and be buried from the Church of England and never step foot in the established church again in their lifetimes.*  How could this happen? Here are a few examples that suggest that it could:

Before Queen Victoria’s time, “no one could obtain a government post without producing proof of baptism in the Established Church.” (Hey, page 189.)  The COE was reluctant to marry people who had not been baptized in the church. (Christensen, page 69.) If you have an ancestor baptized in the COE records as a young adult, it might be for one of these reason. If people marry and have no children in the baptism records, it might be infertility or immigration, but look for children in the registers of other denominations.

Before 25 April 1754, marriage records can present a challenge, but from that date through 1837, marriages for all but Quakers and Jews had to conform to Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 which required COE marriage for everyone. Non-Anglican and civil marriages began again in 1837, but for this 81 year period, all marriages should be able to be found in the COE records and sometimes a second time in a non-conformist chapel register. Herber explains:

     “Hardwicke’s Act required a marriage to be performed in the parish church of one of the spouses(or in certain designated chapels) by an Anglican clergyman, in the presence of at least two witnesses, and only after the publication of banns or by the authority of a valid marriage license.“ (Herber, page 124)

Of course, there were many holdouts who would only marry in their non-conformist religion. Christensen points out (page 30) that then a will might refer to a women as ‘my reputed wife who now lives with me’ or by her maiden name because a non-Anglican marriage confers no legal standing for the wife or subsequent children.

Burials in the parish cemetery might have been the only option available. Some COE clergy are said to have required a COE service before a burial could take place there. If the burial record uses the word ‘interred’, Hey says it might be a non-conformist without a service.  It was into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before non-conformist churches had their own burial grounds and that private, commercial cemeteries were established.  

After reading Christiansen’s three lists about how to spot Non-Anglican ancestors (pages 26-32); one each for protestant dissenters, Catholics and Jews, I think it still comes down to unusual things in the parish registers before 1837. Let’s for the moment only consider the signs that ancestors may be involved in other protestant sects. Baptism records seem to be the key. Some sects, like Quakers and Baptists, did not believe in infant baptism so there may be no entry in the COE parish records or an entry that reads more like a birth announcement only. From 1690, parishes were required to have records of everyone born there, but Non-Anglican children may be on a separate list or listed by gender and date only because the clergyman believed the child had not received a name through baptism.

Often you find several children in a family baptized on the same day which can be a sign of returning to the COE after a period with a non-conformist sect or just lazy parents. Another possibility is that the more non-conformist parent had died, and the other parent has hurried to get the children baptized into the COE. The parish council was in charge of poor relief, and they may have forced baptism on the poor, elderly or sick in order for them to receive benefits.

Non-conformity is related to social and professional standing. Few dissenters were in the army or navy, for example. These people were enthusiastic about new ideas, education and social reforms. They had a tendency to belong to certain political parties and movements. Because they were not eligible for government jobs, they concentrated on business and trade. Some were able to take full advantage of the industrial revolution and the shift of power from rural to urban locations.

It would be helpful to know when each non-conformist sect made its appearance in Britain. All three references below have the information, but the chart in Christensen, page 24, might be the easiest to use.

* England has a state church and religion. While it is not so hard to understand the particulars with a good reference book in hand, I still have some trouble embracing the concept. It is so far from the American experience.

Sources: Christensen, Dr. Penelope. Researching English Non-Anglican Records. Toronto, Canada: Heritage Productions 2003.

Herber, Mark. Ancestral Trails. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company 2006.

Hey, David. The Oxford Guide to Family History. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1993.

©2012, Susan Lewis Well