E. Worley at St. Laurence,
Jewry, King Street; and Mrs. Stapleton at St. Michael's, Wood Street. In
1867 Mrs. Noble was sextoness of St. John the Baptist, Peterborough. The
_Annual Register_ for 1759 mentions an extraordinary centenarian
sextoness:
Died, April 30th, Mary Hall, sexton of Bishop Hill, York
City, aged one hundred and five; she walked about and
retained her senses till within three days of her death.
Evidently the duties of her office had not worn out the stalwart old
dame.
Although legally a woman may not perform the duties of a parish clerk,
there have been numerous instances of female holders of the office. In
the census returns it is not quite unusual to see the names of women
returned as parish clerks, and we have many who discharge the duties of
churchwarden, overseer, rate-collector, and other parochial offices.
One Ann Hopps was parish clerk of Linton about the year 1770, but
nothing is known of her by her descendants except her name. Madame
D'Arblay speaks in her diary of that "poor, wretched, ragged woman, a
female clerk" who showed her the church of Collumpton, Devon. This good
woman inherited her office from her deceased husband and received the
salary, but she did not take the clerk's place in the services on
Sunday, but paid a man to perform that part of her functions.
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