No clerk was needed for the
responses, as the congregation joined heartily in the service, and there
was a much better attendance than there is now. She died in the
early fifties.
Amongst other varied readings of the Psalms that of an old parish clerk
at Hartlepool may be given. He had been a sailor, and used to render
Psalm civ. 26 as "There go the ships, and there is that lieutenant whom
Thou hast made to take his pastime therein."
The late Dr. Gatty, in his record of _A Life at One Living_, mentions
that at Ecclesfield, as in many other places, the office of parish clerk
was hereditary. The last holder of the office, who used to sit in his
desk clad in a black bombazine gown, was a publican by trade, a decent,
honest man, who during the fifty-one years he was clerk was only twice
absent from service. He died in 1868, and the offices of clerk and
sexton were then united and held by one person.
The register books of Weybridge, Surrey, were kept for a great part of
the eighteenth century by the parish clerks, the son succeeding his
father in office for three or four generations.
Now probably the clerks are no more clerks but vergers; and as a
Yorkshireman remarked, "_Verging_ is a very honourable profession."
The portrait of John Gray, sometime clerk in Eton College Chapel, taken
in his gown as he stood in his desk, has been engraved, and is well
known to old Etonians.
Pages:
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366