Sleepy times and sleepy clerks—­and yet these were not always sleepy; in fact, far too lively, riotous, and unruly.  At least, so the poor rector of Hayes found them in the middle of the eighteenth century.  Such conduct in church is scarcely credible as that which was witnessed in this not very remote parish church in not very remote times.  The registers of the parish of Hayes tell the story in plain language.  On 18 March, 1749, “the clerk gave out the 100th Psalm, and the singers immediately opposed him, and sung the 15th, and bred a disturbance. The clerk then ceased.”  Poor man, what else could he have done, with a company of brawling, bawling singers shouting at him from the gallery!  On another occasion affairs were worse, the ringers and others disturbing the service, from the beginning of the service to the end of the sermon, by ringing the bells and going into the gallery to spit below.  On another occasion a fellow came into church with a pot of beer and a pipe, and remained smoking in his pew until the end of the sermon[75]. O tempora!  O mores! as some disconsolate clergymen wrote in their registers when the depravity of the times was worse than usual.  The slumbering congregation of Hogarth’s picture would have been a comfort to the distracted parson.

[Footnote 75:  Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 65.  Quoted in Social Life as told by Parish Registers, p. 54.]

To prevent people from sleeping during the long sermons a special officer was appointed, in order to banish slumber when the parson was long in preaching.  This official was called a sluggard-waker, and was usually our old friend the parish clerk with a new title.  Several persons, perhaps reflecting in their last moments on all the good advice which they had missed through slumbering during sermon time, have bequeathed money for the support of an officer who should perambulate the church, and call to attention any one who, through sleep, was missing the preacher’s timely admonition.  Richard Dovey, of Farmcote, in 1659 left property at Claverley, Shropshire, with the condition that eight shillings should be paid to, and a room provided for, a poor man, who should undertake to awaken sleepers, and to whip out dogs from the church of Claverley during divine service[76].

[Footnote 76:  Old English Customs and Curious Bequests, S.H.  Edwards (1842), p. 220.]

John Rudge, of Trysull, Staffordshire, left a like bequest to a poor man to go about the parish church of Trysull during sermon to keep people awake, and to keep dogs out of church[77].  Ten shillings a year is paid by a tenant of Sir John Bridges, at Chislett, Kent, as a charge on lands called Dog-whipper’s Marsh, to a person for keeping order in the church during service[78], and from time immemorial an acre of land at Peterchurch, Herefordshire, was appropriated to the use of a person for keeping dogs out of church, such person being appointed by the minister and churchwardens.