The office of parish clerk in Wednesbury has been held by at least two remarkable characters.  “Old George Court,” as he was called—­and by some who are still alive—­held the post in succession to his grandfather for a great number of years.  His grandfather was George Watkins, in his time one of the principal tradesmen in the town.  His hospitable house was the place of entertainment for a long succession of curates-in-charge and other officiating ministers for all the long years that the vicar (Rev. A. Bunn Haden) was a non-resident pluralist.  But the position created by this state of things was remarkable.  Watkins and the small coterie who acted with him became the absolute and dominant authority in all parochial matters.  One curate complained of him and his nominee wardens (in 1806) that “these men had been so long in office, and had become so cruel and oppressive,” that some of the parishioners resolved at last to dismiss them.  The little oligarchy, however, was too strong to be ousted at any vestry that ever was called.  As to the elected officials, the same curate records in a pamphlet which he published in his indignation, that “on Christmas Day, during divine service, the churchwardens entered the workhouse with constables and bailiffs, and a multitude of men equally pious with themselves, and turned the governor and his wife into the snow-covered streets.”  Another measure of iniquity laid to their charge was their “cruelty to Mr. Foster,” the master of the charity school held in the old Market Cross, “a man of amiable disposition, and a teacher of considerable merit.”  These aggressive wardens grazed the churchyard for profit, looked coldly upon a proposal to put up Tables of Benefactions in the church, and altogether acted in a manner so high-handed as to call forth this historic protest.  Although the fabric of the church was in so ruinous a condition that the rain streamed through the roof upon the head of our clerical pamphleteer as he was preaching, all these complaints were to no purpose.  When the absentee vicar was appealed to he declared his helplessness, and one sentence in his reply is significant; it was thus:  “It is as much as my life is worth to come among them!” Allowance must be made for party rancour.  It is probable that Watkins was but the official figure-head of this dominant party, and he is said to have been a man of real piety; and after holding the office of parish clerk for sixty years, he at last died in the vestry of the church he loved so much.

As a certified clerk George Court held the office as long as his grandfather before him.  He was a man of the bluff and hearty sort, thoroughly typical of old Wednesbury, of Dutch build, yet commanding presence, in language more forcible than polite, and not restrained in the use of his strong language even by the presence of an austere and iron-willed vicar.  The tales told of him are numerous enough, but are scarcely of the kind that look well in cold print.  Although fond of the good things of this world himself, he could occasionally be very severe on the high feeding and deep drinking proclivities of “You—­singers and ringers”!  He was never known to fail in scolding any funeral procession that had kept him waiting at the church gates too long, and that in language as loud as it was vigorous.  He, like his predecessor, was the autocrat of the parish.