In times of laxity and confusion wrought by the Civil War and Puritan persecution, the clerk would doubtless be the only person capable of keeping the registers.  In my own parish the earliest book begins in the year 1538, and is kept with great accuracy, the entries being written in a neat scholarly hand.  As time goes on the writing is still very good, but it does not seem to be that of the rector, who signs his name at the foot of the page.  If it be that of the clerk, he is a very clerkly clerk.  The writing gradually gets worse, especially during the Commonwealth period; but it is no careless scribble.  The clerk evidently took pains and fashioned his letters after the model of the old court-hand.  An entry appears which tells of the appointment of a Parish Registrar, or “Register” as he was called.  This is the announcement: 

“Whereas Robt.  Williams of the p ish of Barkham in the County of Berks was elected and chosen by the Inhabitants of the same P ish to be their p ish Register, he therefore ye sd Ro:  Wms was approved and sworne this sixteenth day of Novemb.. 1653

     Snd R. Bigg.”

Judging from the similarity of the writing immediately above and below this entry, I imagine that Robert Williams must have been the old clerk who was so beloved by the inhabitants that in an era of change, when the rector was banished from his parish, they elected him “Parish Register,” and thus preserved in some measure the traditions of the place.  The children are now entered as “borne” and not baptised as formerly.

The writing gradually gets more illiterate and careless, until the Restoration takes place.  A little space is left, and then the entries are recorded in a scholarly handwriting, evidently the work of the new rector.  Subsequently the register appears to have been usually kept by the rector, though occasionally there are lapses and indifferent writing appears.  Sometimes the clerk has evidently supplied the deficiencies of his master, recording a burial or a wedding which the rector had omitted.  In later times, when pluralism was general, and this living was held in conjunction with three or four other parishes, the rector must have been very dependent upon the clerk for information concerning the functions to be recorded.  Moreover, when a former rector who was a noted sportsman and one of the best riders and keenest hunters in the county, sometimes took a wedding on his way to the meet, he would doubtless be so eager for the chase that he had little leisure to record the exact details of the names of the “happy pair,” and must have trusted much to the clerk.

Some of the private registers kept by clerks are still preserved.  There is one at Pattishall which contains entries of births, marriages, and burials, and was probably commenced in 1774, that date being on the front page together with the inscription:  “John Clark’s Register Book.”  The writing is of a good round-hand character, and far superior to the caligraphy of many present-day clerks.  The book is bound in vellum[63].  The following entry, taken from the end of the volume, is worth recording: