Wattisham St Nicholas

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Notes

  • There is a saga relating to the early registers of Wattisham. The earliest register, covering the years before 1680, was almost entirely destroyed, apart from one page of baptisms and marriages (1582-1612) which was used as the covers for the 1680-1736 register. See Charles Partridge’s notes, and my best attempt at transcriptions from these very faded and damaged entries.
  • Bishop’s Transcripts coverage 1563-1709: as they use the old calendar, the year runs 25th March to 24th March. They were generally submitted around Easter, so sometimes run April to April, i.e. so you might find early 1610 baptisms on the return for 1609. 1563, 1565, 1567, 1572, 1575, 1579-1582, 1584, 1587-88, 1593-94, 1598-99, 1600, 1603-04, 1606, 1609, 1611 or 1612?, 1614 or 1615?, 1619 or 1620?, 1631, 1633, 1634, 1636-40, 1662-4, 1668-9, 1671, 1673-5, 1677-9, 1681-4, 1688-9, 1692, 1695-7, 1693-4, 1699-1704, 1706-9.
  • See “”A very extraordinary and singular case” at Wattisham, 1762″, when an entire family was ravaged by an unknown disease.
  • No entries at all for 1755, apart from one baptism and one burial found in the Bishop’s Transcripts.
  • No baptisms 1812.
  • No burials in main register 1784-1791, but all years found in Bishop’s Transcripts (although no one was buried in 1791). None 1809-1810.
  • Baptisms 1784-1804 and burials 1792-1797 are recorded on separate sheets, with a note saying they’re entries which have been taxed, while “paupers taking relief from the Hundred House” are recorded in the “old register”. Baptisms and burials for those periods have been checked against the Bishop’s Transcripts. They all match, apart from two burials, one in 1792, and another in 1794, which only appear in the BT’s.
  • Marriages end 1743, and don’t resume until Wattisham gets its first printed register in 1783. It may not be unconnected that John Hall, Wattisham’s parish clerk for 49 years, died in April 1783. It’s possible that the printed register starting in 1754 was in his possession when he died, and wasn’t returned to the church. We are fortunate that there’s an uninterrupted run of Bishop’s Transcripts which fills the gap, although they don’t record the witnesses’ names. Most, but not all, mention marital statuses. The first marriage that would’ve been in the register, and which survives in the BTs, is from May 1754. In the BTs immediately after, only baptisms and burials are recorded, with no note to say no marriages took place, so it is a concern that some couples did marry in those years, but the marriages could’ve been submitted on separate sheets which are now lost. However, a few years before 1761, the BTs start to specifically say when no marriages took place. So there may, or may not be some gaps in the few years immediately following 1754. Note that Sudbury Deanery BTs for 1767/8 are erroneously filed with Thedwastre Deanery, and vice versa.

Baptisms

Burials

Marriages

1564-1709 with gaps

1580-1610

1680-1744

1745-1753

  • No marriages took place.

1754-1778

1779-1782

  • No marriages took place.

1783-1812