Wattisham St Nicholas: the saga of the old register

On the inside cover of Wattisham St Nicholas’s oldest-surviving register are notes by Charles Partridge (indefatiguable Suffolk historian and genealogist). He worked out that someone had destroyed the earliest register, pre-1680, and either they, or someone else, had used Great Bricett’s earliest register as if it was Wattisham’s. It was through Partridge’s detective work that Great Bricett had its missing register returned. I’ve transcribed the baptisms and marriages from the cover of “No. 2” on webpages, rather than in spreadsheets, to preserve their order on their pages/covers.

Partridge’s notes look as though they were published somewhere – probably in The East Anglian, the Proceedings of the Suffolk Archaeological Society, or, failing those, a local newspaper. I am yet to find the source, and it misses off the beginning:

“Next to “No.1” comes a register of 12 leaves, beginning with a baptism of 1680, and ending with a marriage of 1736. Its outside cover is inscribed in the same modern hand at the top “No. 2” and lower down: “Wattisham. No 2. Old Register.”

“Its covers are dirty and much worn, but one can decipher that its print-cover is closely-written with baptisms, ranging outside from about 1600 to 1602, and inside from 1603 to about 1606. Its back cover records marriages. Inside there are twenty, ranging from about 1582 to 1598, and outside there are about 17 ranging from 1603 to about 1612. These covers have been cut off at the bottom, thus cutting away a few marriages between 1593 and 1603, and after 1612. With these marriages I have compared – thanks to Mr VB Redstone, FSA, of Woodbridge – Wattisham’s “register-bills”, sent every Easter to the Archdeacon’s office at Bury. They tally, and thus prove that these covers are part of Wattisham’s earliest registers, cut up remorselessly to form a cover for “No. 2.”

“Next to “No. 2.” comes a register of nine leaves, including both covers. It is labelled, in thr same hand, “No. 3.” It begins inside its front-cover with a baptism of 1737, and ends with a baptism of 1761. Close examination leads me to suspect that both its covers formed parts of Wattisham’s earliest register. If so, the writing has been erased, but faint traces of it still remain.

“”No. 1” ought to be given back to Great Bricett, where the parish registers date from only 1680. Somebody cut up Wattisham’s earliest book to make a cover for its “No. 2,” and for the demolished book substituted Bricett’s earliest register. But he forgot the evidence of register-bills, etc. “The evil that men do lives after them.”

“Charles Partridge, STOWMARKET.”