Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FOUR.
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION.
XV. THE CORPORATION AND THE OLD CHURCHES.

During the Middle Ages there grew up a close relation-
ship between the Corporation of Dover and the Ecclesiastical
Authorities. St. Martin's Churchyard became the Market
Place; the Muniment Box of the Corporation was kept in
Si. Martin's Church, where the Common Assemblies were
held; the Mayors and Members of Parliament were elected
in St. Peter's Church; and St. Nicholas' Church, when it
fell into ruin, became the property of the Corporation.

At the Reformation Henry VHI. seems to have
recognised this relationship, and considered the Corporation
to be entitled to some of the old Churches then left derelict.
The fabrics of St. Martin's and St. Peter's Churches
were given to the Corporation without any special arrange-
ment as to what should be done with them. St.
Martin's and St. Peter's, which had belonged to the Priory,
were cuinpletely stripped of their endowments, but the Church
of St. Mary, which had been attached to the Maison Dieu,
wa? given, with such endowments as belonged to it, to the
Corporation for the use of the inhabitants.

What the intentions of Henry VIII. really were with
regard to the destiny of St. Mary's Church will probably
never be disclosed. There has been a great deal of litigation
in the Ecclesiastical Courts on various matters with regard
to this Church, and the investigation brought together a
great deal of the Church's history, more especially with
regard to the right of the Vestry to deal with the endow-
ments, appoint ministers, and to allow the Corporation
special seats in the Chancel. There was also much that
was ancient disclosed in invr^tigating the right of the Arch-
bishop of Canterl)ury to a | ".l;^ion of 20/- a year that used
to be paid from this Church to the Prior of Dover in
pre-Reformation days.

In preparation for the litigation, a "case" was drawn
up by Mr. Charles Wellard. Town Clerk, in 1730, in which
he alleged the following points: — (i), That the Church was
built by the Prior and Convent of St. Martin, and that the
advowson was given by }Iul)ert de Burgh to the Maison
Dieu; (2), That the Registry at Canterbury shows that



THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 21 7

when the advowson was given to the Maison Dieu about the
year 12 16 there was reserved a pension of 10/- a year to the
Prior of St. Martin; {3), That, according to a record in the
Augmentation Office, the Priory was sunendered to the
King on the i6th November, 1535; (4), That in 1537 the
Priory property was transferred by the King to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury in exchange for other property ; (5),
That, from records in the First-fruits Office, it appeared
that at the Dissolution, St. Mary's was a Parsonage of the
Maison Dieu of the vahie of J^6 a year, that there were
rents amounting to ^^15 a year, out of which a pension of
20/- a year had been paid to the Prior of Dover. To this
the Town Clerk added: " I have made search for a grant
from the Crown to the parish of St. Mary of this Church
but can find none, but for several reasons, founded on the
Church books and the continued uninterrupted possession
by the parishioners, it is to be presumed that the parish had
a right to the Church time out of mind, or that the Crown
did, about the time of the Dissolution, make some gift or
grant thereof to the parishioners, but that the paper of the
Churchwardens wherein the grant was recorded was lost."

On the case prepared by the Town Clerk, the opinion
of Dr. Andrews, of Doctors' Commons was given on the
24th July, 1730. It is a lengthy document, of which the
following is the substance: —

"The present Parish Church of St. Mary-the-Virgin, in Dover,
was, at the Reformation, a Parsonage belonging to the Maison Dieu
there, which the last Master, Sir John Thompson, returned as a
Parsonage of £6 per annum, and he held the same until the year
1542. From my memoirs of this town, it appears King Henry VIII.
was fretiucntly here about that time, supervising the works of the
Harbour, in which he took great delight, having put them under
the direction of the above mentioned Sir John Thompson, who appears
to have been a gentleman of such ingenuity that the said King
raised him from being a Parson of St. James's, in Dover, to be
the Master of the Maison Dieu, a place then worth ;^i2o a year.
King Henry VIII. was a humorist, of which, I think, histor}-, as
well as our own records, give a sufficient proof; for, in 1537, that
King's footman was paid two shillings for a forfeit because the bells
of the Church of St. Mary were not rung at his coming. In the year
1538 King Henrv VIII. was again at Dover, and they rang the bells
of St. Mary's Church when His Majesty came in and when he went
out ; that they sealed up the Church doors at the King's departure.
It appears that at this time the pews of St. Martin's Church were
pulled down and put up in tliis Church at the expense of the
parishioners, but it does not appear that they paid anything for
them. It is presumed that St. Mary's and St. Peter's Churches were



2l8 ANNALS OF DOVER.

given to the Mayor and Jurates by the King (for whom, in 1541,
was expended upon those that did ring at the King's grace coming
into the town, threepence). The latter Church (St. Peter's), in which
the Mayors and ^lembers of Parliament were made, falling into
decay about the year 1581, a decree of the Common Council was
made to remove such elections from St. Peter's to St. Mary's Church,
in which thoy have been hold ever since, alihonyh we havo
a spacious Town Hull e(|ually (it for the purpose. The Church of
St. Peter was sold bv the Corporation about that time, and the
proceeds carried to the Chamberlain's account. From the year 1537
the jiarishioners of St. Mary have chosen their own Ministers, as
the Church seems to have been given them by the King and exemtit.
Mr. Elame, the Mayor of Dover that year, gave his commandment
for the new paving the Church ; and from that time also the Mavor
and such of the Jurats as are of that Parish have been named at the
vestries Head Managers, for the principal inhabitants.''

The Vestry Books of St. Mary's Church support these
statements, and afford many other curious facts as to the
Church's history since and before the Reformation. The
Churcli hooks in existence go back thirteen years before the
dissohition of the Maison Dieu, to which this Church was
attached. The entries in the Church l)ooks of that ])eriod
record the receipts of a luunber of small rents of Church
property. In the year 152:: tl^erc are: —

"Rent for Nicholson's house, -';'- for Martin C.irdner's
house at tlie Stolp, 20 - rei\t ol grazing land, -•/- ; a
<|Uarter's rent nl the house in liroad Street (i.e., the upper
|)art of .^1. James's Street), (>/- ; three i|uavters' rent of the
luuises against tlie ('liurch, 7.6; \ear's rent of Churili land at
Cowgatc, 7/-;'" etc. .\lso, there are entries of i)re Reformation Churth
I iistoms, thus : — "Received for J53 hoiiseling jieoi^le at the Feast
of Kaster, of evervbodv one halfpenny to the Church. Paid for
top[)ing a tree which the Master of the Maison Dieu gave to the
Church, one penny." Wages paid to the Priests are mentioned thus :
— "Paid Sir Marry for his bread-roll, Sd. ; to Sii Robert T-ong,
curate, Sir 'I'homas Cockeram and Sir J. Hope, every of them for
their services, 4d., total, lad. Paid the Clerk for his labour, 2d.;
pnid the Wardens for labour, 2/- T^iid to Mr. Edward Monin for
manorial rent of Church lanils at Sib<-rstone, 8d." Entries, of whidi
the foregoing are samples, are numertms. After the Reformation,
in the Vestry Bo(»k there are entries of payments made for the
labour of taking down pews in vSt. Martin's Church and setting
them up in .St. Mary's. Under date, 1 53S, is this entry: — "Paid for
a lyger l)ook to write in it the Marriages, Cliristenings and Hurials,
iSd." This, it may be assumed, was the beginning of .St. Mary's
Register, which was probably one of the earliest Parish Registers of
tlie Kingdom, for it was in that same vear that llie decree of the
Priw Council ordered such books to be kept. St. Mary's Parish
Register dates from af)out the same time as the P.irisli itself.

There does not ap])ear tn have been any Parish ol Si.
Mary earlier than the Reformalioii. There is 110 niciition



THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 2ig

of it in old deeds, although there are frequent references to
the Parishes of St. Peter, St. Nicholas and St. John the
Baptist. Those three are supposed to have covered the
whole area of Dover (with the exception of St. James's
Parish), and that area was eccelesiastically provided for by
the Priory, the Parsonage of the Maison Dieu having no
parochial area until after the dissolution of the Priory. iVftcr
J 538, there is no doubt St. Mary's Parish was made up of
the old ])arishes of St. Peter, St. Nicholas and St. John, to
which was added, a century later, the Pier District which
the Harbour Works had reclaimed from the sea.

The relations f)etween St. Mary's Vestry and the
successive Ministers are fully recorded in the Vestry Book : —

In the month that Henry VIII. died the Vestry Book
mentions that the Vestry ordered Church plate, to the value
'¦'^ £9 8s. 4(1., to be sold to pay their debts. To pay
the Jitinister's wages they gathered, after the olil custom,
53 '4; and J 6/- was ])ai(l according to agreement. For a
time tliere was no regular Minister, the Churchwar<lens depending
on " supplies,"' as, for instance : — '' Paid a Priest to help in the
(,'hurch on All Hallows and All Saints' Day, 6d. Paid old Sir
Robert to help to serve at Candlemas and for the space of four
Sundays, i6d. Paid old Sir Robert 7/4 for his pains in serving the
C'hurch eight days." Money was then scarce. At Master, 1547, the
chalice was missing, and it was discovered that John Hibbing, the
I'arish Clerk, had pawned it because his wages were unpaid, and
the Churchwarclens had to pa\- twenty shillings to \''al. Rutland to
redeem it for use at the l^aster Festival.

The first regularly hired Minister was Sir Moiige
Thornton, who was engaged at ;^S a year. The Priests
were styled " Sir "" instead of "" Reverend ' down to 1558.
The following is a list of the Ministers of St. Mary's from
Sir Monge Thornton's time down to the Rev. John Puckle,
who was the last Minister elected by the parishioners : —

1549 Sir Monge Thornton.

1550 Sir Harrie Caine.

1551 Sir Christopher James (disqualified by marriage).
1554 Sir JefTery.

1554 Sir John Lambard (relative of the historian).

1558 Sir William.

1562 Rev. Thomas Turpin.

1573 Rev. Peter Joy.

1587 Rev. Richard Pickering.

1600 Rev. Walter Richards.

1608 Rev. John Gray.

1616 Rev. John Reading (imprisoned as a Royalist).

1644 Rev. "Micli,M-l Porter.

1648 Rev. John Dyckes.

1650 Rev. John Robotham.



2 20 ANNALS OF DOVER.

1653 ^^^- Nathaniel Northcross.

1654 Rev. Nathaniel Barry (ejected at Restoration).
1660 Rev. John Reading.

1662 Rev. Samuel Hind, D.D.

1 67 1 Rev. John Lodwick.

169S Rev. John Macqucen.

1729 Rev. William Nairn.

1 731 Rev. William Byrch (he first occupied Parsonage).

1756 Rev. Thomas Edwards.

1772 Rev. John Lyon (Dover historian).

1817 Rev. John Maule (elected by poll, 1817).

1842 Rev. John Puckle (elected by poll, 1842).

Whatever income there was from endowments went to the Common
Fund of the Vestry. The salaries paid to the Ministers was, down
to 1616, small and irregular. From that date down to 1671 it was
supposed to be ;^ioo a year, but in some cases less. In 1697 the
salary was reduced to .^^So, because a Minister who had been dismissed
would not vacate his post ; and after 1698 it was slightly increased.
In 1871 the Vestry resolved to place the appointment of the Minister
in the hands of a Trust, composed of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and the Lord Lieutenant of
the County of Kent ; and since then three Ministers, who are now
styled Vicars, have been successively appointed: — 1894, The Rev.
Arthur Lindsay Palmes, M.A. ; 1901, the Rev. Canon Henry Bartram,
M.A.; and 1912, the R-ev. William G. Elnor, M.A. The Minister of
St. Mary's h&& long been regarded as the Hon. Chaplain of the Dover
Corporation.

The Ministers and their salaries having been mentioned,
it should be stated that there was no reliable source from
which those salaries could be paid. The endowments were
insufficient to keep up the fabric, so the first idea was to
raise voluntary subscriptions to pay the Minister, but that
arrangement speedily Ijroke down. Next it was decided to
make a regular assessment on the householders. That
method of raising the money was continued with varying
success for fifty years; but, in the year 161 1, it was resolved
to take proceedings in an Ecclesiastical Court to recover
the arrears of the assessment, but that was a failure. A
further effort was made to collect the Cess, and those who
did not pay were sued in the Dover Chancery Court of the
Cinque Ports. By that means, the money for the payment
of the Ministers and for other Church expenses was raised
for more than a hundred years. The time came when the
local Chancery Court was superseded by the Courts at
Westminster, and it being found that no Court would enforce
a rate for salaries and Church exj)enses, in 1841 it was
resolved thenceforth to raise the Minister's salary by pew-
rents. In 1 87 1, when selection of the Minister was vested



THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 221

in a Trust, the Archbishop of Canterbury held out definite
hopes that, in consequence of that step being taken, some
endowment might be provided by the Ecclesiastical Com-
missioners, but those who were instrumental in bringing
about that desirable transfer passed away without the
anticipated endowment being secured. Amongst other inter-
esting facts culled from the Vestry Books it may be mentioned
that the bells — two of them — were in the tower in 1497;
previous to the Reformation there were five; and, in 1663,
the sixth bell was added. In 1724 Samuel Knight, the
well-known bell-founder, re-cast the whole of the six bells,
making eight tunable bells out of the old metal, and those
are the eight bells now in the tower. Lord George Berkeley
and Mr. Philip Papillon, M.P.'s for Dover, subscribed ;£ioo
each to pay for the work. In 1733 ^^^- Peter Monin (who
was Mayor in 1736) gave a new clock, with chimes, for St.
Mary's Tower, and that remained until 1867, when the
present clock was placed there by the subscriptions of the
inhabitants. The sun dial on the south face of the tower
was fixed there in the time of the Commonwealth.

Of the three ancient Churches handed over to the
Corporation by Henry VIII., the Corporation and inhabitants
having undertaken to keep up St. Mary's for public
worship and other public uses, St. Martin's and
St. Peter's, were closed and very soon demoli.shed.
The site of St. Peter's, which occupied the whole
of the north side of the Market Place, lay waste
until the early part of the reign ot Charles I.,
when it was claimed by the Crown, and soon after passed
to James Huggeson, of Linstead, who leased the frontages
for building, and a piece of the Churchyard in the rear was
used in 1639 to enlarge St. Mary's Churchyard.

The Church of St. Martin-le-Grand, the Corporation had
been using as a quarry from which to obtain building stones
for their new Court Hall, the Harbour, and other purposes ;
and the land on which it had stood and a plot attached to
the rear, the Corporation let on lease as grazing ground, the
Corporation reserving the right of a lawful way into it from
the Market Place to bury the poor. After the Corporation
had exercised this ownership for about sixty years, in 1605
their right was questioned. The Corporation were astonished,
and made a strong effort to maintain their hold on the



222 ANNALS OF DOVER.

property, but the Crown overpowered the Corporation.
There was some mystery about the matter, but what really
happened appears to have been that Charles I., in the days
of his necessity, laid his hand on every shred of property
to which he had the least shadow of right, and with regard
to the sites of St. Peter's and St. Martin's at Dover
he made an exchange with Sir Ralph Freeman, Lord
Mayor of London, and Sir Ralph disposed of his interest
in the sites to James Huggeson, who approached the
Dover Corporation with the surprising information that
the site of St. Martin's Church was his; also that the
whole area of the Market Place, having been St. Mar-
tin's Churchyard, as well as the land beyond the Market
Place up to Queen Street, including the Sailors' Alms-
houses, was his also, together with the site of St. Peter's
Church. The Corporation fumed and raged, but at length
Captain Teddiman, the Mayor, was astute enough to see Sir
Ralph Freeman behind James Huggeson, and the King
behind Sir Ralph, so they had to make the best terms
possible. The Corporation had already, thirty years before,
built their Court Hall and Market in I tie centre of the
Market Place without investigation as to their right to the
site, and they had established their Almshouse on another
part of the land adjoining Queen Street. They stipulated
for holding on to these, and James Huggeson, who was as
generous as he was just, at once decided that all he asked
for was an undisputed title to the sites of the two Churches
and their building frontages facing the Market Place ; and
the Market Place, the Court Hall, the land in the rear on
which was the old Almshouses, and on which the Market
and Museum have been since built, he offered to the
Corporation as a free gift, and on those terms in 1633 was
made the final arbitration as the Dover Corporation's ecclesi-
astical inheritance.