Yorkshire Almanac Penistone Puritans request the Committee for Plundered Ministers to remove their vicar, Christopher Dickinson, “a man of scandalous life and conversation”

18 March 1647: Penistone Puritans request the Committee for Plundered Ministers to remove their vicar, Christopher Dickinson, “a man of scandalous life and conversation”

Adam Eyre and others. 1877. A Dyurnall of All My Accions and Expences from the 1st of January 1646[7]. Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ed. H.J. Morehouse. Durham: Surtees Society. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

To the right hoñoble the Committee for Plundred Ministers at West Riding.
In all humility, wee whose names are here under writen certify to your honors that Christopher Dickinson, pretended minister of the parish church of Peniston, whereof wee all parishoners, is a man of scandalous life and conversation in these ensueing particulars.

Firstly, that during the enemye’s command in these parts he was chaplain to Collonell Fitzherbert, of Norbury, a noted malignant, and in actual service against the cause of King and Parliament, and both before and after was a frequenter of the enemye’s garrisons.
Secondly, That upon removall of Sir Francia Wortley’s garrison from Peniston, and during the tymes of trouble, hee intruded himselfe into the ministery at Peniston aforesaid, under pretence of a tytle from one Mr. Copley, who very honestly, in discharge of his conscience, gave liberty to us to chose for ourselves a minister; but in regard of the then distraccions wee were forced to admitt of the said Dickinson, albeit wee then certifyed him that (if) it should please God to mend the tymes, wee purposed not to content ourselves with him. Neither yet hath hee ever had any lawfull calling to, or settlement in, the said vicarage, further than as afforesaid, to any of our knowledges. Neverthelesse we have hitherto had noe means to remove him, albeit wee had made choise of one Mr. Walker, a godly and paynfall minister, of whom, by reason of his being there, wee were disappointed.
Thirdly, that during all the tyme of his being here, which is nere hand 3 years, hee hath preached, though sometymes twice a day, yet either alltogether or, for the most part, other men’s works; and one thing 4 or 5 tymes, or oftener, repeated, on so many several dayes, without any progresse at all, only tyreing the tyme with tautologyes and vaine iteracions, to the wearying of the hearers and dishonor of the Great God, Whose name ought not to be taken in vayne.
Fourthly, that hee is a common frequenter of alehouses, and of idle company, and hath beene several tymes drunk since his coming to Peniston; and that before his coming thither, and after his entrance into the ministery, he kept a common tipling house.
Fiftly. That about November last, having publi [cly?] in the parish church of Peniston, given notice of a sollemne thanksgiving, to be celebrated the week following, with promise to officiate himselfe, the next day save one hee went on foote to Barnsley, a market towne, 5 myles distant, and there spent the said day of sollemnity, and 2 days more, in tipling and drinking, amongst base lewd company, and when hee was halfe drunk, for want of money, sold his gloves.
Sixthly. That in January 1645, hee was drunk on the fast-day, and not able to keepe it, whereupon wee were forced to provide one Mr. George Didsbury to performe the office of that day.
Seventhly. That about … being halfe drunke, hee fought with and abused the schoolmaster and sexton of the said towne of Peniston, without any occasion given by them; and that hee hath had sundry quarrells with other men of worse esteeme.
Eightly. That upon these and other, the like miscarryages, we being desyrous to remove such a scandall out of the church, some of us, whose names are here subscribed, about November last, covenanted with him under our hands, to avoyd further trouble, to allow him 40l., and the benefitt of the vicarage, till the first day of May next; and hee to take the first opportunity to remove; but suspecting the moneyes would not come so soone as he expected, and being hopelesse of any other place, hee gave out in words that he would not goe away; whereupon sundry of us, whose names are subscribed, met again at Peniston, the 27th of February last; where, after some conference of the matters aforesaid had with the said Mr, Dickinson, we covenanted with him to pay him the 40l. above specified the 18th of March then next following; whereupon hee promised to performe any covenant we should tender him for his removall, so it were not to repay the money again; in pursuance whereof, this instant day, being the 18th of March, we have tendered him the money according to our agreement, which, notwithstanding, he hath refused to accept of.
That to uphold himselfe in these his wicked courses hee hath endeavoured to gett the hands of his neighbors to certaine certificates of his good abearance in his place since his coming to Peniston; which, as wee are informed, hee hath done from divers malignant spirits, both in this parish and other places adjacent, to the present state of reformation, and allso from sundry other illiterate men, some of whoae names are here subscribed, whom he hath deceived by counterfeiting some of our hands that made ye agreement with him and here subscribed allso, as in other cases formerly hath done, without either consent or notice of to the partyes: all which wee humbly present to your honors’ consideration, as mere naked truthes, every of which particulars will be justifyed, if need should require by the othes of divers evidible witnesses.

These whose names are here subscribed made the last Agreement with him the 27th of Feb, and also tendred him the money this 18th of March, 1646.

Wm. Rich [Bullhouse]
Wm. Rich [Hornthwaite]
Ra. Wordsworth [Waterhall]
Jo. Cooke
Wm. Coldwell
Jo. Wordsworth [Rodmore]
Adam Eyre [Hazlehead]
Franc. West [Denby]
Rich. Hawksworth [Denby]
Reg. Appleyard [Eclans or Eclands]
Edw. Mitchell [Hazlehead]
John Coldwell
Franc. Coldwell

In the presence of:
George Didsbury, clerk, schoolmaster
Mich. Wordsworth, sexton, and others.

These whose names are here subscribed joyne with the others in the rest of the certificate:

Tho. Burdet
Ra. Ward
Jo. Blakey
Jo. Robuck
Geo. Burdett
Ra. Swift
Uxor Greaves
Jo. Morley
Tho. Haigh
Jo. Haigh
Jos. Hinchliffe
Jo. Broksbank
Ger. Kay
Hen. Haigh
Jo. Lynley
Jo. Haigh
Robt. Pymond
Jo. Poplewell
Thos. Haigh
Tho. Wainwright
Edw. Coldwell
Edw. Smith
Jo. Priest
Nath. Greaves
Wm. Marsden
Wm. Appleyard
Jo. Hadfield
Anth. Broksbank
Jo. Dickinson
Rich. Marshall
Tho. Marshall
Geo. Tinker
Humph. Street
Tho. Morehouse
Thos. Downing
God. Booth
Jo. Hawksworth
Nich. Greaves [Shephouse]
Rich. Street [Langsett]
Thos. Ramsden
Jo. Micklethwayte [Birchworth]
Tho. Gaver
Dan. Rich
Hen. Dickinson
Tho. Burgesse
Rich. Vyner
Ro. Blackrurne
Jos. Hobson
Jo. Shaw
Jo. Hoops
Js. Coldwell
Jo. Shaw
Rich. Wainwright [Shore Hall]
Thos. Walker
Wm. Firth
Isaac Wordsworth
Wm. Haigh
Wm. Gleadell
Jo. Mitchell
Jo. Swift
Fr. Haigh
Wm. Wordsworth
And divers others.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Perhaps his refusal to accept a contract to bugger off – see the original – is more interesting.

Only twice drunk in three years at Penistone is surely a great achievement.

Continuing troubles between Puritans and the established church at Penistone eventually gave rise to Bullhouse chapel, said to be the oldest independent non-conformist chapel with continuous worship in the country.

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Comment

Perhaps his refusal to accept a contract to bugger off – see the original – is more interesting.

Only twice drunk in three years at Penistone is surely a great achievement.

Something to say? Get in touch

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Comment

Shirley is set in 1811 and 1812, and Luddism became a serious threat in the West Riding in early 1812. Easter Sunday was 29 March that year, so Whit Tuesday was 19 May – although Charlotte Brontë’s imagination, perhaps inspired by weather reports in the Leeds Mercury, which she consulted extensively, locates it in the last week of May. John Lock and Canon W.T. Dixon say (p.63) that the scene reworks a confrontation between Patrick Brontë and a drunk when he led the Whitsun procession in Dewsbury in 1810 (Lock 1965), but Herbert Wroot (p.78) has found in the Dewsbury Reporter of 12 December 1896 the report of an interview conducted by P.F. Lee in which the Rev. James Chesterton Bradley, the original of “Mr. Sweeting,” says that Charlotte Brontë reused more or less literally an actual episode:

At the head of the steep main street of Haworth is a narrow lane, which on a certain Whitsuntide was the scene of a similar event to the one related in this seventeenth chapter of ‘Shirley.’ The Church School procession had defiled into the lane, ‘had gained the middle of it,’ when ‘lo and behold! another – an opposition procession’ – was entering the other end of the lane at the same time, ‘headed also by men in black.’

It was interesting, Mr. Lee went on to say, “to hear from Mr. Bradley how Patrick Bronté, seeing the situation, at once assumed the offensive, and charging the enemy with his forces soon cleared the way.”

Wroot also says that “immediately upon the publication of the novel, Briarfield was identified, by all acquainted with the district, as Birstall” (Wroot 1966).

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