Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

the eighteenth century. Two of these rectors demonstrate the clergy’s interest in financial
investments; one leased the Greyhound’s Head, while both held land locally and in other
counties, and their probate was handled by the PCC. 291
Various dissenting ministers are in evidence in Restoration Alcester, including the
Presbyterian, Samuel Tickner, who had been the Anglican rector from 1648 until his
ejection in 1662. Tickner continued to preach privately, and even after his death the
presbyterians continued to thrive. 292
Alcester had become something of a dissenting
hotbed during the Civil War and the Commonwealth. 293
Meetings were set up by
quakers and anabaptists as well as presbyterians. Many families involved in these sects
were influential in the town’s economy and no doubt developed strong links with fellow
sectarians elsewhere, which helped their business networking. One baptist minister, John
Willis, was also a blacksmith and maltster. 294
In the nineteenth century the town’s
Anglican clergy competed with ministers of the baptist, wesleyan and unitarian
persuasion, while quakers from the area still worshipped at the town’s Society of Friends
meeting house. 295
Over time the choice of schooling within the town increased. 296
In 1792 a
schoolmistress advertises alongside the schoolmasters, while in Period D as well as the
291 TNA, PCC probate of Timothy White, Alcester, clerk, 1713 and PCC probate of Thomas Jowling,
Alcester, rector, 1745.
292 Saville, Alcester - a History, p. 59.
293 Ibid., p. 59.
294 Alcester was a thriving centre for baptists, and from 1688 had an offshoot in nearby Henley in Arden
according to W. Cooper, Henley in Arden, (Birmingham, University of Birmingham, 1946), p. 85.
295 Ransome, ‘The State of the Bishopric of Worcester 1782-1808’, p. 188, lists 247 families, 15 of whom
were papist, 20 anabaptist, 11 presbyterian and 1 quaker.
296 Those listed as schoolmasters in probate were as follows: Period A: 0, Period B: 2, Period C: 1 and
Period D: 1, but 5 males and 11 females involved in education were listed in the 1841 census.
128