Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

and may have continued in later periods, though no non-conformist ministers appear in
records until the nineteenth century. 378
A variety of sources allow us a glimpse into the lives of the Anglican clergymen
of the Needle District. Many were well-off, but Joseph Weaver of Coughton was not.
He also ran a school to augment his income circa 1720. 379
His school may have been
short-lived, but the free school in Feckenham, offering lessons in Latin and English to
twelve boys, continued throughout the two centuries, while Redditch also boasted a
school from the early eighteenth century. 380
By Period C at least four of the six parishes
had schoolmasters, and Redditch also had a Sunday school and possibly a school for girls
or younger children. 381
Studley’s schoolmaster may also have served as workhousemaster
at this time, while Tardebigge’s master was also an attorney. 382
Making the most of their literacy skills schoolmasters and others were in demand
writing documents for their neighbours. 383
As noted earlier, before 1800 attorneys,
bailiffs, land-agents or stewards tend to be hidden under the heading of ‘gentlemen’, but
from various documents such as the Throckmorton accounts, we can note the existence of
378 WoRO, BA2877, reports meetings of quakers and presbyterians in Tardebigge in the late seventeenth
century.
379 WoRO, probate of Joseph Weaver, Coughton, clerk, 1722, £12-3-4.
380 Griffith, The Free Schools of Worcestershire, pp. 205-211 and 359 and WoRO, BA2724. See also
Appendix 19.
381 Berrow’s Worcester Journal 31 July 1788 mentions a charity sermon in aid of Redditch Sunday school.
Berrow’s Worcester Journal May 1800 gives notice that Mrs Townshend is retiring from her school in
Redditch and selling suitable school furniture. See Appendix 19.
382 WaRO, Studley burial register 1784, burial of William Dewes, schoolmaster, and DR536/32, Studley
workhouse expenses. WoRO, marriage licence of John Guardner, Upton Warren, tailor, Oct. 1751 was
witnessed by Humphrey Guardner, Tardebigge, schoolmaster. Berrow’s Worcester Journal Feb. 1766
reports the death of Humphrey Guardner, attorney, drowned in a brook.
383 For example, WoRO, marriage licence of Thomas Pope, Feckenham, scrivener, April 1730, and
marriage licence of Abraham Barnes, Feckenham gentleman, April 1731, witnessed by Thomas Pope,
Feckenham, schoolmaster. WoRO, BA4284, (ix), Feckenham overseers of the poor accounts, 1743, ‘paid
John Walford for doing the parish writing’.
326