Title: Inhabitants of Antrim Parish
Date: 1638
Description: This database comprises two lists of names of inhabitants of Antrim parish, Co. Antrim, drawn up in 1638 and now in the State Papers collection in The National Archives, London. They provide unusually comprehensive overview of the population of the parish at this period.
The first is headed: ‘A catalogue of the inhabitants dwelling in Antrim the last Easter’, although only the names of the heads of household are given. The small number who received communion at Easter are marked with a cross (asterisk in database). There is also a record of the ‘wealthier sort’ with some annotations.
The second list is of those who received communion at Christmas. It is arranged by family/household and includes more detail, including in some cases the names of servants.
Source: The National Archives, London, SP 63/256/127 and 128
Compiled by: Ian Montgomery (Guild Member)
These documents also give an insight into the religious history of Ulster and in particular the genesis of what was to become the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. During the early years of the seventeenth century the established Church of Ireland found itself short of trained clergy with many livings filled by Scots or English ministers. This was particularly the case in Ulster where large numbers of Scots had settled after 1600.
The church in Scotland had followed a different path during the reformation developing a more Calvinist theology than the Church of England. It had also adopted a presbyterian system of government based on elected church sessions with a General Assembly to govern the whole church.
However, this democratic structure was resisted by the Scottish monarchy which succeeded in reimposing bishops on the church and under the Articles of Perth, adopted in 1618, James VI & I restored a number of pre-Reformation practices, notably kneeling to receive communion.
Many of the Scottish ministers who came to Ulster were unhappy with the new developments and were seeking greater freedom of conscience in Ireland. They were encouraged by the bishop of Down and Connor, Robert Echlin, who was prepared to accommodate their scruples concerning episcopacy.
Ireland also attracted English ministers from within the puritan or non-conformist tradition since the official statement of faith of the Church of Ireland, the ‘Irish articles’ of 1615, was more in conformity to Calvinist doctrine than that of the Church of England. One of these English ministers was John Ridge or Riggs who became the vicar of the parish of Antrim in 1619.
In 1625 a period of religious renewal and enthusiasm, generally known as the Six Mile Water Revival, affected southern County Antrim. It was triggered by the preaching of the Scottish-born minister of Carnmoney, James Glendinning. Glendinning himself was an eccentric character, described by Alan Ford as ‘delicately poised on the boundary between enthusiasm and madness’ but his teaching saw large numbers of people seeking religious instruction.
In response Ridge established the Antrim Monthly Meeting which saw crowds of up to 1,500 people come together to hear sermons and pray, generally in the open air. He was assisted by a number of local clergymen, including Robert Blair the incumbent of Bangor, County Down, and other Scottish ministers. The meetings were also supported by the local landowner Sir John Clotworthy who had presbyterian sympathies.
However, this type of religious enthusiasm was viewed with concern by many of the more orthodox clergy and by senior figures in the Irish administration. Attempts were made by some senior churchmen to remove the more radical Scots clergy and impose orthodoxy. The appointment of Sir Thomas Wentworth as Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632 saw the intensification of this campaign. Wentworth’s policy was to strengthen royal authority in Ireland in both church and state. He was associated with William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, who was moving the church away from strict Calvinism while attempting to bring the doctrine and practice of the churches in England, Scotland and Ireland into alignment.
In 1634 the ‘Irish Articles’ were replaced by the English Thirty-Nine Articles and practices such as kneeling to receive communion were introduced. In Ulster, John Bramhall, bishop of Derry from 1634 and Henry Leslie, who succeeded Echlin as bishop of Down and Connor in 1635, enforced subscription to the new doctrine.
The Antrim meetings were supressed in 1634 and most of the Scots clergy had been deprived of their livings by 1636. Ridge was also forced out and moved to Scotland in 1637. He was replaced as vicar of Antrim first by Richard Shuckburgh and then, from February 1638, by Richard Head (or Hedde).
Attempts by the crown to impose religious conformity in Scotland were resisted and in February 1638 most of the Scots nobility signed the Scottish National Covenant pledging themselves to defend the Presbyterian system. Charles I’s attempts to subdue them by force in the two Bishops Wars of 1639 and 1640 were unsuccessful forcing him to recall the English Parliament and sparking the train of events which led to the English Civil War and his own execution in 1649.
In Ireland Wentworth was worried that the Scots in Ulster would support the Covenanters. The bishops had already been given powers to arrest non-conforming laity and in November 1638 part of the army was moved to Ulster. It was against this background that Richard Head compiled his lists of communicants.
The taking of communion had become an important test of conformity to the established church and by extension loyalty to the crown. The adoption of practices such as kneeling to receive the elements, which the Scottish Presbyterians and many English nonconformists viewed as a Catholic ritual, had resulted in many people not taking communion. In Antrim members of only 32 households out of 238 in the parish received communion at Easter 1638.
However, at Christmas this had risen to 153 households, around two-thirds of the parish. Head’s list is endorsed ‘Shewing that more Scots received the communion as ordered, in the church, than formerly’, suggesting that it was produced as evidence that the campaign to enforce uniformity was succeeding. As we shall see, not all the people named were of Scottish origin.
The document gives some indication of how the church authorities went about enforcing conformity. Attached to the main list of inhabitants is a separate list of 31 men and women, designated as ‘the wealthier sort’, which includes the major land owners in the parish Sir John Clotworthy, his mother Lady Mary Clotworthy and Henry Upton. Some of these names are marked ‘gone’ others ‘desires time’ or ‘promises conforming’.
This suggest that the vicar, Richard Head, had appealed directly to the more influential parishioners. Some of those mentioned had left the area (whether to evade conforming or for other reasons is not clear) and others prevaricated. Interestingly only one of these ‘wealthier sort’ actually took communion at Christmas. A harder line had evidently been taken with the poorer inhabitants and Head notes that: ‘Those many that promise conformity partly by sureties and partly by bonds, are a company of poor men, they need not be named.’
Despite the apparent success of these measures across Ulster, Wentworth and the Irish administration increased the pressure during the next year. A number of wealthier people were prosecuted at the Court of High Commission in Dublin including Lady Mary Clotworthy.
In May 1639 Commissioners, backed by a further contingent of the army, were sent to Ulster to administer an oath to all adult Scots declaring their loyalty to the King and abjuring the Covenant. In response to what was to become known as the Black Oath many Scots left Ulster, causing considerable economic dislocation and strengthening the Covenanting forces in Scotland.
Wentworth’s success in enforcing religious conformity in Ulster was to be short lived. Following the defeat of Charles in the second Bishops’ War, a parliament was called in England. Wentworth (who had been made Earl of Stafford) was arrested in November 1640 and put on trial. He was executed in May 1641. One of the leading figures in his prosecution was Sir John Clotworthy who had been elected to the English parliament. In the spring of 1641, while Stafford was on trial, there were disturbances in many parishes in Counties Antrim and Down aimed at conforming clergy.
Subsequently a number of people were examined by the Attorney General of Ireland including a William Rutherford who stated that he had refused to admit the Vicar (Richard Head) to the church of Antrim, on or about Sunday, March 15 last, and took away the key. He also said to Head ‘that if he stayed till Easter he would send him a pie that the bones should be hard to pick and that if he would not be gone there should be bloody heads.’
To a crowd which collected on the Sunday Rutherford declared that his object was to get a new minister. His objection to Head was that Head pressed him to take an oath contrary to one which he had taken fifty years ago in Scotland. Rutherford was presumably the William Ruddiford who was absent from communion at both Easter and Christmas 1638, showing that some people remained unimpressed by the measures to enforce conformity.
In 1642, in response to the Irish rising of the previous year, a Scottish army was sent to Ulster. This army contained a number of ordained ministers and in June 1642 they formed a presbytery at Carrickfergus, an event recognised as marking the formation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
While it suited the Irish administration to designate the people who were not taking communion as Scots, it is evident from these lists that the population of the parish was fairly diverse. The major landowner in the parish, Sir John Clotworthy, was the son of Sir Hugh Clotworthy, an army officer from Devon who acquired the estate of Moylinny in 1606. He encouraged the settlement of people from both England and Scotland on the estate.
Among the English migrants were the Wrayfords from Devon who were encouraged to settle on the estate in the 1630s in order to establish a cloth fulling mill. The family, whose name was Ulsterised to Reford, developed mills and bleach works in the area and Lewis Reford was one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends (or Quaker) meeting in the area. Other characteristically English surnames such as Northcott, Ashton and Kempton can be found in the lists.
There is also at least one Gaelic Irish name, Fernando O Kaine or Cahan, who took communion at both Easter and Christmas. The McKeag/McKeags may also have been Gaelic Irish although the name is also found in Scotland. Many of the other names can be found in both Scotland and England.
An interesting feature of the list is the inclusion of the names of servants. At this time ‘live-in’ servants would have been viewed as part of the family and the head of the household would have been responsible for ensuring their attendance at church. Hence at Christmas 1638 Robert Wrayford was accompanied by his daughters Doroth and Barbara and his servant Martin Harward (another characteristically English name).
Some Latin is used in both lists. This has been left untranslated as readings can vary, although most of it is fairly straight forward, i.e.
Et fam. – and family
Et uxor – and wife
Solus – alone
Et fil. – and child: filus (son) or filice
(daughters)
Vid. or Viduatus – widow
Et pater – and father
Ser. – servus, a servant
It can be a bit tricky to work out the exact relationship. For instance, ‘Gilbert Cowen ser. John Stewart’. As a John Stewart is listed as one of the ‘wealthier sort’ at Easter, This presumably means Gilbert Cowan servant of John Stewart and that Stewart himself was not present. In most cases the form is: ‘Thomas Burt et John Locke ser.’, i.e. Burt and his servant Locke.
‘Duo servi George Lesley’ presumably two (unnamed) servants of George Lesley.
‘uxor Gulielmui Walson sola’ the wife of William Walson on her own.
‘Ancilla Johannis Leg’. Probably John Leg’s unnamed maidservant, but might mean a maidservant called Joanne Leg.
In some cases, Latin first names are used and these have been translated.