Snippets from the Ravenstonedale Parish Registers

The Ravenstonedale Parish Registers contain records of many Adamthwaites who were baptised, married and buried in Ravenstonedale between the years of 1572 and 1812 – varying amounts of information are given about these people, but there are occasional mentions of their place of abode: Adamthwaite, Artelgarth, Hill, Malastang, Town, Lowcomb Head, Fell-end, Newbiggin, Murthwaite, Steps Beck, Streetside (all these places are within a short distance of Ravenstonedale.  The names of Ministers and other officials are also recorded: in 1742 it was noted that Wm Adamthwaite was a Church Warden.

The Registers contain some fascinating notes: there were plagues recorded in 1579, 1588, 1623 and 1730.  A notice concerning 24 burials which took place between 1678 and 1679 (including two Adamthwaites) states:

 ‘Affidavits were lawfully made and brought to ye Curate of Ravenstondale Parish that ye persons whose burials are hereunder registered were wound up and buryed in nothing but wt was made of sheepswool only according to an Act of Parliament for that purpose enacted’. 

It was recorded that following the 'Bare Bones' Act of Parliament, no weddings took place in the parish between 1653 and 1659 - they all took place in either Appleby or Kendal.  There were also some exceeding judgmental statements made about some of the events recorded ... one poor young woman who took her child to be christened suffered the embarrassment of having the following written about her innocent little child "gotten in fornication by a pedler", and there were other references to children being "the supposed daughter to ...[name of father] ... in adultery". 

Our search for Adamthwaite records from the late 17thC and early 18thC has been somewhat hampered by the fact that a number of families were known to be dissenters.  The Curate at St Oswalds in Ravenstonedale was sympathetic to the Dissenters and an arrangement was made whereby a bell was rung following the Nicene Creed so that the Dissenters could then enter the church and listen to the sermon and hear the notices.  A number of records of christenings and weddings that took place at local Meeting Houses have also been included in the parish registers.  We have been able to find some Adamthwaite records amongst the Quaker records of the period, but we know from Wills and other documents that there are still several individuals (and possibly whole families) whose christenings, marriages and burials we have not yet been able to identify.  

Dissenters

Quite a few of the early Adamthwaites were known to have been Quakers (and possibly some belonged to other more obscure religious groups).  Here is a summary of the situation from the Victorian Web*, written by David Cody, Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College

he term Dissenter refers to a number of Protestant denominations -- Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists, and others -- which, because they refused to take the Anglican communion or to conform to the tenets of the restored Church of England in 1662, were subjected to persecution under various acts passed by the Cavalier Parliament between 1661 and 1665. Examples of the attempts which were made to discourage them were the Act of Uniformity, which required all churches in England to use the Book of Common Prayer, and punished those who would not comply, and the Five Mile Act, which prohibited ministers who were ejected because of the Act of Uniformity from coming within five miles of their former parishes or of any town or city.

After the Toleration Act was passed in 1689, Dissenters were permitted to hold services in licensed meeting houses and to maintain their own preachers (if they would subscribe to certain oaths) in England and Wales. But until 1828 such preachers remained subject to the Test Act, which required all civil and military officers to be communicants of the Church of England, and to take oaths of supremacy and allegiance. Though this act was aimed primarily at Roman Catholics, it nevertheless excluded Dissenters as well.
 

Quakers

Firbank Knott near Sedbergh is considered to be the birthplace of Quakerism as it was here, in 1652, that George Fox gave his great sermon to inspire over a thousand 'seekers' from the whole of the north of England.  The Quaker Meeting House at nearby Brigflatts is the oldest in the north of England.(see photo left) The Meeting House in Fell End, Ravenstonedale was built in 1705 and later a burial ground was added which was in use between 1739 and about 1838. Previously meetings had been held in Friend's houses, although there was an earlier Meeting near Dovengill with an adjoining burial ground first used in 1659.  For some unknown reason, in about 1793 the Meeting moved to a smaller meeting house at Narthwaite, though the Fell End Meeting House remained standing until 1899, when it was demolished.  It was described as "a place of pleasing and simple appearance externally, with fine woodwork inside, and turned oak balusters to the loft" (The Friend 1893, 249)

Before the Toleration Act was passed, many Quakers suffered for their beliefs: In 1664, on 26th April, a Margaret Adamthwait spinster of Rosendale (Ravenstonedale) Westmorland was the only woman in a group of 13 individuals taken at a meeting in Norton in the County of Durham and imprisoned for refusing to take the Oaths.  In Ravenstonedale the Parish Register records that "on 10 Nov 1675 Richard Adamthwaite was presented to Qtr sessions for not burying his father William acc to the rites of the Church".

A useful website (still in development) is the Yorkshire Quaker Heritage Project Website which has a database you can search for People and Places.

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page updated 9 March 2008 - please report any errors or missing links to the site administrator