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The Registers of the Wallon or Strangers' Church in Canterbury
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Notes - The Huguenot Society have published the transcriptions made by Hovenden of the Walloon Church registers: Quarto Series V - issued by the Huguenot Society on CD Rom 5B (with QS IV, XV, XXa)
Background
Although the church is said to have existed before the reign of Edward VI, the registers have no entries earlier than 1581. In 1836 it was recommended that non-parochial registers (i.e. the registers other than those of Church of England Churhces) should be depoisted with the Registrar-General of births, deaths and marriages, and so the eleven books, bound into ten, were so deposited, that had been in the custody of the French Church which meets in Canterbury Cathedral.
Dates covered
Some entries are missing, as described in more detail by Hovenden in a preface: for 1584-1590; marriages are probably also missing for 1581-2. All but 2 deaths are missing 1609-Aug 1622. Baptisms are missing between the last in one volume, 6th of October, 1644, and the first entry in the following book of 15th November, 1646; a few between these dates have been found in the Register of St. Alphege and 2 in St. Peter's register, and are included by Hovenden.
Baptisms: 1581-1837
Marriages: 1583-1747
Deaths: 1581-1715
Malthouse Church (a secession from the Walloon Church, within
the Cathedral Precincts)
Baptisms: 1710-1823
Marriage: 1744
Abstracts of marriage contracts: 1580-1680
Abstracts of wills: 1586-1704 and undated
Miscellaneous docs: undated and 1586-1683
There are people and places indexes (places abroad where the people were born are often mentioned) but as in the transcripts the names are as spelt in the registers, so not all mentions of a person let alone a family will be found together.
Wording
In the source details here I include the wording and spelling exactly as in Hovenden. This is the spelling but not the wordingas in the original registers, as Hovenden notes "In every case the names of all the parties have been maintained exactly as in the original ... No attempt has been made to make names in one entry correspond in spelling with those of another, although in many instances there may be good reason to assume they relate to the same family or parents. The unnecessary verbiage has been omitted, the dates placed uniformly at the commencement of each entry, and the style of the entries has been made uniform;" (some examples are given in the preface).
Sponsors (godparents) may be described in the originals as parin, marin or
tesmoign; all are recorded by Hovenden as Tem.
The Walloon Church did not have its own burial ground but there is a list of "LES NOMS DE CEUX QUI SONT MORTS DEPUIS LE St. JAN. 1581.*" (i.e. from the day of St. John - 24th June 1581)
Against a burial in August 1678 is recorded "Et fut la premier qu[']il fut enterre selon l'acte du Parlement ensevely en etofe de
L[a]ine," showing this was the first burial in line with the Act for burying in woollen.
- The Huguenot Society have published the transcriptions made by Hovenden of the Walloon Church registers: Quarto Series V - issued by the Huguenot Society on CD Rom 5B (with QS IV, XV, XXa)