XV. THE CORPORATION AND THE OLD CHURCHES.
During the Middle Ages there grew up a close relationship between the Corporation of Dover and the Ecclesiastical Authorities. St. Martin's Churchyard became the Market Place; the Muniment Box of the Corporation was kept in Si. Martin's Church, where the Common Assemblies were held; the Mayors and Members of Parliament were elected in St. Peter's Church; and St. Nicholas' Church, when it fell into ruin, became the property of the Corporation.
At the Reformation Henry VHI. seems to have recognised this relationship, and considered the Corporation to be entitled to some of the old Churches then left derelict. The fabrics of St. Martin's and St. Peter's Churches were given to the Corporation without any special arrangement as to what should be done with them. St. Martin's and St. Peter's, which had belonged to the Priory, were cuinpletely stripped of their endowments, but the Church of St. Mary, which had been attached to the Maison Dieu, wa? given, with such endowments as belonged to it, to the Corporation for the use of the inhabitants.
What the intentions of Henry VIII. really were with regard to the destiny of St. Mary's Church will probably never be disclosed. There has been a great deal of litigation in the Ecclesiastical Courts on various matters with regard to this Church, and the investigation brought together a great deal of the Church's history, more especially with regard to the right of the Vestry to deal with the endowments, appoint ministers, and to allow the Corporation special seats in the Chancel. There was also much that was ancient disclosed in invr^tigating the right of the Archbishop of Canterl)ury to a | ".l;^ion of 20/- a year that used to be paid from this Church to the Prior of Dover in pre-Reformation days.
In preparation for the litigation, a "case" was drawn up by Mr. Charles Wellard. Town Clerk, in 1730, in which he alleged the following points: — (i), That the Church was built by the Prior and Convent of St. Martin, and that the advowson was given by }Iul)ert de Burgh to the Maison Dieu; (2), That the Registry at Canterbury shows that when the advowson was given to the Maison Dieu about the year 12 16 there was reserved a pension of 10/- a year to the Prior of St. Martin; {3), That, according to a record in the Augmentation Office, the Priory was sunendered to the King on the i6th November, 1535; (4), That in 1537 the Priory property was transferred by the King to the Archbishop of Canterbury in exchange for other property ; (5), That, from records in the First-fruits Office, it appeared that at the Dissolution, St. Mary's was a Parsonage of the Maison Dieu of the vahie of J^6 a year, that there were rents amounting to ^^15 a year, out of which a pension of 20/- a year had been paid to the Prior of Dover. To this the Town Clerk added: " I have made search for a grant from the Crown to the parish of St. Mary of this Church but can find none, but for several reasons, founded on the Church books and the continued uninterrupted possession by the parishioners, it is to be presumed that the parish had a right to the Church time out of mind, or that the Crown did, about the time of the Dissolution, make some gift or grant thereof to the parishioners, but that the paper of the Churchwardens wherein the grant was recorded was lost."
On the case prepared by the Town Clerk, the opinion of Dr. Andrews, of Doctors' Commons was given on the 24th July, 1730. It is a lengthy document, of which the following is the substance: —
"The present Parish Church of St. Mary-the-Virgin, in Dover, was, at the Reformation, a Parsonage belonging to the Maison Dieu there, which the last Master, Sir John Thompson, returned as a Parsonage of £6 per annum, and he held the same until the year 1542. From my memoirs of this town, it appears King Henry VIII. was fretiucntly here about that time, supervising the works of the Harbour, in which he took great delight, having put them under the direction of the above mentioned Sir John Thompson, who appears to have been a gentleman of such ingenuity that the said King raised him from being a Parson of St. James's, in Dover, to be the Master of the Maison Dieu, a place then worth ;^i2o a year. King Henry VIII. was a humorist, of which, I think, histor}-, as well as our own records, give a sufficient proof; for, in 1537, that King's footman was paid two shillings for a forfeit because the bells of the Church of St. Mary were not rung at his coming. In the year 1538 King Henrv VIII. was again at Dover, and they rang the bells of St. Mary's Church when His Majesty came in and when he went out ; that they sealed up the Church doors at the King's departure. It appears that at this time the pews of St. Martin's Church were pulled down and put up in tliis Church at the expense of the parishioners, but it does not appear that they paid anything for them. It is presumed that St. Mary's and St. Peter's Churches were given to the Mayor and Jurates by the King (for whom, in 1541, was expended upon those that did ring at the King's grace coming into the town, threepence). The latter Church (St. Peter's), in which the Mayors and ^lembers of Parliament were made, falling into decay about the year 1581, a decree of the Common Council was made to remove such elections from St. Peter's to St. Mary's Church, in which thoy have been hold ever since, alihonyh we havo a spacious Town Hull e(|ually (it for the purpose. The Church of St. Peter was sold bv the Corporation about that time, and the proceeds carried to the Chamberlain's account. From the year 1537 the jiarishioners of St. Mary have chosen their own Ministers, as the Church seems to have been given them by the King and exemtit. Mr. Elame, the Mayor of Dover that year, gave his commandment for the new paving the Church ; and from that time also the Mavor and such of the Jurats as are of that Parish have been named at the vestries Head Managers, for the principal inhabitants.''
The Vestry Books of St. Mary's Church support these statements, and afford many other curious facts as to the Church's history since and before the Reformation. The Churcli hooks in existence go back thirteen years before the dissohition of the Maison Dieu, to which this Church was attached. The entries in the Church l)ooks of that ])eriod record the receipts of a luunber of small rents of Church property. In the year 152:: tl^erc are: —
"Rent for Nicholson's house, -';'- for Martin C.irdner's house at tlie Stolp, 20 - rei\t ol grazing land, -•/- ; a <|Uarter's rent nl the house in liroad Street (i.e., the upper |)art of .^1. James's Street), (>/- ; three i|uavters' rent of the luuises against tlie ('liurch, 7.6; \ear's rent of Churili land at Cowgatc, 7/-;'" etc. .\lso, there are entries of i)re Reformation Churth I iistoms, thus : — "Received for J53 hoiiseling jieoi^le at the Feast of Kaster, of evervbodv one halfpenny to the Church. Paid for top[)ing a tree which the Master of the Maison Dieu gave to the Church, one penny." Wages paid to the Priests are mentioned thus : — "Paid Sir Marry for his bread-roll, Sd. ; to Sii Robert T-ong, curate, Sir 'I'homas Cockeram and Sir J. Hope, every of them for their services, 4d., total, lad. Paid the Clerk for his labour, 2d.; pnid the Wardens for labour, 2/- T^iid to Mr. Edward Monin for manorial rent of Church lanils at Sib<-rstone, 8d." Entries, of whidi the foregoing are samples, are numertms. After the Reformation, in the Vestry Bo(»k there are entries of payments made for the labour of taking down pews in vSt. Martin's Church and setting them up in .St. Mary's. Under date, 1 53S, is this entry: — "Paid for a lyger l)ook to write in it the Marriages, Cliristenings and Hurials, iSd." This, it may be assumed, was the beginning of .St. Mary's Register, which was probably one of the earliest Parish Registers of tlie Kingdom, for it was in that same vear that llie decree of the Priw Council ordered such books to be kept. St. Mary's Parish Register dates from af)out the same time as the P.irisli itself.
There does not ap])ear tn have been any Parish ol Si. Mary earlier than the Reformalioii. There is 110 niciition of it in old deeds, although there are frequent references to the Parishes of St. Peter, St. Nicholas and St. John the Baptist. Those three are supposed to have covered the whole area of Dover (with the exception of St. James's Parish), and that area was eccelesiastically provided for by the Priory, the Parsonage of the Maison Dieu having no parochial area until after the dissolution of the Priory. iVftcr J 538, there is no doubt St. Mary's Parish was made up of the old ])arishes of St. Peter, St. Nicholas and St. John, to which was added, a century later, the Pier District which the Harbour Works had reclaimed from the sea.
The relations f)etween St. Mary's Vestry and the successive Ministers are fully recorded in the Vestry Book : —
In the month that Henry VIII. died the Vestry Book mentions that the Vestry ordered Church plate, to the value '?'^ £9 8s. 4(1., to be sold to pay their debts. To pay the Jitinister's wages they gathered, after the olil custom, 53 '4; and J 6/- was ])ai(l according to agreement. For a time tliere was no regular Minister, the Churchwar<lens depending on " supplies,"' as, for instance : — '' Paid a Priest to help in the (,'hurch on All Hallows and All Saints' Day, 6d. Paid old Sir Robert to help to serve at Candlemas and for the space of four Sundays, i6d. Paid old Sir Robert 7/4 for his pains in serving the C'hurch eight days." Money was then scarce. At Master, 1547, the chalice was missing, and it was discovered that John Hibbing, the I'arish Clerk, had pawned it because his wages were unpaid, and the Churchwarclens had to pa\- twenty shillings to \''al. Rutland to redeem it for use at the l^aster Festival.
The first regularly hired Minister was Sir Moiige Thornton, who was engaged at ;^S a year. The Priests were styled " Sir "" instead of "" Reverend ' down to 1558. The following is a list of the Ministers of St. Mary's from Sir Monge Thornton's time down to the Rev. John Puckle, who was the last Minister elected by the parishioners : —
1549 Sir Monge Thornton.
1550 Sir Harrie Caine.
1551 Sir Christopher James (disqualified by marriage).
1554 Sir JefTery.
1554 Sir John Lambard (relative of the historian).
1558 Sir William.
1562 Rev. Thomas Turpin.
1573 Rev. Peter Joy.
1587 Rev. Richard Pickering.
1600 Rev. Walter Richards.
1608 Rev. John Gray.
1616 Rev. John Reading (imprisoned as a Royalist).
1644 Rev. "Micli,M-l Porter.
1648 Rev. John Dyckes.
1650 Rev. John Robotham.
1653 ^^^- Nathaniel Northcross.
1654 Rev. Nathaniel Barry (ejected at Restoration).
1660 Rev. John Reading.
1662 Rev. Samuel Hind, D.D.
1671 Rev. John Lodwick.
169S Rev. John Macqucen.
1729 Rev. William Nairn.
1731 Rev. William Byrch (he first occupied Parsonage).
1756 Rev. Thomas Edwards.
1772 Rev. John Lyon (Dover historian).
1817 Rev. John Maule (elected by poll, 1817).
1842 Rev. John Puckle (elected by poll, 1842).
Whatever income there was from endowments went to the Common Fund of the Vestry. The salaries paid to the Ministers was, down to 1616, small and irregular. From that date down to 1671 it was supposed to be ;^ioo a year, but in some cases less. In 1697 the salary was reduced to .^^So, because a Minister who had been dismissed would not vacate his post ; and after 1698 it was slightly increased. In 1871 the Vestry resolved to place the appointment of the Minister in the hands of a Trust, composed of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and the Lord Lieutenant of the County of Kent ; and since then three Ministers, who are now styled Vicars, have been successively appointed: — 1894, The Rev. Arthur Lindsay Palmes, M.A. ; 1901, the Rev. Canon Henry Bartram, M.A.; and 1912, the R-ev. William G. Elnor, M.A. The Minister of St. Mary's h&& long been regarded as the Hon. Chaplain of the Dover Corporation.
The Ministers and their salaries having been mentioned, it should be stated that there was no reliable source from which those salaries could be paid. The endowments were insufficient to keep up the fabric, so the first idea was to raise voluntary subscriptions to pay the Minister, but that arrangement speedily Ijroke down. Next it was decided to make a regular assessment on the householders. That method of raising the money was continued with varying success for fifty years; but, in the year 161 1, it was resolved to take proceedings in an Ecclesiastical Court to recover the arrears of the assessment, but that was a failure. A further effort was made to collect the Cess, and those who did not pay were sued in the Dover Chancery Court of the Cinque Ports. By that means, the money for the payment of the Ministers and for other Church expenses was raised for more than a hundred years. The time came when the local Chancery Court was superseded by the Courts at Westminster, and it being found that no Court would enforce a rate for salaries and Church exj)enses, in 1841 it was resolved thenceforth to raise the Minister's salary by pewrents. In 1 87 1, when selection of the Minister was vested in a Trust, the Archbishop of Canterbury held out definite hopes that, in consequence of that step being taken, some endowment might be provided by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, but those who were instrumental in bringing about that desirable transfer passed away without the anticipated endowment being secured. Amongst other interesting facts culled from the Vestry Books it may be mentioned that the bells — two of them — were in the tower in 1497; previous to the Reformation there were five; and, in 1663, the sixth bell was added. In 1724 Samuel Knight, the well-known bell-founder, re-cast the whole of the six bells, making eight tunable bells out of the old metal, and those are the eight bells now in the tower. Lord George Berkeley and Mr. Philip Papillon, M.P.'s for Dover, subscribed ;£ioo each to pay for the work. In 1733 ^^^- Peter Monin (who was Mayor in 1736) gave a new clock, with chimes, for St. Mary's Tower, and that remained until 1867, when the present clock was placed there by the subscriptions of the inhabitants. The sun dial on the south face of the tower was fixed there in the time of the Commonwealth.
Of the three ancient Churches handed over to the Corporation by Henry VIII., the Corporation and inhabitants having undertaken to keep up St. Mary's for public worship and other public uses, St. Martin's and St. Peter's, were closed and very soon demoli.shed. The site of St. Peter's, which occupied the whole of the north side of the Market Place, lay waste until the early part of the reign ot Charles I., when it was claimed by the Crown, and soon after passed to James Huggeson, of Linstead, who leased the frontages for building, and a piece of the Churchyard in the rear was used in 1639 to enlarge St. Mary's Churchyard.
The Church of St. Martin-le-Grand, the Corporation had been using as a quarry from which to obtain building stones for their new Court Hall, the Harbour, and other purposes ; and the land on which it had stood and a plot attached to the rear, the Corporation let on lease as grazing ground, the Corporation reserving the right of a lawful way into it from the Market Place to bury the poor. After the Corporation had exercised this ownership for about sixty years, in 1605 their right was questioned. The Corporation were astonished, and made a strong effort to maintain their hold on the property, but the Crown overpowered the Corporation. There was some mystery about the matter, but what really happened appears to have been that Charles I., in the days of his necessity, laid his hand on every shred of property to which he had the least shadow of right, and with regard to the sites of St. Peter's and St. Martin's at Dover he made an exchange with Sir Ralph Freeman, Lord Mayor of London, and Sir Ralph disposed of his interest in the sites to James Huggeson, who approached the Dover Corporation with the surprising information that the site of St. Martin's Church was his; also that the whole area of the Market Place, having been St. Martin's Churchyard, as well as the land beyond the Market Place up to Queen Street, including the Sailors' Almshouses, was his also, together with the site of St. Peter's Church. The Corporation fumed and raged, but at length Captain Teddiman, the Mayor, was astute enough to see Sir Ralph Freeman behind James Huggeson, and the King behind Sir Ralph, so they had to make the best terms possible. The Corporation had already, thirty years before, built their Court Hall and Market in I tie centre of the Market Place without investigation as to their right to the site, and they had established their Almshouse on another part of the land adjoining Queen Street. They stipulated for holding on to these, and James Huggeson, who was as generous as he was just, at once decided that all he asked for was an undisputed title to the sites of the two Churches and their building frontages facing the Market Place ; and the Market Place, the Court Hall, the land in the rear on which was the old Almshouses, and on which the Market and Museum have been since built, he offered to the Corporation as a free gift, and on those terms in 1633 was made the final arbitration as the Dover Corporation's ecclesiastical inheritance.