THE BEADLE has been researching the history of his ancient office, and has come up with the following:
“Beadles’ duties varied from parish to parish and ranged from acting as a kind of parochial town crier to a position of power more akin to a village constable. In larger parishes they had overall charge of the night watchmen, setting their hours and ensuring that they turned up for duty. A typical list of tasks was:
To keep order in the parish; to prevent the lurking of beggars and vagabonds; to keep general order and to prevent youths and boys from disturbing the peace by noisy sports, playing, gaming and general mischief.
The beadle would also attend church as part of his duties, ensuring churchgoers were attentive to the sermon and reprimanding noisy children and adults who talked during the service. He was also a kind of latter-day traffic warden, ensuring horses and carriages did not cause problems when parked outside the church. In Sunbury, Middlesex, in 1858 the beadle was in charge of the fire engine!
Many beadles, but certainly not all, received an annual salary plus various fees. They would also receive an annual allowance for a uniform, which generally consisted of a cloak and hat. The parish would own the staff of office, which he carried on duty.
[From an article on 'Parish Officials' by Colin Waters in issue 58 of Your Family Tree magazine. Reproduced by permission.]
16 comments:
Has anybody seen a Beadle of the Parish skinny-dipping with my wife?
If so contact Sunbury Enterprises where the cheque will be in the post for your information.
Or join us all in the lefty fibs and libs that know what what they are doing.
Jesus Christ just how much more is this fall going on.
Floating a long time now seems almost like air after a bubble has burst.
Wow.
The Beadle of the Parish really deserves a new Punch and Judy show.
Do you know that for 60 years the left wingers have won the battles for social things. Do you know?
Of course you do not.
It is another piece of the will-nots of the bullshit from Lib-lefts on the prowl for new members ( no sex there please).
Put em all under the Beadle of the Parish I say.
Tiger, Tiger marketing Right,
In the happy pills of the Hills
and the night and the Bright.
What liberal left will bridge that
Cleft
That Harold Wilson entered before?
All at the Burrow would be much gratified if Professor Zola were to mount [if that is the right word!] a traditional Punch and Judy Show in the Snug as recently so delightfully described and illustrated on his blog.
As for the chattering classes, let 'em chatter away. Might be more interesting than most of Ms G. Henry's insipid offerings at CiF.
Didn't Harold Wilson disappear up his own fundament, muttering that he was a big fat spider? What will be the manner of GordieBroon's exit, we wonder?
But such speculations are more suited to the Arena - here in the Burrow we distract ourselves from the Great Big Cruel World Out There with the delightful daubings of LavenderBlue and the effortless scribblings of Dame Barbara [copiously aided by an endless stream of pink gins].
Back to your cap, motley and bells, Zola!
By Order
Hello Anti-cons-piracy : good to see you are back in good form. Knew you would. Always suspected that you were no Liberal in blue clothes imaged as thinking pink.
Yeee-hah power to yer elbow I say.
I do dislike having labels stuck on me, and being stuffed in pigeon-holes [or anywhere else, for that matter!]. I'm an extreme moderate, and don't support any party, wing, or groupuscule, Left or Right.
My political catchphrase is "A plague on all their houses", and I believe that government exists for the benefit of the individual citizen, and not the other way round.
As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". He added - and this isn't usually included in the quote - "Great men are almost always bad men". Hear, hear!
But all this is far too serious for the Burrow. Do lighten up, Zola, or Ben will have to ask you to pay for your drinks, which would never do.
Sori : hope they have not been asking you to write for them.
They only do serious stuff and try to legitimise it all through addding the bloggers onto their list of followers.
Long list the Left???
Tyger popped in for a cup of tea when he was down for their meeting. An extremely nice young guy, and intelligent. As for writing for them, I'm too busy - but if I thought it might be useful for getting my viewpoints to a wider audience, I wouldn't rule it out.
I'm not bothered by people getting together to do their own thing - in fact I welcome it, as there isn't enough good debate going on at present. The Guardian is a dead loss these days; too much VT!
Well Anticant : I am happy to be turned a little and towards a moderation.
I remain deeply suspicious but maybe it is sometimes a good time to give things a decent chance.
Perhaps best to keep a critical eye on this new-liberal-left stuff in a kind of soft positive way.
Hell why not.
Nothing to lose but those chains as they say.
Zola, the only totally unregulated market I'm in favour of is the market of ideas. Everyone should be free to say whatever they want, however stupid or poisonous, as long as they don't directly incite violence. That way, the hateful stuff will be out in the open and not festering underground, while the free-for-all of debate is bound to produce some useful and novel thoughts which challenge the prevailing orthodoxy.
So I welcome all new efforts to stimulate discussion. However, the Beadle will continue to regulate bad language in the Burrow!
Was W C Fields a Beadle of the Parish?
And did he deflower LavenderBlue?
My love was Black-Eyed Susan
But now my love has fled
For I found a Bachelor's Button
In Black-Eyed Susan's bed.
Never give a sucker an even break?
HISTORY Reveals over time that the beadlery took irritation at being regarded as nothing but a load of nosy-parkers & snitches, so they tried out numerous political expedients during the course of the late-modern age, including Florence Nightingale and beginning with the death of Anthomy Trollope & the long gladstonian age. After two world wars, Himmler and stalinism, they rejoiced at the emergence of Clement Attlee & ever after have been perfecting their supervisory pretensions under New Labour, Same Old Codswallop, with cheap chinese surveillance equipt & mass-mailings of ASBOs & computerised traffic-citations, to especially-targetted chave and and mad-mahometan residential zones....
No nosy-parkers, snitches, ASBOs, or cheap Chinese junk in the Burrow.
By Order
No,ZoZoBear.he bloody well did not deflower me, thank you !
Ladies and gentlemen, please! Anticant and I shall be much obliged if you will keep your conversation in the Snug on virgin territory, as is the strict rule in all my bosom-heaving epics. And my heroines don't swear, either.
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