Parish Clergy and Officers
Many researchers want to know the names of the clergymen who worked in a particular parish, or to trace the career of an individual clergyman. This kind of information can be found in a number of different records within the archive of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham. There is also some information available about officers licensed by the Archdeacon, such as parish clerks, proctors and schoolteachers.
The names and brief biographical details of clergy in the various parishes in Bingham, Retford and Nottingham deaneries can be found in printed sources:
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Lists of the Clergy of Central Nottinghamshire, ed. K.S.S. Train (Thoroton Society Record Series, Vol XV, 1953)
- Lists of the Clergy of North Nottinghamshire, ed. K.S.S. Train (Thoroton Society Record Series, Vol XV, 1961)
- Notes on the Churches of Nottinghamshire: Hundred of Rushcliffe by John T. Godfrey (London: Bemrose & Sons, 1887)
- Notes on the Churches of Nottinghamshire: Hundred of Bingham by John T. Godfrey (London: Phillimore & Co., 1907)
The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540-1835 (CCEd) is an ongoing project to create a searchable database of the career of English and Welsh clergymen, and the clergymen known to have served in particular parishes. The entries for Nottinghamshire clergy so far largely draw on evidence from the Diocesan archive in York.
Induction Mandates
Induction Mandates (AN/IM) were official documents issued by the Archbishop of York. They instructed the Archdeacon of Nottingham to arrange for named clergymen to be inducted into a particular rectory or vicarage. They were issued around the time that a clergyman was appointed to his new position.
Details from the Induction Mandates in the archive of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham have been abstracted into six separate tables. They are arranged in the order of the Induction Mandates, which is approximately chronological. The mandates were written in Latin until 1733. Christian names given in the abstracts have been Anglicised. Surnames have been transcribed as they were written in the original mandate.
Exhibit Books
Exhibit Books ('Liber Exhibitorum') recorded details about the careers of the clergy within the Archdeaconry at regular intervals. They give the dates and places of the clergyman's admittance as deacon and priest, and details about his institution to his current benefice. The books are arranged chronologically by date of Visitation.
The contents of each of the four surviving Exhibit Books in the Archdeaconry archive have been abstracted into separate tables:
Download the following tables (pdf):
Clergy in Newark Deanery
No clergy list has ever been published for the deanery of Newark, probably because, unlike the other deaneries, only three Call Books listing clergy and churchwardens attending the twice-yearly Archdeaconry courts survived in the Archdeaconry records from before 1663.
The following two tables have been compiled from details in various records from the Archdeaconry archive, and from printed parish histories. The tables are in alphabetical order by name of parish, and within that the names of the clergy are given in chronological order.
Download the following tables (pdf):
Parish clerks, proctors and schoolteachers
Persons with influence and responsibilities within the parish for the education of others, particularly parish clerks and schoolteachers, were, by law, required to make a declaration as to their loyalty to the King and to the Church of England and its canons before they could be licensed.
In the Archdeaconry archive is a book of declarations (AN/L 246/1) signed by nearly 60 such persons, as well as a number of proctors (ecclesiastical lawyers) who worked in the Archdeaconry court. The details in the book have been abstracted into the following table:
Next page: Rural Deaneries in the Archdeaconry of Nottingham up to 1842