When Henry VIII broke with the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century, the Protestant Church of England, with the monarch at its head, became the established religion. Except for a short period in 1553 and 1554, when Henry's Catholic daughter Mary I reigned, and another during the Commonwealth period of 1649-1660, the English monarchs remained Protestant and the Church of England maintained its status as the established church. Other forms of religious belief were not tolerated.
However, the Catholic church survived in England in secret for several hundred years. The Catholic Relief Acts at the end of the 18th century put an end to some of the penalties imposed on English Catholics and allowed worship in Catholic chapels provided they were licensed. Before this time, the only Catholic chapels were those maintained by private families in their homes, or by the foreign embassies in London.
In Devon, Catholics tended to be centred around the homes of the Catholic gentry who could keep a priest, often as a tutor for the sons of the family. The priests were responsible for a very wide area. For example, the priests stationed with the Chesters at Bearscombe near Kingsbridge in the 18th century had to cover south Devon from Plymouth to Newton Abbot. Soon after the Relief Acts were passed, chapels were licensed in Plymouth, Exeter, Dartmouth and Axminster by the priests stationed there.
The earliest surviving Catholic parish registers in Devon date from about this time. However, very few Catholic registers were surrendered to the Registrar General in 1841 and 1857, when other non-conformist registers were sent in. Of the 587 Catholic churches in England, only 76 handed in their registers, and of these, 70 were in the north of England and Lincolnshire. Priests were unwilling to hand in registers because they still saw the registers as belonging to themselves rather than to the chapels, and because registers recorded Catholic marriages at a time when such marriages were not legal. Therefore there are very few Catholic registers among those now held in the Public Record Office.
In the 18th century, priests kept little notebooks to record baptisms, confirmations and marriages. As the priest moved around the country, from one mission to the next, he would take his notebook with him. The entries were usually written in Latin. Baptism entries record parents’ names, the mother’s maiden name and the names of the two godparents. Marriages were recorded because, despite Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, Catholics would still be married by a priest, usually prior to a ceremony in the Anglican church as a formality. Often the Anglican marriage would be by licence, to avoid having to attend church on the three Sundays when the banns were read.
From the 19th century, printed registers were used, and in Devon, these still remain in the custody of the priests in each parish. If you wish to enquire about a search of Catholic registers for a particular Devon parish, staff at Devon Record Office can supply you with information on how to contact the honorary Catholic archivist or the particular parish priest.
Many early Catholic registers have been transcribed and published by the Catholic Record Society. Those few from other counties which were sent to the Registrar General are now kept at the Public Record Office and are indexed on the International Genealogical Index.
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