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Brass Plaque At St Mary’s Church To The Parish Clerk And The Church Cleaner
By the door of St Mary’s Church is a brass plaque which reads:
THIS BRASS WAS PLACED HERE
BY THE CONGREGATION, IN MEMORY OF
WILLIAM AND ELIZABETH TURNER,
FOR MANY YEARS, THE FAITHFUL SERVANTS
OF THIS CHURCH. A.D.1889.
St Mary the Virgin Church in Embsay first opened on 17th May 1853 and both William and Elizabeth Turner spent their adult lives in the service of St Mary’s. Elizabeth was the Church Cleaner from when the church first opened in 1853, to her death 30 years later. Over the same period William was Parish Clerk for which he would have received a small remuneration but always needed his day job as a quarryman.
The Parish Clerk was usually appointed for life by the incumbent and paid from church funds. The post had a variety of responsibilities which could include arranging baptisms and burials, acting as sexton, ringing the church bell for church services and leading the responses during the service. He was effectively the vicar’s right-hand man.
William & Elizabeth were both born in Embsay and baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Skipton, where each of their parents had married. William, born in 1813, was the son of Thomas Turner, a farmer of Greenholme (Low Lane), and his wife Elizabeth (Mason). Elizabeth, 8 years younger, born in 1821 was the eldest child of Eli Watson, a weaver, and his wife Mary (Phillip). The Watson’s lived in a cottage on Main Street close to where the later Methodist Church was built in 1839. Both their mothers came from long standing Embsay families, the Mason’s and the Phillip’s.
Their families also played an important part in the early days of the church. William’s father Thomas Turner formerly served on the Village Vestry and acted as Surveyor for Embsay, whilst Elizabeth’s father Eli Watson was the first Sexton at St Mary’s and would have arranged all the early burials when the churchyard was first used in 1853.* He died within a year of the church opening and was buried close to the south wall of the Church with the most distinctive of all the early gravestones.
ELI WATSON 3 FEB 1854
FIRST SEXTON OF THIS CHURCH
AGE 59 YEARS
ALSO MARY WIFE OF
THE ABOVE WHO DIED
FEBRUARY 9th 1862
AGED 74 YEARS
To be appointed as Parish Clerk for St Mary’s Church, William had clearly received a good basic education but like his brothers Joseph and Luke, he mixed working on their father’s farm with part time work as a Limestone Quarryman at Haw Bank Quarry (later Skipton Rock) which for William became full-time after his father’s death in 1857. Elizabeth, who was illiterate, worked in one of the Embsay cotton mills from a young age, but when her widowed mother became blind she took on the role of housekeeper for her mother and younger siblings.
William and Elizabeth had probably known each other all their lives, and their church responsibilities would have clearly brought them into more regular contact. Most Embsay people married by the time they reached their mid 20’s, but not William Turner and Elizabeth Watson; and it was not until they had both reached middle age that 50 year old bachelor William Turner married 43 year old spinster Elizabeth Watson at St Mary’s Church Embsay on 30th October 1864. Needless to say, they didn’t have any children.
In the mid 19th century most people were churchgoers and many had a detailed knowledge of the Bible. That was certainly the case with William Turner as four pages from a notebook survive in which he recorded all the “Trades and Proffessions mentioned in the Bible” which he listed alphabetically, referencing the relevant Books, Chapters and Verses. It seems to me that William Turner was interested to know that ordinary people like himself and his fellow villagers were also mentioned in the Bible.
This is a simplified version of his fascinating list:
Ambassador; Apothecary; Armourbearer; Barber; Builder; Baker, Butler; Carpenter; Chancellor; Chamberlain; Cook; Coppersmith; Cupbearer; Deacon; Deerkeeper; Driver; Engraver; Fisherman; Fuller; Gardener; Goldsmith; Harper; Husbandman; Interpreter; Jailor; Lawyer; Mariner; Mason; Merchant; Pastor; Physician; Pilot; Piper; Ploughman; Potter; Preacher; Prophet; Reaper; Refiner; Recorder; Sailor; Schoolmaster; Scribe; Sergeant; Shepherd; Sheriff; Shipmaster; Slinger; Smith; Soldier; Sower; Standardbearer; Steward; Tanner; Taskmaster; Teacher; Tentmaker; Tiller of the Ground; Town Clerk; Trumpeter; Tutor; Vinedresser; Warrener; Watchmaker; Weaver.
It is signed with a flourish:
Mr W Turner
Embsay
After they married William and Elizabeth Turner lived on Main Street, Embsay, possibly in the cottage where Elizabeth’s parents had lived. Elizabeth was the first to die, aged 63, on 25th November 1884, dying at the Vicarage on Kirk Lane during a visit to the vicar Rev Charles Vernon Brown. Over a year earlier, in September 1883 the then Vicar, Rev John Tyrwhitt Davy Kidd, had resigned due to ill-health and failing eyesight. Whilst the new vicar Rev Brown conducted all the burials from October 1883, in what seems like an act of affection, Rev Kidd came back especially to conduct the burial service for Elizabeth Turner, recording in St Mary’s Burial Register that she had been ‘Cleaner of Embsay Church for 30 years’.
William outlived her by less than two years, dying aged 73 on 4th June 1886, and again Rev Kidd came back to conduct the burial service. Despite his modest life, William Turner left a Will in which he appointed Rev Charles Vernon Brown as Executor with the instruction to sell all his household goods and furniture. The proceeds, which amounted to £83 15s, were to be divided amongst three cousins and his unmarried sister Ann Turner of Embsay.
At a subsequent Sunday service on 20th June 1886 a collection was made amongst the congregation for a gravestone. However, despite this and the small amount left to his sister, no gravestone was ever erected. Perhaps there was insufficient money, or maybe there were opposing views about how the collection money should be spent.
Whatever happened in 1886, the congregation finally agreed 3 years later in 1889, to have a brass plaque made and placed on the wall by the door of the Church which William and Elizabeth Turner had worked to support for so many years.
David Turner, Embsay with Eastby Historical Research Group
*for details of the lives of the people buried at St Mary’s in that first year, see our new publication: ‘Silent Neighbours’ – available at the Post Office.
Sources:
St Mary’s Parish Registers, North Yorkshire Record Office.
Parish Registers for Holy Trinity, Skipton.
Diaries of Elizabeth Greenwood of the Mason’s Arms, Eastby 1872 to 1890.
Diaries of Annie Parker Greenwood of the Mason’s Arms, Eastby 1874 to 1882.
General Register Office – Principal Probate Registry.
Embsay with Eastby Tithe Map 1847.
Embsay with Eastby Historical Research Group Family Database.
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