the evils of horse racing
Parish records can reveal how attitudes have changed,
clarify historical facts and much more. Don Macgregor is
fascinated
A trawl through parish records can turn up some unusual little snippets, and also show how attitudes can change over the years. In St Mary’s Fishguard, we trawled, caught and landed a few choice items.
This entry was found in the back of the burial register 1854- 1933. Whilst we were celebrating the arrival of a new racecourse in the last edition of Pobl Dewi, it might have been a different story back then . . . “The races were held this 6th day of September 1861 on Goodwick sand. When the vicar of the parish the Rev. William Rowlands and minister of the Gospel of all denominations of Christians in the town met at 10 AM in the Calvin Methodist Chapel, when prayers were offered up to God, speeches were delivered which showed the evil tendency of races. At 2 o’clock services were held at church when the Rev. H. Richardson of Llanwnda preached in English and the Rev. W. Bowen preached in Welsh, the church was full about 1500 were present. The procession numbering about 1000 walked through the principle streets of the town and onto church.”
Local heroine
Some doubt had been expressed about whether Jemima Nicholas, whose story is immortalised in the Fishguard Tapestry, was actually buried in the graveyard, until we found this note added to her burial record in 1832, by the vicar, Samuel Fenton: “This woman was called Jemima Fawr, from her heroine acts, she having marched against the French who landed hereabouts in 1797 and being of such personal powers as to be able to overcome most men in a fight. I recollect her well. She followed the trade of a shoe maker and made me, when a little boy, several pairs of shoes.”
Eggs and unruly girls
Fishguard people were also apparently rather obsessed with eggs at one point, as a newspaper cutting pointed out in 1923: “During the past 19 years there have been collections of eggs at St Mary’s Church, Fishguard, each Easter day for the sick and infirm, and the number sent to various hospitals during that period has reached the splendid total of 23,141, which averages over 1000 per year.” And I’m still trying to find out about the unruly girls who plagued the church hall in 1933, as recorded in the PCC minutes – by my reckoning some of them are still around aged about 95, but no-one is owning up! “The Vicar brought forward the matter of the membership of girls in the institute, and proposed that no female under the age of 25 years be allowed to become a member. An amendment was moved that the names of the unruly girl members be placed before the Institute Committee to be dealt with. On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.”