Registers from before Civil Registration (1837) held in The National Archives

Following the introduction of civil registration registers which were not those of a Church of England parish were  collected and deposited with the Registrar General under the Non-Parochial Registers Act 1840. Further registers were surrendered to the Non Parochial Registers Commission of 1857. Since all the registers were transferred to The National Archives, they have been catalogued in three classes: RG4 containing the registers surrendered in 1840, RG5 includes the birth certificates from the Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry, and RG8 the registers surrendered in 1857.

Methodist New Connexion

Fifty-five Methodist New Connexion registers of baptism have survived, representing the whole community, 25 Circuits and 19 chapels. The General, or Conference, baptism register was compiled between 1 June 1813 and 28 June 1837, and covers baptisms which occurred between 1797 and 1837. The covering note to the register explains that the entries were copied from local registers, but as only 430 baptisms are recorded it would appear to be a representative sample.   In total  23, 293 baptisms are recorded in those registers which were deposited.

In addition five burial registers were surrendered, containing details of 1,237 burials.

The registers of two large chapels in Stockport and Huddersfield were not surrendered, but have subsequently been deposited in their local authority record office, and made available electronically. These contain 6,506 baptisms. Three burials registers which escaped surrender contain 1,356 burials.

A list of the registers is attached.

Bible Christians

28 baptismal registers have survived, representing 27 Circuits and 2 chapels. In total 5,461 baptisms were recorded in standard registers. These had been approved by the 1819 Conference, and gave the parents’ names, occupation of the father and parentage of the mother.

With the exception of Kingsbrompton and Crewkerne, the registers for Somerset, Gloucestershire and Monmouth are missing.

A list of the registers is attached.

Reformers 1827-1837

A number of groups broke away in the last decade before Civil Registration, sharing a concern that too much power in Wesleyan Methodism was being concentrated in the hands of ministers in London.  They were relatively small scale.

The Protestant Methodists (1827-1837) have left no registers that were surrendered. The chapel in Burnley (Brunswick, Manchester Road) kept a register from 1834, however, which contains 93 baptisms before the end of 1837, This register continued to be used by the chapel after the members joined the Wesleyan Methodist Association, and subsequently the United Methodist Free Churches. It may be viewed at https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62471/

The Arminian Methodists (1832-1837) had three Circuits, Leicester, Nottingham and Redditch, and registers from two of them, Nottingham, Barker Gate, and Redditch, survive. They had an interesting form of baptismal register in which two people attest they were at the birth, and give the full ancestry of the child (father, mother, mother’s parents) and the record goes on to state that it was a Trinitarian baptism. Both surviving registers record an average of three baptisms a year.

The Wesleyan Association broke away in 1835, with 57 circuits and 166 chapels, but  only three early registers that survive, for Louth, Walbergate; Kingston upon Hull, Sykes Street; and Rochdale, Baillie Street. Thirty-nine baptisms are recorded in total.

A list of the Arminian Methodist and Wesleyan Association registers is attached.