RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: aggiebagwash on Saturday 25 August 18 12:16 BST (UK)
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While researching a priest in Manchester on the 1901 census I came across John G Boulaye a priest at St Chad's Church. Under Occupation or Profession it states, " A so called idolatrous Roman Catholic Priest. Workhouse Chaplain".
Obviously the enumerator didn't like him. ;D
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It's awful that people could be slagged off for posterity on official records, BUT on the other hand wouldn't it be wonderful (for us) if enumerators had been obliged to describe everyone's individual character!!
Tongue in cheek comment!
Melbell
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The enumerator was a Miss Kate Mason.
Stan
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Obviously Kate wasn't a fan of the priest. What a shame we will never know why.
Mellbell what a wonderful idea but maybe our ancestors wouldn't be as lovely as we imagine.
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Obviously Kate wasn't a fan of the priest. What a shame we will never know why.
Maybe she was a Methodist :-\
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Confused by the responses, "relating to or practising idolatry; idol-worshipping."
Isn't the basis of practices of religion just that??
Malky
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Perhaps so, but you have to be worshipping the RIGHT idols...
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Maybe she had read ( some rather nasty, others ignorant, all unnecessary personal opinions and/or aimed to 'punish') comments made by those fellow religious keepers of church records that many wrote in the parish book margins.
I have read some 'gems' some historical/religious attitude of the times, others just plain and simple nasty..... one parish record book in Lincolnshire I was scanning through to see if I could locate someone I was amazed at the number of nasty vindictive opinions written about the parishioners, then on the last page an essay basically he was hiding, locked up in the back of the church with several parishioners armed with 'whatever' baying or his blood...so they knew! ;D
What makes me cross is I can't find it again because I was scanning lots of PRs and can't remember/didn't take a note of which one it was.
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Perhaps so, but you have to be worshipping the RIGHT idols...
Just curious, but what are the "RIGHT idols"??
Malky
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Looks as though Kate Mason was local and was a Deputy Registrar, her father being a Registrar.
Interestingly, Emmeline Pankhurst was a Registrar in a different area of Manchester at the time.
I would have thought there was some sort of scrutiny or directives regarding completion of the forms but obviously not from the examples quoted on here from time to time.
I found an 1851 entry a while ago for William Calcraft who was a hangman.
His trade was a Boot and Shoe Maker and the enumerator has added ‘His Honour, the Finisher of the Law’ and added a small cartoon drawing with ‘Beware’.
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Just curious, but what are the "RIGHT idols"??
Malky
I just mean that different religions have their own beliefs and in particular, of course, the Christian God forbade the practice of prayer to any god or inanimate object that was not himself. If someone prays to the idol of Jesus on the cross, this is a correct idol. If someone prays to a bull with five heads, this is not a correct idol. If someone is seen to think more of a bottle of alcohol than of their Lord, that'd probably be considered rather poorly as well.
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But reading the post containing "A so called idolatrous Roman Catholic Priest. Workhouse Chaplain". she could be meaning "an over the top, put the fear of god in you, bible thumping clergyman," and as it is, we will never know. The description may just be based on hearsay from parishioners, and the definitions overstated and slightly spurious. The clue may be in the two words, "Workhouse Chaplain".
Malky
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As you say, we will never know.
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I wonder if she meant the priest was the idol of the parishioners - and maybe her and she'd been rejected ::)
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You don't mean she wrote idolatrous and it should have been adulterous lol. :D
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Just curious, but what are the "RIGHT idols"??
Dunno. I don't do religion. But at the bottom of my RootsChat page, I have an ad that I could click on, if I felt so inclined. It says, "Talk to God. God is waiting to hear from you. Pray now." Frankly, I find the intrusion of such an ad somewhat impertinent, even offensive, but, who knows, maybe you could find an answer to your question there.
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I wonder what you have been saying to make the internet think you would like to see that?? Personally I am getting very bored with the advert for a local university. Don't know why I am getting that either.
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You don't mean she wrote idolatrous and it should have been adulterous lol. :D
Yes, I think she just spelt the word wrong.
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I can't understand why you are blaming the enumerator. He/she only copied the schedules, so the culprit would be whoever completed schedule.
Colin
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Even so, I doubt a Deputy Registrar would actually copy insults.
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I would guess that these days Kate would be trolling people on Facebook or Twitter.
Martin
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:o :) :o
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Even so, I doubt a Deputy Registrar would actually copy insults.
The other priests in the household were just recorded as such. Strange.
In the example I quoted re Calcraft, I wouldn’t think the enumerator would copy a cartoon hanging figure and write ‘Beware’ but perhaps it was the humour of the time. :-\
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I can't understand why you are blaming the enumerator. He/she only copied the schedules, so the culprit would be whoever completed schedule.
Colin
That is not correct there are many examples of remarks in the censuses that have been added by the enumerators.
"Although the instructions issued to the enumerators were very precise there are many instances where enumerators chose to stray from the rules and made observations or used unconventional terms to complete their returns. Title pages were intended to describe the district the enumerator had to cover but were also used by enumerators to add some comments of their own"
Making use of the Census by Susan Lumas, the National Archives.
Stan
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"In the example I quoted re Calcraft, I wouldn’t think the enumerator would copy a cartoon hanging figure and write ‘Beware’ but perhaps it was the humour of the time"
I thought that William Calcraft's motto was,
"10 per annum. He who likes to keep people hanging around". ::) ::) ::)
Malky
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It may well have been but he wasn’t very good at his job, I believe, although he was in great demand. Perhaps that is why there was a warning.
Apologies though and back to the enumerator and census.
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A lodging-house in mid-19thC Manchester, whose occupants were all Irish had "pig sty" written in address column in census enumerator's book.
Some "low" lodging-house keepers had "& brothel- keeper" as secondary occupation.
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A lodging-house in mid-19thC Manchester, whose occupants were all Irish had "pig sty" written in address column in census enumerator's book.
Some "low" lodging-house keepers had "& brothel- keeper" as secondary occupation.
Some dwellings in the overcrowded industrial districts literally did have a 'pig sty' and it wasn't about 'the Irish'.
They are mentioned on numerous occasions in the sanitation reports of the 1830's and 40's, and a pig sty was not even the worst of it :-\ . Not a read for the faint hearted.
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I have read some 'gems' some historical/religious attitude of the times, others just plain and simple nasty..... one parish record book in Lincolnshire I was scanning through to see if I could locate someone I was amazed at the number of nasty vindictive opinions written about the parishioners
This is a rare classic - the title is self-explanatory!
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=459879.0
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You don't mean she wrote idolatrous and it should have been adulterous lol. :D
Yes, I think she just spelt the word wrong.
Wondering how a Roman Catholic priest, celibate by definition, could qualify as an adulterer ???
Carol
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Wondering how a Roman Catholic priest, celibate by definition, could qualify as an adulterer.
Definition of adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not their spouse. So easy for an RC priest to be adulterous and many of them were.
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Why do you think he meant adulterous rather than idolatrous? I think the latter is much more likely - just the 'normal' way to insult people of a different religious persuasion from yourself!
Melbell
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I think that post was light hearted and not meant seriously - as probably the initial post.
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Thanks Heywood you totally get my sense of humour. ::)
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Perhaps so, but you have to be worshipping the RIGHT idols...
Just curious, but what are the "RIGHT idols"??
Malky
I think the "right idols" are the same idols as the person doing the judging.
In Scotland even when I was growing up idolater was a used as an insult by Protestants against a Catholic. Was used even more so historically. You can see it in the design of Churches, very plain Presbyterian churches and more ornate Catholic ones.
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" A so called idolatrous Roman Catholic Priest. Workhouse Chaplain".
I read this differently, because of the "so-called". Isn't this a tongue in cheek comment by the priest himself, and faithfully transcribed by Kate?
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" A so called idolatrous Roman Catholic Priest. Workhouse Chaplain".
I read this differently, because of the "so-called". Isn't this a tongue in cheek comment by the priest himself, and faithfully transcribed by Kate?
That would be my understanding of it.
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Confused by the responses, "relating to or practising idolatry; idol-worshipping."
Isn't the basis of practices of religion just that??
Malky
Historically, Protestantism was considered much more simple than Roman Catholicism, which early Protestants said did not focus on God but more on ritual and symbols etc. Or so I was taught in History A-Level last year.