Shropshire Baptisms 1792 - Where/What is "The P House"

[dtlroots]

I was looking at the images of some family baptisms in the 'Shropshire Baptisms' record set on 'Findmypast'. I was trying to find the areas where the children's parents resided. The transcriptions all show 'Ellesmere' but if you look at the images they show a more precise location - eg Lyth, Lee, Birch. One of the baptisms for 1792 showed the parents as being of "The P House". There was also a "P" marked in the margin of the page. Does anyone have any clue where or what the P House was?

[Gadget]

Hi

Other Ellesmere records have baptisms that are marked P in margin as Poor House.

Gadget

[Gadget]

See, for example, Anne Kynaston, bpt Ellesmere, July 22 1792

[Maiden Stone]

The letter P in margin may be for pauper. There was a tax on births at the time, collected by the clergy on behalf of the government. Paupers were exempt and these were indicated in the register.

[dtlroots]

Thanks for that Gadget. It is just the youngest child’s baptism that shows this so there is quite a gap between this and the next information I have on the family, but this gives me something to look at.

[macwil]

The P in the margin alongside Baptisms usually denotes a 'private baptism' carried out at the child's home or maybe a hospital, if the child survived there is usually a note 'received into the church' with another date following.
The 'private baptism' may have been performed by a 'lay person' who must have been 'confirmed' for the baptism to be accepted by the church, otherwise the child should be baptised officially by a clergyman before being accepted into the congregation.

[Gadget]

Macwil~

See Replies #1,2 and 3

I've looked at the parish records for Ellesmere in that year. None of them would appear to be 'private'.
Also, there was a trend at that time in many parishes to indicate paupers  as there was a stamp duty imposed on parish record entries:

In 1783 a stamp duty of 3 pence was imposed on every entry, although paupers were exempt. Tax evasion naturally occured, with a decline in working and middle class entries, but a marked increased in pauper's entries. The Act was repealed in 1794, and declared unsuccessful.

https://parishregister.co.uk/about/history


Gadget