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I have read, but not found an example, that people sometimes directed
in their wills which person was to report the offence. This was by way of
being a legacy, since the informant received half the fine.

vv.

Thanks vv - I guess if this law was in place for over 100 years families would have long worked out ways of minimising the impact. If the relatives paid the £5 fine and the designated informant got half of it back, by comparison would there be a record of how much the woollen shroud itself would have cost the family?

Angela.

This is fascinating; thank you very much, Stan. It explains why the annotation appeared only through a certain period of burial records, also that the number would most probably be the date on which the relatives of the deceased swore their affidavit.

How interesting that legislation motivated by the country's economy had such a big impact on what was essentially a religious rite. I guess there was no other way for the government to "reach" the people except through the church.

Since your post I have discovered another thread, under the Common Room, headed "Buried in Woollen," where researchers have discussed other examples of this.

Angela.

I have been searching Marden, Kent parish registers from the 1600-1700s and have come across quite a few burial entries which end with the word "aff." followed by a number. On googling this I found mention of it in a Wikipedia article about the priest John Disney (1677-1729/30) which said: 'The entry for his death in the parish registers is followed by the abbreviation "Aff." This was in accordance with the law passed in 1678, which demanded an affidavit that the bodies had been buried in woollen shrouds." What I am not sure of is the number that follows the "aff." Perhaps it is just the affidavit number. Does anyone know? Thank you.

Angela.

I have fond memories of visiting the Kent archives office in Maidstone in the late 1970s. Just a smallish quiet room with chairs & tables. We all used pencils and paper to take notes, and were free to pull the huge volumes down off the surrounding shelves as required. From memory there were only ever four or five people in there quietly reading at any time I visited. I guess the difference now is the rapid increase in interest in researching family histories, and obviously some records offices are not going to be able to keep up with the huge demand for resources.

How would you go with ordering searches and/or documents by post or email? A few years ago I'd have said it would take the fun out of doing it yourself, but it sounds as though actually going there is not such a fun pastime any longer! I have to use 'mail order' now, because I live so far away, and I have had no difficulty in ordering wills & documents etc by mail from the East Sussex RO in recent years. Perhaps that's the way to go for Kent as well - then the staff can concentrate on helping researchers with the records (instead of the bookings, the toilets, the lockers, the parking etc!).

Hello Pauline, thank you for replying. No, there is no address shown - under the date (23 July 1852) it simply says "found dead in the River Thames off Horselydown." The informant column shows the coroner's details: William Payne, Coroner for Southwark, Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury.

In the burial record for this John Nash (in the churchyard of St John Horselydown) under "abode" it says "Coroner's Order." Perhaps his family never even knew he had been found? But if his address or family were not known to the authorities, I wonder how they knew he was John Nash aged 42?

From their general background I don't believe the family would have been too poor to claim his body and bury him; and I have located my John's wife Ann Elizabeth Nash in the 1861 census, where she is described as a widow, "Fundholder," visitor of a (so far seemingly) unrelated family in Ramsgate, Kent.