CELEBRATING YOUR PROJECTS
Alan Crosby looks at a project that’s making one of Bolton’s earliest family history resources more accessible
Transcribing Protestation Returns
Early in 1642, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, Parliament ordered all males in England and Wales who were aged 18 and over to swear an oath, “to live and die for the true Protestant religion, the liberties and rights of subjects, and the privilege of Parliaments”. It was partly a political move, drawing attention to the demands of Parliament itself, and partly for religious purposes, to weed out Roman Catholics. The ‘Protestation’, as it was called, was to be read out in parish churches after Sunday services.
Lists of those who took the oath were made by churchwardens and constables, who also had to list those who refused. In principle all adult males are included (indeed, some places required every male aged 16 and over to swear), so although the lists give no details other than the name of the individual and his parish or township of residence, they are a very valuable source for family historians,. Despite this, they are surprisingly little known. The original Protestation Returns are held at the Parliamentary Archives in London ( www. parliament.uk/business/publications/ parliamentary-archives), although some were copied at the time into parish registers or other parish papers.
The Bolton Family History Society (BFHS) has recently completed the first stage of a project to transcribe the Protestation Returns for its area. This has covered 27 townships and hamlets in the parish of Bolton, using old microfilms of the original documents. However, the list of names is not alphabetical, instead reflecting the order in which the men came up to swear.
The transcribing work was carried out by Gaynor Cox, one of the society’s members and an archivist, and she has now also completed the adjacent parish of Deane, which lies south-west of Bolton. As the transcription of each part is completed, it is added to the Bolton Document Collection in the members’ area of the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society website ( mlfhs.org.uk; annual membership costs £15), while the Bolton History Centre ( bit.ly/bolton-hc) will retain a paper copy of the material for visitors to view in addition to the source films (which cover the whole of the Salford Hundred).
Where they survive, the Protestation Returns provide a more systematic and comprehensive coverage of adult males than any other document before the 1841 census. The Returns reveal the distribution of surnames, and can be compared with the Hearth Tax returns produced a quarter of a century later during the reign of Charles II. Local historians use them to gauge the relative size of parishes and townships, and to make estimates of the actual numbers of people.
For Bolton, the source has a special poignancy. In 1644 the town was besieged by Royalist forces, who stormed its flimsy defences and massacred the civilian inhabitants – some historians think that as many as half the townspeople were slaughtered. During the war Bolton suffered losses proportionately greater than anywhere else in England, so a high proportion of the men who swore the oath were dead three years later.
Graham Holt, the society’s chairman, explained that “finding and reading the House of Lords films of the original documents is quite difficult”, and suggested that other family history societies could transcribe them for their own areas. However, he emphasised the need for a really good palaeographer: “When comparing the film image and the transcriptions, I am really impressed with Gaynor’s work – although the usual advice of going back and checking the source applies as much here as anywhere else.”
I asked Graham if he’d found any of his own ancestors: “If only I could get back to 1642 in Bolton... but having this data source is a target to aim for. I will get there some day.”
The Protestation Returns provide systematic and comprehensive coverage of adult males