Weather history and parish registers

We have some pleasantly summery weather in Derbyshire just now.  If it should get too warm and you wish to be transported to cooler climes, you could always try reading a new article by the University of Nottingham’s Lucy Veale and others, entitled “‘Instead of fetching flowers, the youths brought in flakes of snow’: exploring extreme weather history through English parish registers”.  It features a reproduction of a descriptive ‘Memorial to the great snow’ of 1615 which can be found inscribed in the Winster parish register.

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Winster burials

More from Winster burials: a man buried on 5 October 1892: “A Man Unknown: 5ft 8″ high, full beard, scraggy whiskers, prominent front teeth, aged about 50. He asked at Concannons on Winster Bank for lodgings on Monday night Oct 3 1892 and was taken in to lie on the sofa, but died a short time afterwards. An inquest was held on Wednesday Oct 5 and a coroner’s order for burial of the body was given”

Winster burials

A transcriber of parish registers has noticed some oddities in the 1886-1946 burial register for Winster (D776 A/PI 5/2). In 1892, the vicar started making notes about the deceased on the inside covers. For instance, Mary Spencer (buried aged 38 on 9 Feb 1895) was “for many years an ailing woman, died rather suddenly at last, leaving a large family – her husband Joseph Spencer is postman”