King's Lynn has long been a centre for religious non-conformity
and Wesleyan societies were in existance in the latter half of the 19th
century in the town. With it's own chapel, St Margarets, established in
1797 this eventually expanded to become the base for its own Wesleyan
Circuit centred on the town.
The records covered in this transcript cover three separate registers,
the first - a hand written book - was commenced in 1797 but there are
few entries before the commencement of this transcript. This register
was deposited at The National Archive with the commencement of Civil Registration
and was transcribed from the copy held at Norfolk Record Officves on Microfilm
MF1151. The book is fairly poorly filmed with faint images and little
contrast, this coupled with the florid and eccentric handwriting made
for a difficult transcript. The latter two registers are standard Wesleyan
registers with 8 entries to a page, similar to those for parish registers
but lacking the occupation column. These are filmed on Microfilms MF1724
& MF1725 in the collection of the Norfolk Record Office. Whilst these
filmings are more recent and of good quality, the poor handwriting persists
making for a tricky extract.
As with most Wesleyan register records are clearly not written up at the
date of baptism, banks of entries (presumably maintained by individual
ministers) are added in blocks which makes for an eccentric sequence of
entries. The numbers shown against the entries are those used in the register
and are included to assist in locating an entry within the original register,
the entries, however, are presented here in date sequence for ease of
finding. Given the troublesome handwriting no guarantees are forthcoming
as to accuracy - this transcript carries a health warning and no doubt
will be subject to future reader corractions.
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