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The Primitive Methodist Circuit based upon the port of
Great Yarmouth was founded in 1825. The circuit was extensive and whilst
obviously dominated by the port itself also covered extensive areas of
both Norfolk but also Northern Suffolk. Areas extensively represented
in this transcript include, the ancient island of Flegg, parishes along
and adjacent to the Broadland rivers (Yare & Bure in particular) and
also the parishes of Lothing Hundred in North Suffolk down to and including
the port of Lowestoft.
Five registers have been deposited which ostensibly cover from 1843 to
well beyond the end date of the transcript period. However, as can be
readily seen some earlier baptisms are dotted around in these register
back as far as 1832. The five register are comprised as follows:-
Register 1 is a standard 800-entry parish baptismal register with notional
covering dates 1843 to 1857 - it is filmed on Microfilm MF10
Register 2 is a standard 800-entry parish baptismal register with notional
covering dates 1858 to 1864 - it is filmed on Microfilm MF10
Register 3 is a standard 800-entry parish baptismal register with notional
covering dates 1864 to 1869 - it is filmed on Microfilm MF10
Register 4 is a standard 1600-entry parish baptismal register with notional
covering dates 1869 to 1878 - it is filmed on Microfilm MF1732 (NB this
register is not pre-numbered and has not been numbered by the clerk; I
have introduced a sequence number to aid finding. The register was not
completed being closed with 6 pages unused.)
Register 5 is a standard 3200-entry parish baptismal register with notional
covering dates 1879 to 1893 - it is filmed on Microfilm MF10 (NB this
register is also unnumbered and a counter is introduced to aid finding
entries.
The microfilms MF10 and MF1732 are of radically different quality. MF10
is rather elderly and the images are faint, lack contrast and are extremely
difficult to read at times. As the image is a positive (black-on-white)
one some entries are bleached out to almost invisibility. In contrast
MF1732 is a very recent film with clear and excellent quality images which
are a pleasure to use. The standard of handwriting varies enormously.
All qualities are present from the beautiful to the downright atrocious,
sadly the latter tends to dominate! In common with most circuit registers
the books were clearly used by, and completed by many sub-areas each being
assigned their own chunks of book, as a consequence the date sequence
of the entries leaps about all over the place - these entries have been
resorted into date order for ease of use.
Given the standard of filming for the bulk of the entries when taken with
the standard of handwriting (and some extremely eccentric spelling!) there
is an expectation that errors in reading may have occurred. Users should
bear this in mind (and be kind to the transcriber) when using this record
set.
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