PARISH OF ST LEONARDS ON SEA ST LEONARD

Summary of contents:

INCUMBENT

PAR469/1/2 Baptism registers; 1834-1956

PAR469/1/3 Marriage registers; 1833-1984

PAR469/1/4 Banns registers; 1835-1971

PAR469/1/5 Burial registers; 1834-1945

PAR469/1/6 Confirmation records; 1832-1947

PAR469/

PAR469/3 Service registers; 1879-1926

PAR469/7 Other records; 1934

VESTRY

PAR469/12 Minutes; 1830-1848

OTHER RECORDS

PAR469/26 1833-1841

OVERSEERS OF THE POOR

PAR469/30 Rates; 1792-1861

PAR469/32/1 Settlement certificates; 1753-1762

<p>For accounts, 1791-1830, see PAR 469/30/1</p>

Documents transferred by the Curator of Hastings Museum, 29 October 1973 (ACC 1638) and deposited by the incumbent and PCC, 28 June 1979 (ACC 2433), 31 October 1994 (ACC 6510).

From before 1967 to 1973 the parish records of Hastings All Saints, Hastings St Clements, Hastings St Mary in the Castle, St Leonards and Westham were held at Hastings Museum, which was not a Diocesan Record Office. While at the museum these records were augmented, under the same references, from other sources, chiefly the administrative records of Hastings Borough Council and of firms of solicitors who acted as vestry clerks, but also with documents recovered by the museum from wartime salvage and acquired by purchase. These composite records were transferred to ESRO in 1973 and listed in PAR classes without attention being drawn to their mixed provenance.Former parish records of other parishes in greater Hastings which had passed, with the administrative functions to which they relate, to Hastings Corporation, were also transferred to ESRO in 1973 and included in the lists of the records of those parishes, including St Leonards.The close involvement of the Corporation and its Town Clerk in the administration of the poor law, partly caused by the survival of the ancient parishes of St Andrew and St Mary in the Castle as administrative units but without parish officers, also resulted in many settlement certificates and removal orders being addressed to or issued by the Town of Hastings rather than by individual parishes. Where that is the case, on transfer to ESRO the documents were allotted to the parish of Hastings All Saints.Since evidence for what was done and for the sources of the additional material is almost entirely lacking, no documents have been removed from these fonds. But it must be remembered that they are in part artificial creations rather than the organic archives of the parishes concerned.

The parish church of St Leonard was built in 1831-33. The modern parish was created in 1868 from part of the old parish and part of St Mary Magdalen.