MUNIMENT BOOKS

This series of muniment books (muniments are documentary evidence kept securely and retained by the diocese in order that it could defend its title to property or claims to various ecclesiastical rights) containing acts of the bishop copied for the following:

Appointments of surrogates (officers who stood in office for another, often as deputies) and other diocesan officials;

Faculties (licences granted by the bishop for the alteration to church fabric, church buildings and churchyards, including petitions for work to be carried out and formal written consent);

Orders in Council (schemes of the commission relating to changes made to diocesan administrative units (such as the union and disunion of benefices (endowed church offices), the alteration of parochial boundaries and creation of new parishes) that have been laid before the King or Queen in Council, and ratified by orders which specify when they shall take effect);

Petitions and sentences of consecrations (the ceremonies performed, by permission of the bishop, in declaring or setting apart church buildings and burial grounds as sacred), including the petition and consecration of additional burial ground at Wandsworth Cemetery in 1906 with coloured plan (DS/OB/001).

Property conveyances; and

Sequestrations (made for the taking over of a benefice after the resignation or inability of the incumbent in performing their duties).

Coloured plans of land are included. The books are indexed.

The books are arranged in chronological order.

Records of clerk's subscriptions originally referenced DS/OB/SC, DS/OB/SD, DS/OB/SI, DS/OB/SO are now referenced DS/K.

Access by permission of the diocesan registrar for records less than 100 years old.