Chaplains at Chipping

The accounts that have appeared in various volumes of the Catholic Record Society by way of introduction to the registers of Catholic missions are obviously of some considerable value to the historian and indeed to all those – their number appears to be growing – who are interested to learn what they can of the records of their Catholic fore-fathers. It seems worth while therefore, when fresh information is available, to supplement such accounts, as far as may be possible. That this is f easible in the case of Major Richard Trappes-Lomax’s careful Introduction to the registers of Lea gram and Chipping (C.R.S. xxxvi: Lancashire Registers, VI) is mainly owing to the survival of two folio volumes of accounts kept by the steward of the Stonyhurst Shireburns in connection with their Lancashire estates. These volumes, evidently unknown to the editor, range from 1717 to 1749 and from 1754 to 1766; the second of these volumes brings us after a few pages to the transference of the Shireburn estates to the family of Weld of Lulworth. Besides other matters of interest the accounts include the payments, usually quarterly, of the missioners both at Stonyhurst and at Leagram Halls and it is here especially that can be f ound more precise dates of the comings and goings of successive missioners.