St Michael's Mickleham
Exploring our churchyard
2 - Digging deep into the Mickleham Burial Records

from the June 2005 magazine
I am not too sure how it all started but I seem to remember it was something to do with Rose Spence - it usually is. John Harkin, the then Incumbent, soon learned Rose's technique of arm twisting, and before long our vicar had enlisted a working party of six 'volunteers' whose job it was to root around amongst the grass, in order to read inscriptions on the gravestones at the back of the churchyard. In those days, it was not always easy to establish exactly where the burials had taken place and there was a need to verify the accuracy of an old layout plan prepared by a former verger so that Reverend John Harkin could respond to the occasional enquiries from relatives or ancestors of the interred. Without some sort of record other than the Parish Register of Burials, very little could be readily ascertained without hours of research and hunting in the churchyard.

As we know, the graveyard is very well maintained these days, so a visual inspection of some of the gravestones can often reveal considerable information for the loved ones or genealogists - family tree enthusiasts to most of us. But the working party was given the mission of recording the position of each grave, the type and condition of the memorial and the inscriptions on the headstone, kerb or plaque, forming the grave. When my fellow volunteers were carrying out the survey, they recorded the necessary details on a standard form which I then entered onto a computer database using Microsoft Works, which can also be read using Microsoft Excel, both of which are off the shelf software packages.

The starting point for the physical inspections was the rear section of the churchyard, where most of the burials took place throughout the first half of the last century. We approached the task in this way for several reasons. Most of the enquiries about the occupancy of graves, or about former residents of the parish, were from people whose interests were in ascertaining the whereabouts of their previously unknown relatives, as they started the construction of their family trees.

Secondly, the inscriptions on the headstones are still readable for graves occupied within the last 100 years, especially on the durable stones such as granite or marble. Those carved into softer stones such as sandstone or limestone, do suffer erosion, even in the relatively unpolluted air of our beautiful parish, and of course, the colonisation of lichens on some of the softer stones can eventually obscure the monumental mason's work.

Thirdly, the cross reference for all these more recent burials, is the Parish Register of Burials, which was held securely in the vestry. All earlier registers are deposited with the Surrey Family Records Centre at Woking, where they are available for inspection along with all the other parish and civil registers throughout Surrey.

It has to be said that the Burials Register is fairly simple to transcribe but the incumbents during the past 100 years varied enormously in their ability to write legibly, and sometimes in the accuracy of their entries. So the resulting database does sometimes contain alternate spellings of the deceased where either the vicar or the verger spelled the name one way, and the monumental mason interpreted his instructions differently.

The database exists only for burials commencing November 1891 and is continuous until the latest entries, which are now a few years old. At present there are 867 persons recorded, but that is only a fraction of the number of people buried in the graveyard of our ancient and beautiful church. The transcribed register is numbered 13, but for fear of being persuaded to venture back into earlier times, I have not enquired about the whereabouts or condition of the previous 12 registers.

I do know however, that it becomes increasingly difficult to read the earlier registers, as I have on microfiche every church register for the parish of South Petherton, Somerset, where my father's family resided since 1680, and probably earlier. Before 1837, when civil registration became the norm, the majority of surviving records are Parish Church Registers of Births, Marriages and Burials. The parish vicars were all too aware of the cost of paper and before the introduction of standard register formats, some vicars decided their stipend would stretch a lot further if they wrote in the tiniest of handwriting and often crammed 30 or 40 burials onto one small page.

Depending upon the parish, and often on the education of the vicar, the records pre-1800 may be in Latin; the even earlier entries are in old English and they become quite difficult to decipher. Whether the Mickleham Registers follow that format, I am not too sure, but at some time I may be persuaded to delve further back than 1891. In the context of what has been done by thousands of volunteer genealogists throughout the country in transcribing church registers, our own Parish Burial database has hardly been started.

I am sure the curious amongst you will want to see what a typical database entry looks like. I hope the publication of the following record (see below) does not cause any distress, but it should be remembered that most of the civil records of births, deaths and marriages, are published on the internet for all to view. Additionally, census records are now being published on the internet from 1861 for ten yearly intervals until 1901, which is the latest census to be released under the 100 year privacy rule. This is one of our more famous memorials as it features the death of one of the pioneering aviators.

The full format of the database also includes the facility for entering details of undertakers' cremations, coroner's reports and side notes made in the Register by the vicar or verger.

The full computer record can simply be searched by name, register entry, date of birth and death, and any word appearing in the text. In the example below, the unfortunate aviator David Gilmour is cross referenced with two other occupants of the same double grave, each of whom have their own entry in the database.

I am sure the graveyard is a serene resting place for the people of the parish and even those who have chosen in more recent decades to be cremated, have their ashes in the graveyard. I imagine there will be scope for elaborating on some of the burials and maybe I will be tempted to find out where those earlier registers are kept.

Meanwhile, I am off on holiday on an aeroplane now; I hope I have better luck than Mickleham's pioneering aviator. Roger Clark

Grave type: Grey granite, tall monumental, carved Celtic cross surmounting a two- stage, chamfered, granite plinth. Grey granite bevelled kerb. In the bed is a separate granite plinth covered by a white marble tablet with aircraft. Grave condition: The inscriptions cut into the lower granite plinth are difficult to read but are capable of being traced. The names on the upper plinth are more easily read. The cross and its column are in fine condition.
Inscription l: Upper plinth front: DAVID GILMOUR / BORN 5th JULY 1842 / DIED 8th MARCH 1907 / MARGARET JANE GTLMOUR / BORN 12th SEPTEMBER 1849 / DIED 2nd DECEMBER 1910
Inscription 2: Lower plinth front: SHE WILL DO HIM GOOD AND NOT EVIL ALL THE DAYS OF HER LIFE/ HER CHILDREN RISE UP AND CALL HER BLESSED / HER HUSBAND ALSO AND HE PRAISETH HER
Inscription 3: Upper plinth right side: DOUGLAS GRAHAM GTLMOUR / BORN 7th MARCH 1885
Lower plinth right side: KILLED IN AN AEROPLANE ACCIDENT /AT RICHMOND/ 17th FEBRUARY 1912