Introduction

Summary

THIS volume is intended to continue the previous volume issued in this series, in which the replies to queries for Cornwall were published. In the introduction to that volume will be found an account of the procedure of, and records left by, episcopal visitations and some notes on the interpretation of the several queries. All those matters apply equally to this volume. Here it should be added that the 1821 replies to queries are the last of a series of four in the Devon Record Office (Exeter Diocesan Records), dated 1744, 1765, 1779 and 1821. Fragments for other years also exist. In the earlier introduction there was also given a brief survey of conditions existing in Cornwall in 1821, as illustrated by the text of the replies to queries. What follows is an attempt to provide the same kind of survey for the county of Devon.

There are 387 replies from Devon clergy, covering 415 parishes or chapelries. The exact number of clergy to whom the queries were originally sent is now impossible to determine. Altogether the replies from about 48 were ei ther not sent in, or were subsequently mislaid by the registrar. Gaps in the records have been filled in as far as possible by printing the entries in the bishop's summary books. This has produced some information, chiefly on the residence of the clergy, for a further 19 parishes. The total of parishes covered is therefore brought up to 434. There remain perhaps 29 unaccounted for.

DEVON IN 1821

The Parishes

The 1821 census figures for Devon provide an admirable survey of the county, and a background against which to read the story of the accompanying replies. Exeter and Plymouth distinguish themselves as two greaturban areas, Exeter wi th a population of 23,459, Plymouth (the three parishes of Charles, St Andrew and Stoke Damarel) with 55,582. These two areas differed from each other markedly in the character of their parochial organization. Exeter, the ancient cathedral city, had about a score of churches and a closely entangled web of parochial boundaries, but it contained both tiny decayed parishes and large unwieldy over populated ones also.