PARISH CHURCH OF WEAVERHAM n i^Uu 228

xxxviii, 29-31. The Bradshawe who was the incumbent about 1650 is said to have been a kinsman of John Bradshaw, the judge and regicide, but this is almost certainly inaccurate. In the only document bearing his signature which survives at Weaverham¹¹ the name is given as " P. Bradshawe." Without additional information it is impossible to identify him with known contemporaries of this name. His successor, John Holland (1631-1668), was ordained at Wcavcrham 9th July, 1656, and was Vicar till 1662, when he conformed and was re-appointed, retaining the benefice till his death in 1668.¹² Edward Mainwaring was collated a prebendary of Chester in 1747, and was buried in St. Mary's Chapel in the Cathedral, where the inscription on his gravestone describes him as " polite, learned, ingenious, good." Thomas Hunter (1712-1777) was the author of several notable books, including Observations on Tacitus (1752) and A Sketch of the Philosophical Character of Lord Bolingbroke (1770). A notice of him appears in the D.N.B. Dr. Blackburne was Warden of the Collegiate Church of Manchester and a Feoffee of Chctham's Hospital from 1800 till his death. A biography of him is given by F. R. Raines in Rectors of Manchester, etc. (diet. Soc., N.S. 6), ii, 175-6. R. V. Law was the son of Bishop Law and became a Prebendary of Chester. I have to thank Mr. Ernest Axon for many of the facts and references relating to the seventeenth century vicars.

the registers and records

The Registers date from 1576 and the Records from 1630. On the front page of the Register Book, 1576 to 1619, is written :—

" A note of a Constitution for keeping register

bookes in Churches, xxv Octob., 1597, Eliz. xxxix.

"A letter to his churchwarden, Thomas Lowe, without date, but from an entry in the churchwarden's accounts seems to be 1655. Lowe was warden 1653, 1654, and 1C55.

" Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienscs (1922).