ual to see the names of women
returned as parish clerks, and we have many who discharge the duties of
churchwarden, overseer, rate-collector, and other parochial offices.

One Ann Hopps was parish clerk of Linton about the year 1770, but
nothing is known of her by her descendants except her name. Madame
D'Arblay speaks in her diary of that "poor, wretched, ragged woman, a
female clerk" who showed her the church of Collumpton, Devon. This good
woman inherited her office from her deceased husband and received the
salary, but she did not take the clerk's place in the services on
Sunday, but paid a man to perform that part of her functions.

The parish register of Totteridge tells of the fame of Elizabeth King,
who was clerk of that place for forty-six years. The following extract
tells its own story:

March 2nd, 1802, buried Elizabeth King, widow, for 46 years
clerk of this parish, in the 91st year of her age, who died
at Whetstone in the Parish of Finchley, Feb. 24th.

N.B.--This old woman, as long as she was able to attend, did
constantly, and read on the prayer-days, with great strength
and pleasure to the hearers, though not in the clerk's place;
the desk being filled on the Sunday by her son-in-law,
Benjamin Withall, who did his best[80].

[Footnote 80: Burn's _History of Parish Registers_, p. 129.]

Under the shade of the episcopal palace at Cuddesdon, at Wheatley, near
Oxford, about sixty-five years ago, a female clerk, Mrs. Sheddon,
performed the duties of the office which had been previously discharged
by her husband. At Avington, near Hungerford, Berks, Mrs. Poffley was
parish clerk for a period of twenty-five years at the beginning of the
last century. About the same time Mary Mountford was parish clerk of
Misterton, near Crewkerne, Somersetshire, for upwards of thirty years. A
female clerk was acting at Igburgh, Norfolk, in 1853; and at Sudbrook,
near Lincoln, in 1830, a woman also officiated and died in the service
of the Church. Nor was the office confined to rural women of the working
class. Mr. Ellacombe remembered to have seen "a gentle-woman acting as
parish clerk of some church in London."

There are doubtless many other instances of women serving as parish
clerks, and one of my correspondents remembers a very remarkable
example.

In the village of Willoughton, Lincolnshire, more than seventy years
ago, there lived an old dame named Betty Wells, who offici