| Description | Containing: various accounts, vestry minutes, papers concerning charities, memoranda concerning the Church, extracts from the Church Book, and other material.
Includes the following:
Copy of Act abolishing compulsory Church Rates, 31 July 1868;
Extracts relating to the trust set up in will of Ann Carrow (died circa 1744) to purchase coals for the poor;
Extracts from the Church Book covering the years 1707 to 1797, including extracts from wills, memoranda of receipts and of an annuity given by Caius College, an order concerning the almshouse, also contains a terrier of the church yard, 1638, recollections of local inhabitants;
Memorandum of purchase of Cottenham rent charge, October 1824;
Valuation of land at Westwick near Cottenham and in Holme Fen, Haddenham parish, belonging to the incumbent of St. Michael 1857;
Minutes of vestry meetings, April 1832 to June 1859 (pp. 22-208), interspersed with yearly churchwardens' accounts from 1832, and account of money, including Hovell's donation (Cottenham Rent Charge) coal and bread distributed to the poor;
Motion and committee report concerning burials in the church vaults: with table of fines and fees, 1832; List of subscriptions and a description of the organ, 1832;
Memorandum concerning church furniture and fittings, 1834;
Vestry meeting for new pulpit and List of Subscribers, 1834;
Account of church improvements, 1839 to 1840;
Memorandum that an inscribed tablet was erected to the memory of the late Professor Scholefield, March 1858.
After 1859 (p.208) vestry minutes cease to be entered, but churchwardens' accounts continue till 1902. ( From 1869 to 1900 they contain a list of subscribers to the voluntary church rate which from 1874 is incorporated in the main account, under the title 'Church Rate Account').
From 1866 a sacrament (offertory) account mentions other disbursements than those for the poor.
In 1871 the Cottenham Rent Charge & money distributed to the poor is transferred from the offertory account to a separate charity account, first called 'Fund for the Poor', but after 1893 'Charity Account'.
Offertory and Charity accounts end in 1902.
Church improvement fund exists for 1867 to 1880, 1885, 1898 to 1901.
This section also includes:
Correspondence with Charity Commission concerning the non- return of charity accounts 1861 - 1862, with memoranda concerning the various charities, namely, Ann Carrow (1744), Edward York (1754), Greaves (1666), Forlow (1775), John Hovell (1819), Dr. Duport (1707), Gonville and Caius (1560), Trinity College Money, Clerk's Money, Eliza Woolfe (1566), Lambert Damp's (1593), St. John's College;
List of subscribers to the Beamont Memorial Window, and an account of Beamont's life and death, 1868;
Copy of the report of the Chancel Improvement Committee (incorporating the advise of G. Gilbert Scott) and a list of subscribers 1871;
Churchyard improvement account, 1874;
Copy of curate's licence for Samuel Scott Allunt, and covering letter, 1879;
Memorandum on organ repair 1880;
Plan of new W.C. presented by Master and Fellows of Trinity College 1884;
Loose draft memorandum concerning new pulpit, n.d. (1884);
Church and tower repair account, 1885;
Memorandum on altar cloths, etc. presented to the church, 1893;
Memorandum concerning organ repair and making of new choir vestry, with list of subscriptions, 1893;
Description of new altar cloth and hangings and list of subscriptions, 1894;
Memorandum that new choir stalls were first used on the 60th anniversary of the Queen's accession, 1897;
Memorandum of new indoor porch, restoration of mural decorations, and installation of electric light, 1898;
Report on church improvements, 1899;
Note of removal of font to new position, and of Trinity College's unsuccessful application for union of St. Michael's parish with St. Mary's, 1900;
Report of church improvements, 1901;
Note of encroachment by Gonville and Caius College on the churchyard, 1902.
At the end the book contains:
Bestry minutes of 1851 and 1841 (the latter including an Inventory of church furniture, noted as being correct each year till 1846),
An incomplete index (to p.45);
Letter from Charity Commission concerning accounts, and note of Cottenham Rent Charge, 1865 and 1896. |