The Ryburgh Parish Magazine,
dating from 1910 has been preserved among the Parish records held in
the Norfolk Record Office and seems to have been the Rector's own bound
copies. The first issue was published before the Revd. Hugh Tatham arrived
in the village. It is not clear if there had been such a publication immediately
prior to his incumbency, though his father, George Tatham had perhaps regularly
produced a Ryburgh Almanack printed on one side of a sheet as seen below
in a remaining fragment from 1884:
This first Ryburgh Parish Magazine was similarly a single sheet though printed on
both sides. It soon increased to two and then more to include advertisements to
help fund it:
This first edition as can be seen above is badly foxed and so the reverse has been
transcribed below:
My dear friends and future Parishioners,
I feel I need not apologise for calling you friends for
some of you, at any rate have known me in days gone by and
I trust when I do come to reside among you we may shortly
all become friends and that the happy relations between parish
priest and people may be the same as they were when my dear
father was Rector of Ryburgh.
I do however owe you an apology for the delay in this
month’s issue of the Parish Magazine, which delay is due to
many things over which I have no control. I hope in future
the issue of the Magazine may be nearer the beginning of each
month and that you will all like the Magazine I have chosen
for the parish.
The picture on the outside is copied from a drawing made
probably over 40 years ago by the Rev. Moxon once Vicar of
Hempton
I am sorry to say I shall not be able to come into residence
at the Rectory till after Easter. The delay is due to the state
of the Rectory, for as some of you well know a tremendous
amount of repairs have had to be done. These could not be
finished and the house be in a proper condition for me to
bring my family to till well into February, so that long ere we
were settled, Lent ( being early this year) would be more than
half over and no Parochial or Lenten work would be done.
At the same time I should be leaving this parish and so upsett-
ing the work here, so that after mature deliberation and after
consultation with the Bishop of Lincoln and with other able
and kind friends it has been thought best for both parishes
that I should remain here and finish my work here at Easter
and then make my new start at Ryburgh immediately after.
Wishing all readers of the Magazine a very happy New
Year and looking forward to many happy years in your midst,
I am,
Your future Rector and friend,
FREDERICK HUGH TATHAM.
In spite of the assertion that the illustration is taken from a drawing of a former
Hempton Rector, he in turn must have copied it from J.B. Ladbrooke's engraving
of c 1832 where the North Transept is shown still complete with its east facing
Norman windows!
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February 1910 was produced in the same format and though not yet resident,
FHT was starting to set out his stall:
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March 1910 was a very lean issue:
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April 1910 was of a similar brevity:
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May 1910 saw the cover printed indicating the month and rather more
in the way of content, as he was by then at the helm and had held his first
Vestry meeting. A condensed version of the minutes of that meeting and
publication of the previous year's accounts was also included.
The entry in the Vestry Book is added below:
This Vestry Minute Book was started in 1890 with the beginning of new Rector,
Revd.Henry Fowler Baker's Tenure. All the Vestry records up to this time
have been lost and it is tempting to speculate that this had some thing to
do with the unfortunate incumbency of the Revd.Morris Fuller immediatey
prior to this:
After the entry for August 1894 the Vestry minute book becomes far
less useful for Parish History as two new separate Parish Councils for
Great and Little Ryburgh came into being that year. It is a source of
similar regret that none of their records seem to have survived from
that time with the exception of the Members Declarations on Acceptance
of Office books which I was was able to photograph before they too
managed to go missing:
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June 1910 and the thought that things in the parish had rather "slipped"
of late is increasingly noticeable as F.H.T. continues to take charge of
his new parish in his old home:
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July 1910 and after only a few months in post the format is becoming
increasingly "chatty" !
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August 1910 Perhaps F.H.T. thought he had conveyed the wrong impression
in being chatty as it didn't mean he wasn't going to run things his way.
We now have the follow up declaration of intent to restore the church with
the help of John Ninian Comper and he drops the "faithful and friend to the
village" elements for a few issues:
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No copy of the September 1910 issue is bound up in this volume and
thus the next issue is:
October 1910 and we find a Rector determined to take control of his flock.
One wonders what was expected of the parish in the missing issue.
How times have changed!
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November 1910 and the magazine has gained another page to cope with the
obituary following the death of George Cheape Stark:
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December 1910 and a "typo" that must have caused a degree of upset to
F.H.T. We have become two pages and are looking for more adverts to help
finance the first issue of 1911:
This concludes the first year of the Ryburgh Parish Magazine and the beginning of the influence
of the Reverend Frederick Hugh Tatham on the village .