Schoolmaster or Curate

[Mary C]

The Church of England Clery Data Base seems to include Schoolmasters. There are entries for a Samuel Hieron, vicar of Newnham, Glos in 1662 and at the same time his son Isaac as Schoolmaster but Isaac would have been only about 15 years at the time. He matriculated from Oxford in 1664 and his BA in 1668. I can find no record of him actually being a Vicar although in his father's Will of 1673 he is described as a "Clerk" (i.e. cleric).

I seem to think that at that time being a Schoolmaster led on to being a Vicar, but I'm not sure.

Hope someone can help.
Thanks
Mary
P.S. I have now found his ordination in 1670 on CCeD as a deacon.

[Nicolina]

It was normal for Vicars to also be School teachers, in the days before standard education. Normally it was just a few boys whose parents could afford to pay and was a way of Vicars earning extra money.

[Coromandel]

Just to fill in a bit of background (which you may already know, Mary!): what Samuel and Isaac were signing in 1662 was a declaration of loyalty to the King and a promise to conform to the liturgy of the Church of England:

From the 1662 Act of Uniformity:

'And be it further enacted . . . That every dean, canon, and prebendary of every cathedral or collegiate church, and all masters and other heads, fellows, chaplains and tutors, of or in any college, hall, house of learning, hospital, and every public professor and reader in either of the universities, and in every college elsewhere, and every parson, vicar, curate, lecturer and every other person in holy orders, and every school-master keeping any public or private school, and every person instructing or teaching any youth in any house or private family as a school-master, who upon the first day of May, which shall be in the year of our Lord God 1662, or at any time thereafter, shall be incumbent, or have possession of any deanery, canonry, prebend, mastership, headship, fellowship, professor's place, or reader's place, parsonage, vicarage, or any other ecclesiastical dignity or promotion, or any curate's place, lecture or school, or shall instruct or teach any youth as tutor or schoolmaster, shall before the feast-day of St. Bartholomew, which shall be in the year of our Lord, 1662, or at or before his or their respective admission to be incumbent, or have possession aforesaid, subscribe the declaration or acknowledgement following; (scilicet)
"I A.B. do declare, That it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king; and that I do abhor that traitorous position . . . and that I will conform to the liturgy of the Church of England . . . "[/B]

From the CCEd it looks as if the document signed by Samuel and Isaac is among diocesan records at Gloucestershire Record Office.