What happened in Banbury?

[chopendoz]

I was laboriously going through the Banbury PR's and noticed sudden surges in the frequency of baptisms - esp around 1870. At first I thought they were just records of triplets withe accasional quads - but when a couple of instance of quins appeared, I began to wonder. Apart from a Victorian fertiltiy drug, I can only assume that the record was not about the actual births but a sudden rush to get all the kids baptised at once. But what was the reason for this? There was a smallpox epidemic that hit Banbury in 1871 but these baptisms were before that. What happened?

... and if anyone can tell me why there were no POTTER births in Banbury between 1720 and 1783, I would be obliged.

[Waitabit]

Perhaps Mr & Mrs Potter weren't ready to oblige.

or did they oblige elsewhere?

[malcolm99]

It looks as though much of the increase in interest in the established religion was down to the work of William Wilson and Henry Back who were vicars at Banbury from 1849. See: https://www.
british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63795

There also seems to have been a collapse in interest in Unitarianism at the same time: https://www.banbury-unitarians.org.uk/history2.php

[chopendoz]

Perhaps Mr & Mrs Potter weren't ready to oblige.

or did they oblige elsewhere?

Sure, but there were 35 or so births in the years prior to 1720 and many more in the year after 1783. In the same period there were only two (male) POTTER marriages and the only POTTER deaths were of adults. It was if they just stopped breeding.

[Coromandel]

Sure, but there were 35 or so births in the years prior to 1720 and many more in the year after 1783. In the same period there were only two (male) POTTER marriages and the only POTTER deaths were of adults. It was if they just stopped breeding.

Here are a few possible explanations:

Families aren't necessarily loyal to a particular denomination: perhaps the Potters tried non-conformity for a while? (I had a quick look at the BMD Registers website and spotted a Banbury Quaker marriage in 1734 for a Sarah Potter, for example.)

The OFHS marriage index seems to have female Potters marrying in Banbury, so perhaps their brothers were finding brides outside of the parish and so getting married elsewhere?

The fact that the only Potter burials were of adults doesn't mean that there weren't any Potter children in Banbury: perhaps they were all very healthy and survived childhood. Or perhaps they were buried in a non-conformist burial ground.

Another possibility is that the pre-1720 Potters aren't connected with the post-1783 ones (the earlier ones could have fizzled out through lack of sons to carry on the name) or that the family moved away and then came back.

You could try widening your search to other sources (e.g. probate records) to see if the Potters were still in Banbury in the mid-eighteenth century.