MASSIVE OAK CHEST

Carved on the front is “Hinckley Towne Chest 1613 Nove 14”, and also inside
the lid is carved “1613”. The carved oak feet are not old. The chest has four
hinges, and formerly had four locks. The usual number of locks is three: one key was held by the vicar, or parish clerk, and one by each of the churchwardens.
Who held the fourth? This was possibly the Town Marshal who was elected
annually, at the same time as the wardens. The town chest was used for keeping valuable records and documents (it is now empty!).
 

ST PAUL’S BELL
High above the chest you will see the bell from the former St Paul’s Church which stood at the corner of Highfields Road and Leicester Road. It was placed here in 1995 to commemorate St Paul’s, which was sold and demolished in
1993. It can be made to ring, and at present is used to announce the arrival of the bride!

Tower Arch with the oak and glass screen (2004)

TOWER ARCH
Perhaps the finest architectural feature of the church is this arch (early fourteenth
century). It is four-centred, the upper curves of which are very flat,
without capitals, and with ribs at each angle running from floor to the point of
the arch.

This beautifully carved oak chest was given by Michael Messenger in 1641, as
the inscription states, when George Warin and William Keene were
churchwardens.

 EDWARD KEM JARVIS
There is a brass plaque recording the death of this important Hinckley man
mounted near the tower arch. Born in 1805, he challenged many injustices in
his working life, the main one being the Truck practice: local frame work knitting
employers paid their workers with money that could only be spent at the
local Truck shop. It was a time of terrible poverty and suffering for many
people in Hinckley, with a slump in the hosiery trade. In 1829 sixty six percent
of the town’s people were on poor relief. He set up an independent factory and
paid his workers real wages. He helped workers organise petitions to the government,
and he co-founded a bank to help fund local industry and workers,
qualified as a solicitor, and by 1838 he was listed as Clerk to the Hinckley
Magistrates. He was acclaimed for the meticulous and thought-provoking evidence
which he gave to the Royal Commission into the conditions of the Frame-
Work Knitters in 1844. He died in 1853 and is buried in a vault beneath the
floor of this church.

St Mary’s is a Fair Trade church.

Our Traidcraft Stall sells a wide
selection of tea and coffee, chocolate, dried fruit, etc as well as lots of
beautiful hand crafted goods.’
Traidcraft aims to improve the livelihood of their third world producers. This
means:
• respect for people and the environment
• a long term relationship of partnership & co-operation
• ensuring working conditions are better than average
• paying people in the third world fair prices
In 2006 we sold over £14,000 of Traidcraft goods.

A silver paten with foot (same size as above) but weighing 340.2g and two silver communion cups (each 21½ cm high and 12 cm in diameter,
weighing 567g), all three with coats of arms and crests and inscription: “The gift of Constance Wightman, late wife of John Wightman, to the
Parish Church of Hinckley, 1659.” It is interesting that there is a gap of twenty years between the gift of the first piece and the other three pieces.
This must have had something to do with the Civil War which ended with the execution of the King in 1649, and the Commonwealth, when the services and sacraments of the church were severely limited, and which ended in 1659. Perhaps Mrs Wightman wanted to be sure that the future of the church was secure before she completed her gift! All these pieces, together with other silver items are now deposited in a local bank for safe keeping, and photographs of the deposited silver can be seen near the Tower arch. There are also several chalices and patens which are in
regular use, the oldest being a silver gilt chalice and paten made in 1894. A large silver flagon, 30 cm high, and weighing 1.466kg was given by the Women’s Bible Class in 1915.
 

In 1809 the Bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese Hinckley then was, made one
of his rare visits to St. Mary’s and confirmed 566 persons! (Recorded by John
Nichols)

HYMN BOOKS

were first introduced into St Mary’s about 1855, with the
result that many members of the congregation refused to stand during the singing of the hymns (hymns were seen by traditionalists as ‘Methodist’!)

ABSENTEE VICAR
The Churchwardens’ Accounts for 1810-1860 record a public meeting in 1855 which resolved unanimously “That the vicar of this parish not having now for more than a year and a half done any single act of duty within his cure, and that by his continual non-residence the spiritual welfare of the parish is of necessity much endangered, he the said vicar, shall be through the Bishop, called upon 14th Century Tower Stairs  either to permanently reside within the said parish or resign his living”. As the
vicar remained at Hinckley till 1865 presumably he reformed his ways. But this meeting shows that church people would no longer put up with idle, absentee clergy who sadly had been a common feature of the Church of England in the previous century.

JOHN CLEVELAND & THE CIVIL WAR
During the Civil War Hinckley mainly supported Parliament. In March, 1644, 350 Royalist horsemen arrived in Hinckley with prisoners who were lodged in the church. The Vicar, Thomas Cleveland and John Oneby, the owner of Priory House whose monument is in the chancel, were Royalists. Thomas Cleveland, instituted in 1621, was the father of John Cleveland, the most popular poet of the Civil War period. Both suffered from their support of the Royalist cause. John’s name is perpetuated in Hinckley by John Cleveland College, one of the largest comprehensive schools in Leicestershire.