Appendix 1
Extracts from “Thoughts on an Inscription in Singleton Church. James Sicklemore, 17th Century Rector .” by Jean T. de Marney, 1981“
Behind the lectern in Singleton Church, near Chichester, Sussex is a pillar which has acquired much graffiti over the centuries. Immediately obvious is “CARTER BAMFORD 1600 LUDIMA” and below it is “JOHN COURT 1616”, but only in recent years has another name “JAMES SICKLEMORE” been deciphered somewhat lower down and to the left.” .....“
The term “Ludima” which follows seems most likely to be short for the Latin word Ludimagister, literally a master of games, but also having the meaning of schoolmaster.” ..... “There is no direct evidence that James Sicklemore was the schoolmaster in Singleton but he had been a schoolmaster in both Cuckfield, Sussex, and Charlwood, Surrey, for, in all, some twelve years previously. What is more natural that he should continue to teach in his new parish even though he was now rector instead of curate, particularly as the earliest account of him shows him conducting a catechism class for children of the parish.” ...
“His main claim to local fame is not through his profession of schoolmaster or his office of rector, but by being one of the few clergymen of the Established Church who became Baptists in the troubled period of the Civil War. James Sicklemore was born at Heathfield in the heart of Puritan East Sussex in 1604, the son of the curate, Tristan Sicklemore and his wife Susanna. Perhaps he was named after the new king from Scotland, of whom the Puritans in the Established Church had high hopes at that time, but his name and those of his brothers, Humphrey, Theophilus and Thomas, had no special Puritan flavour. Not so his four half-sisters, who rejoiced in the names of Restored, Constant, Fleesynne and Susanna Sommer. As well as having some Puritan influences in his background, he must also have been brought up in an atmosphere of scholarship. Years later in 1639 his father left him his “books Greek and Latin, divine and humane.” Perhaps it was his father who groomed him for entry as a Sizar (scholar) to St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1622 and gained his Bachelor’s Degree in 1625/6. By this time the Puritan influence at Cambridge was beginning to wane; but there must nevertheless have been sufficient left to inspire the young Sicklemore with the ideals of the earlier Cambridge Puritan Reformers.” ...
“It is evident from his later life that he tried to be the type of preacher they aimed to produce, that is one whose preaching related to everyday life, who depended on no authority but the Bible, and who taught his pupils to verify what he told them by referring to the Bible for themselves. In the Cambridge of his day students for a BA learned rhetoric, logic, metaphysics, Latin and Greek; but theology only entered the curriculum of those who went on to a Master’s degree. He could therefore have studied theology later and have been influenced and, perhaps, acquired his Armenian theological views from the anti-Puritan Bishop of Chichester, George Carleton, who ordained him deacon on 24th December 1626 and priest on 20th May 1627. He could also have been influenced theologically by George Carleton’s son-in-law, William Vivars, vicar of Cuckfield and writer of some theological works, in whose parish Sicklemore was appointed as curate and schoolmaster of the Free Grammar School in 1626, and where he remained for ten years. His bride in 1627/8 was Frances Lacy, a widow, who seems likely to have been William Vicars’ sister, since Sicklemore is described in Vicars’ will as his brother-in-law.” ...
“Such was the background of the man James Sicklemore who came to Singleton as Rector in 1638, with his wife Frances and sons Thomas and James and his daughter Dorothie, presented to the living by his brother Humphrey Sicklemore, a mercer of Ripe in Sussex. Humphrey seems to have acquired the right to present to the living “for this turn” from the local landowner, Lord Lumley, presumably in return for a sum of money. This practice was quite common at the time and was used by the Puritan merchants of the City of London to place their nominees in livings. Lord Lumley may not have been able to charge much as there may not have been a Rectory. In 1635 the Churchwardens describe it as “ruinated and in decay”. James Sicklemore through his brother’s action seems to have had as much security from family patronage as would a younger son of a great land-owning family who had become a rector on the family estates.
At first all seems normal, the Civil War was only a cloud upon the horizon. Within a year in February 1638/9 another daughter, Frances was born and a week or so later Dorothie died. After that the parish register is silent about the Sicklemore family until the birth (but not baptism) in 1654 of a son, Stephen, who died in 1655, and James Sicklemore’s own death in September 1656. These last three entries occur after the introduction of civil registration in 1653 during the Commonwealth. From 1642 to 1652 no deaths are recorded in the register and baptisms are reduced to a trickle. In the latter part of the period baptisms are interspersed with entries referred to only as “borne”. Yet from James Sicklemore’s Will in 1656 it is clear that his wife Frances, his daughter Frances and his son Thomas had died in the meantime and that he had married Elizabeth and three further children, John, another Dorothie and Elizabeth. It is not clear whether all of them were the children of his second wife. At all events at least four (including Stephen) were not recorded in the register as having been baptised in infancy.” ...
“While all accounts of James Sicklemore’s life agree that he became a Baptist the date is quoted as 1648 in later accounts and “about 1640” in the earliest. He is generally reported as famed for his piety, learning and preaching and is said to have given his tithes to the poor. This last suggests that he still collected tithes as Rector or he could not give them away. He is regarded as the founder of the General Baptist Churches in Chichester and Portsmouth and he also preached at Swanmore (near Bishop’s Waltham) where his Will records that he had friends. In 1654 in the company of the much younger and later more famous Matthew Caffyn of Horsham, he attended the General Assembly of the General Baptist Church as a Messenger, whose primary function among General Baptists was to preach the Gospel to the world of unbelievers. The Elder was the pastor of the local church and was helped by Ministers who preached locally and deacons who attended to the finance. The parish register entry of the burial of James Sicklemore refers to him as “the elder” and since his son James was then living in Ireland permanently it does seem possible that it denotes the function of Baptist local pastor rather than the elder of two men named James Sicklemore.
Later accounts tend to gloss over the original cause of the change in Sicklemore’s views, but the earliest, that of Thomas Crosby, which was written in 1738-40, when there must have been people alive whose parents knew Sicklemore, has to me the ring of truth. Crosby places the event about 1640, which seems to tally with the parish register where, after the summer of 1640, which was well before the Civil War, baptisms suddenly reduce in numbers, little more than a year after the last recorded baptism in the Sicklemore family. In this account James Sicklemore was one day explaining the duties of godparents to children baptised in infancy to a class of children in the parish learning their catechism, when one of his hearers asked him for the Scriptural authority of what he said. At the time he defended the practice of infant baptism by reference to the general practice of the Christian Church, but the question led him to further study afterwards. When he could find no Biblical support for the practice he refused to baptise any more children, leaving his parishioners “at liberty to omit their baptism or get other Ministers to baptise them.” He was obviously acting on the Puritan principle that unless a practice could be proved Scripturally it was not acceptable, and he must have already trained his pupils to do likewise. Crosby’s account goes on to record that:
“Tho’ after the change in his principles he continued in his parish, yet he frequently preached in other places, more particularly at Swanmore and Portsmouth. At both of which places, as well as in his own parish, he became instrumental in the hand of God of making and baptising many disciples. This practice he continued until his death, tho’ I cannot obtain the time thereof. From this beginning sprung up the two baptised congregations at Chichester and Portsmouth.”
Crosby’s account suggests to me that James Sicklemore was not replaced in his parish duties until his death,” ...
“After 1650 during the Commonwealth there was a period of general religious toleration. Cromwell’s Triers, whose job it was to ensure that patrons nominated candidates fitted for their calling, included some Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, and so did the men they approved as the new incumbents. Once installed the new incumbent was free to organise his parish as he wished, provided he did not use the Prayer Book. In such a climate it is not difficult to see James Sicklemore, continuing to live in Singleton, giving away his tithes and living off his own land, taking services in the church and acting as Elder of a Baptist congregation in the parish. His periodic journeys farther afield to Chichester, Portsmouth and Swanmore and perhaps even further would have discharged his duty of preaching in his office of Messenger. It seems to me that that was what Crosby meant and Crosby was recording a received tradition of only ninety years standing. Whatever may have happened in those far-off troubled days James Sicklemore is certainly one of the more unusual Rectors of Singleton.”