Hi Tony - Evidently, from what Canon Hammond said, burials within the church at St. Austell mainly concerned those who could/would pay; it wasn't necessarily a sign of rank, or accomplishment. Hammond pointed out, specifically, that the cost was low; in St. Austell, the 1897 equivalent of one pound! Therefore, three persons who were not parishioners were allowed burial in the church - which must have surprised him, and been unusual in church circles, for him to include that detail. However, as space grew precious, choice of who was allowed burial in the church became limited - and the family standing in the parish was probably one very important deciding factor. Certainly, the practice of letting non-parishioners have the honour ceased! While the majority of persons buried within the church were gentry, such as the Carlyons and Julyans, and many of them male, wives and children were buried there who most probably would not have been considered 'important' to the parish. Which leads us back to which families could pay the fees, and which families were considered important. (And your family must have been considered important!) And as was pointed out, the practice ended up with those people having no memorials, when the bones were removed, and reburied elsewhere. Not precisely what those people expected, most probably. Cheers, Julia M., OPC for St. Austell, Charlestown, Treverbyn, St. Blazey, and Par West Briton Transcriptions, 836--856 at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wbritonad St. Austell Area History and Genealogy at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~staustell (full transcriptions of BMDs, non-conformist records, manorial and tax records, photographs, and history (including articles re mining) and West Briton articles) Cornwall OPC at http://cornwall-opc.org > > Message: < > Date: Sun, 3 Jan 013 4::0::5 -500 (EST) > From: Tony Bennett <[email protected]@aol.com> > Subject: Re: [CORNISH-GEN] Burials in the C. of E. registers, marked > with C or Church, etc. > To: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]@webmail-d62..sysops.aol.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > > Hi Julia > > Given your remark about the cost, can we assume that those buried in the church were a little better off than the majority of those buried? There are numerous such burials in Camborne including several of my ancestors and their families, and I always assumed that it was a mark of their standing in the parish, rather than the simple matter of cost. For example those who had served as churchwardens, or held other parish offices, seem to have been buried in the church. > > best wishes > > Tony > > Tony Bennett > Cheshire, UK >