Henry VIII ordered that parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials be kept from 1538. Very few have survived from this date. Elizabeth I repeated her father’s order in 1558 and then ordered that parish registers be kept on parchment (rather than more vulnerable paper) in 1597. More registers survive from this date.

Parish registers are the most used sources at county archives. They are often used to trace researchers’ family history, but also contain information that can be useful to different types of researchers.

Most of the people of African descent living in this country during the eighteenth-century were men. Some historians* suggest that 80% of the Black population would have been male. This reflects the ratio of men to women forcibly transported from Africa to the West Indies and America.

Most of the men and women of African descent living in Britain at this time worked as servants. It is not always clear whether their official legal status was free or enslaved.

Eighteenth-century British newspapers contained advertisements for men, women and children who had run away from their enslavers. The adverts offer rewards for the return of the owners’ “property”. Many of these men and women are referred to as servants.

*See David Olusoga “Black and British: A Forgotten History”, London 2016. His discussion of the work of Felicity Nussbaum a scholar of the eighteen-century.

Malcolm Patterson is mentioned in this parish register entry as the husband of Mary Patterson who was buried on 8 May 1780. Malcolm is described as a labourer. This is the only incidence that we have of a man of African descent who was not working as a servant in Northumberland at this time. It is also the only evidence of a married man.

It is very likely that Mary was white. As there were very few women of African descent in Britain at the time (see above), Black men tended to marry and have families with white women.

Hartley Pans is now known as Seaton Sluice. From the Middle Ages until the late eighteenth-century there were salt pans in the area. Sea water was evaporated in the pans and the salt that remained dug up to be sold. Malcolm may have worked in the production of salt. It is also possible that he was attracted to Seaton Sluice by its industrial boom. The Delaval family sunk mines, expanded the natural harbour and built a glass bottle works in the village during the eighteenth-century.

Documents from the eighteenth-century regularly use language that is unacceptable. People of African descent were often called “negroes” as in this parish register.