Unfortunately for people researching their 19th century ancestors in Hutton Rudby, the registers of baptisms, marriages and burials do not provide a complete and accurate record.

During the years 1831 to 1878, Robert Joseph Barlow was vicar of Rudby-in-Cleveland, which then comprised the villages of Hutton Rudby, Middleton-on-Leven and East Rounton. 

He was a man of many virtues, but attention to paperwork was not one of them, and errors and omissions have been found in the Hutton Rudby registers during his incumbency. 

He appears to have written up the registers from memory or from scraps of notes, and it seems likely that he occasionally misplaced the register books.  He did not send them up for Bishops’ Transcripts. 

Gaps are particularly noticeable in the 1840s when for several years few or no entries were made in the burials and baptisms registers, and the paucity of entries in the marriages register indicates that it may also be incomplete. 

Errors of dates and Christian names have been discovered throughout his time in office, and while some can be ascribed to pressure of circumstances, others cannot. 

Family historians will need to bear this in mind – it may explain some puzzling entries, or the absence of entries they expected to find. There are believed to be no problems with civil registrations. 

Where the registers are deficient, the memorial inscriptions of All Saints’, Rudby-in-Cleveland, may be helpful. 

There are also a few announcements to be found in The Stokesley News & Cleveland Reporter (1 Nov 1842 to 1 Sep 1844 on British Library microfilm at the Middlesbrough Reference Library) and The Cleveland Repertory & Stokesley Advertiser (1 Apr 1843 to 1 Oct 1845, with fragments of one more edition, on British Library microfilm at Middlesbrough Reference Library).

Examples of errors found:-

An example of an error of dates:

In one of Mr Barlow’s few surviving notebooks appears the following jotting:

“Charlotte Sidgwick    Sept 26  - Aged

Mary Imeson  -   aged 30  -  Octr 25

Nancy Suggett aged 81 [?]  Oct 23”

The burial register books record three successive entries: Charlotte Sidgwick buried on 26 Sep 1852 aged 34, Mary Imeson buried on 28 September (but her death certificate gives her date of death as 4 October) and Nanny Sugget buried on 26 September. 

An example of a burial and baptism not recorded:

Bartholomew Goldsborough’s headstone is recorded in the Memorial Inscriptions and his death in 1844 is announced in The Cleveland Repertory & Stokesley Advertiser, while the birth of his posthumous son soon afterwards is to be found recorded in The Stokesley News & Cleveland Reporter.

Three examples of errors in Christian names, found by Beryl Turner:

13 Dec 1855: baptism of John Herring Redhead, son of John & Hannah, Sexhow, farmer.  The father’s name should be William

23 Dec 1871: Dorothy Garbutt, daughter of Thomas & Dorothy Caroline, Hutton, farmer.  The child was called Annie.

17 Jun 1873:  Thomas Watson Garbutt son of Thomas & Sarah, Hutton, farmer.  The mother’s name was Dorothy Caroline.