Bishop Shute Barrington
Bishop Shute Barrington was a significant figure in the history of parish registers and in particular for us, marriage records. He asked that all parish registers in Durham and Northumberland be kept in much greater detail than previously and thus records between the years of 1797 and 1812 contain added detail such as parents’ abode and employment. Offering extremely valuable information for the time, much can be gleaned even from siblings’ records.
Shute Barrington was born as the son of John Shute Barrington (1st Viscount Barrington) and Anne, daughter of Sir William Daines, at Beckett Hall in Shrivenham, Berkshire, on the 26th of May 1734. As one of five sons, he was educated first at Eton College and then Merton College at Oxford and he became Bishop of Llandaff in 1769 following his holding of some minor dignities. Finally in 1791 he became Bishop of Durham after a period as Bishop of Salisbury commencing in 1782. Although a strict protestant he granted Catholics “every degree of toleration short of political power and establishment”. During his life he published several volumes of sermons and tracts, and wrote about the political life of his elder brother, William Barrington (2nd Viscount Barrington), who was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1761-2.
He was married to his first wife, Lady Diana Beauclerk, on the 2nd of February 1761, but she sadly died in childbirth, the child unfortunately being stillborn. He married again, this time to Jane Guise, on the 20th of June 1770, but there were no children. Ultimately Shute Barrington died, on the 25th of March 1826, in Soho in Middlesex and is buried at Mongewell Church, near his home at Mongewell Park, close to Wallingford, Oxfordshire.
Most of the marriage records contained in the Joiner Marriage Index for Durham and Northumberland are transcribed from original parish registers, but there are some records containing the extra detail from the Bishops’ Transcripts in the short period 1797-1812.
