THE Binsted Annetts are off to the Holy Cross font again to baptise a second daughter, baby Jenny, during an especially cold March. We must hope that the party are all well wrapped up against the chill, the temperature registering -1.3ºC below the average ... ... So I find that these “blog” things raise more questions than they answer. For example, how do I know that the baptism really takes place in the church and the vicar doesn’t sally forth into the community to baptise the baby in situ? How many people are there in the baptism party? Would toddler Mary be allowed to watch her sister being welcomed into the world?  And why, once again, is the ceremony on a week day? How often is the recommendation of baptising on a Sunday really followed? Is this the norm for Binsted? What do other Binsted families do?
Well, after consulting the Binsted parish register for 1755, I see that of the thirty baptisms performed this year, only two take place on a Sunday. The most common day in 1755 is a Friday, with twelve out of the thirty baptisms being carried out on that day. Jenny’s day—Monday—is one third as common, with three other baptisms held on a Monday this year. Tuesdays have five, Wednesdays and Saturdays three each, and one baptism takes place on a Thursday.
So much for Sunday baptisms. Finding answers for the other questions is somewhat trickier, so today I’m filling the cosmic vacuum of my ignorance by adding a thumbnail (it links to a larger image) of Gainsborough’s ‘Drover with Calves in a Country Cart’. It was sketched about 1755 and probably represents a scene with which our Annetts were familiar. The rutted muddy track, the preponderance of wood over metal, the coarse, serviceable fabrics of the drover’s clothing, the distant meadows and hills, more open than today, and a soundtrack of not much more than the clopping of hooves, clonking of wheels, snorting of muzzles, chinking of harness, blurting of calves, and perhaps the odd trill of birdsong. Is the drover nodding off?