List of Houghton Regis Vicars and Curates

Advowson

Volume III of The Victoria County History for Bedfordshire was published in 1912. It states that the advowson of Houghton Regis Church was the Lord of the Manor. The early history suggests that Houghton was given to Earl Robert of Gloucester by Henry I. Earl William, son of Earl Robert, granted Houghton Church to St. Albans Abbey in 1153.  The monks assigned it with other property to the cellarer of the abbey, that he might out of the profits attend to the repairing of the building, commissariat and duties of hospitality.  Henry II early in his reign seized the church, but gave it back to the monastery almost immediately, and it was confirmed to them by Richard I, John, Henry III and Edward I.  The advowson remained in the hands of the abbey until the Dissolution. Elizabeth granted it for a term of years to Edward Wingate, while James I made a grant of it to Thomas Marbury and Richard Cartwright. From them it passed to Thomas Lord Brackley; the occasion is unknown, but possibly the fact of Richard Cartwright being a relative of Lord Brackley's wife and a protégé of Lord Brackley himself may have some bearing on the point. Lord Brackley died seized of it in 1617 and was succeeded by his son John first Earl of Bridgewater, who alienated the advowson to Henry Brandreth in 1653. Henceforward the descent of the advowson is the same as that of the manor of Houghton (q.v.).

List of Vicars and Curates

• 1226 – Stephen de Herdewicke
• 1241 – Roger
• 1265 –Walter de Cameseya
• John de Dunstaple
• 1272 – William de Labho
• 1283 – Walter de Kemesey
• 1291 – Simon de Wendover
• Adam de Sewell
• 1336 – William de Eyton
• 1337 – Robert de Morton
• John Waleys
• 1412 – John Buneker
• 1448 – Thomas Copto
• 1458 – Robert Russell
• 1459 – Robert Tomlynson
• 1481 – Thomas Standyssh MA
• 1493 – William Walley - 20 Oct 1493
• 1506 – Thomas Rither - 21 Jun 1506
• 1526 & 1534 – William Fossey - 1526 and 1534
• 1554 – John Cowper - 14 Nov 1554
• 1557 – Maurice Penyall - 14 Nov 1557
• 1563 – George Johnson - 24 Mar 1563
• 1567 – George Mydelton - 29 Aug 1567
• 1588 – John Fabian AM - 4 May 1588
• 1588 – Thomas Butler - 14 Nov 1588
• 1588 – Roger Rogers - 11 Dec 1588
• 1607 – Thomas Tompkins
• 1659 – Richard Scott
• Littlejohn
• 1660 – Andrew Cater
• 1661 – James Paddon
• 1704 – Valentine Cressy BA
• 1728 – Jacobus Bradshaw
• 1739 – John Wilkinson STB
• 1759 – Potts Davies BA
• 1768 – Edmund Wodley BA
• 1808 – Thomas Cave MA
• 1819 – John Donne
• 1846 – William Wilson
• 1856 – Hugh Blagg Smyth MA
• 1880 – Daniel Pring Alford
• 1883 – William Faux Lovell
• 1889 – William Wedge
• 1912 – Frederick Charles Mahony
• 1928 – Charles Henry Fletcher
• 1952 – Leslie Blackburn
• 1975 – Geoffrey Martin Neal
• 1996 – Jonathan F. Redvers Harris
• 2003 – Brian Clifford Wheelhouse
• 2015 – Diego Galanzino M.A

Ecclesiastical Census

On Sunday 30th March 1851 a census of all churches, chapels and preaching-houses of every denomination was undertaken in England and Wales. The local results were published by Bedfordshire Historical Records Society in 1975 as Volume 54, edited by D. W .Bushby. The return for Houghton Regis church was made by the incumbent who noted the following pieces of information:

• 490 free seats
• General Congregation 87 in the morning, 230 in the afternoon;
• Sunday scholars: 91 in the morning, 350 in the afternoon