It is interesting to see the family connections that gave some of the men their Rectorships. Thomas and Henry Malebys when their families were Lords of the Manor and Sir John Fayrfax who was in the same position and finally George and Thomas Worsley when that Hovingham held the Scawton estate.
According to some sources John Blackett was the curate [in the original sense of the word] when he ran the Rievaulx Forge for the Duke of Rutland and the History of Helmsley, Rievaulx and District records him as Vicar of Helmsley from 1547 to 1551 but their authority is Helmsley Parish Magazines of 1886 and 1902 and no record could be found of his institution in the Act Books of the 16th century. As the Duke of Rutland held the advowson of Helmsley church and that of Scawton was held by the Fairfax family it seems unlikely that Blackett could have been curate of both churches at the same time.
The Fairfax rent roll of 1708 has an entry that poses an interesting and insoluble question as Mr Moore and Fra Hick were jointly paying rent of £9 which would have been for a dwelling and some land and in the same year Mr Skelton the Rector was paying £15 8s 4d for the Rectory and more land. Mr Moore is likely to have been either Nathaniel, John or Charles the grandsons of Thomas Moore the Rector from 1622 until 1665 but who was Fra Hick ?
There seem to be two possibilities the first being that Fra was an abbreviation of Francis though no other names were abbreviated and there is no record of a Hick family living in Scawton. The other possibility is that Fra Hick was a Roman Catholic priest and as the list of Recusants showed 13 adult Roman Catholics living in the village and the Fairfaxes of Gilling are known to have been devout Roman Catholics it is possible that he was celebrating mass for Scawton communicants. If that was the case Rector Thomas Skelton was turning a blind eye but whoever Fra Hicks was his tenure was a very short one.
The Yorkshire birthplaces or previous places of residence of several Rectors can be identified by their names and they include Askham, Everley, Garton, Harome, Middleton, Reighton, Sproxton and Yearsley. The name of Thomas Skelton is commemorated by the inscription ‘T Scelton 1676’ on one of the church bells still in the tower which has been summoning the people of Scawton to services for over 300 years and it is possible but not provable that Thomas Storie was a member of the family who were important farm tenants in Old Byland at the end of the 16th century when Mr Storry’s ground was marked on the map drawn by Christopher Saxton in 1598.
Thomas Hudson who was the Rector of Scawton from 1733 until 1772 gave a number of answers replying to questions raised by the Visitation of Archbishop Herring in 1746. They are shown on the next page and provide an insight into the state of religion in Scawton in the middle of the 18th century.
