Church first and Church last - Filey methodists and St Oswald's
From the book "Filey - a Yorkshire fishing town" by Irene E Allen and Andrew A Todd
CHURCH FIRST AND CHURCH LAST! - This well known Filey saying explains the curious fact that many of the Primitive Methodists had their children baptised at St Oswalds, and not at their own chapel. Staunch ranters also acknowledged that it should be the burial rites of the Church of England that dispatched them to eternity. Since St Oswald's has always been the only burial yard in the town, however, those Primitive Methodists who had qualms about the established church could have a service at their chapel first prior to their internment at the parish church. Joint burial services, too, were a common solution amongst the fisher people, the chapel intendant reading the lesson.
Fisher funerals in Filey were very special occasions. Elizabeth Hunter, who lived next door to Mr T Chapman, the undertaker, on Queen Street saw a lot of them! The coffin would be rested on trestles outside the deceased house on the day of the burial. Foster lived in Ebenezer Terrace just next to Church Street and so often witnessed the coffins carried by fishermen, always in their best ganseys, followed by all the mourners singing appropriate fishermen's hymns. Sometimes the party would stop outside a relative's house, rest the coffin on its trestles, and sing a hymn, prior to the last journey across the Church Bridge to St Oswald's. (Church Ravine and Filey Beck marked the riding boundary, so death could diplomatically be termed "crossing over to the North Riding!)
The funerals of some well known fisher people were deeply impressive. Edmond Jenkinson died in 1910 at the age of 71. He was possibly one of the most respected of the Filey Primitive Methodist Society, having been actively connected with the chapel for over half a century. His photograph hung over the pulpit there. In later life, he ceased fishing and became a street sweeper: it is said that his progress along a street would silence swearing amongst an assembled group of even the coarsest men! He was Sunday School Superintendant, and evidently kept a tight rein on children. Mary Elizabeth Robinson recalls how they would cut through "Salvation Army passage" to Queen Street. "He's always used to send us back, and it was a short cut", she told us; "He died the very time when King Edward died - I was 14 - I'd left school when he died". On the day of his funeral, 9th May 110, it is said that not a boat went to sea from Filey, Scarborough, Flamborough or Bridlington.
One such solemn occasion had been uneceremoniously interuptted three years earlier when the alarm was given that a French lugger had gone ashore. The Filey Post (26th October 1907) reported how the Churchyard was abandoned as the town's fishermen, most of whom were attending the funeral, rushed down to the beach to give help! The lugger, however, had managed to get out of trouble herself, and so the funeral (of Richard "Old Baggy" Jenkinson'd wife) could continue as normal.
OTHER ARTICLES
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• Primitive Methodism amongst the Scarborough Filey and Flamborough fishing communities
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• aThe coble boats of Filey Flamborough and Runswicks Bay
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• Trawling and overfishing - Filey fishing
• Sea shanties and the filey Fishermen's choir
• Tunny fishing in Scarborough in the 1930's
• Drink and alcohol in the Filey fishing community
• Suzanne Pollard and her Filey Fishing relatives
• The Crimlisk fishing family history in Scarborough Filey and Hull
• Hinderwells account of the first launch of the Scarborough Lifeboat in 1802
• The loss of the Scarborough trawler Heritage in 1993
• The early years of the Scarborough Lifeboat
• Losses amongst Filey fishing cobles
• Charles Dickens account of Filey and Scarborough graveyards
• Filey and its early fishing industry
• Tragedies in the Jenkinson fishing family in Filey
• Tommy Rowley - stories about loss of life at sea
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