THE PARISH REGISTER
SIR,—Mr. John Betjeman is surely in error when he writes (Spectator, August 5) that 'there is no legal power over a parish to force it to put its registers in safe keeping.' Section 1 of the Parochial Registers and Records Measure, 1929, gives the Bishop of every diocese power to direct that parish registers shall be kept in a chest or safe affording security against damage : and Section 4 of the same measure provides that, if, after appro-
. priate inquiry and report, it appears to the Bishop of a diocese in which a diocesan record office has been established that any 'register books in a parish are exposed to danger of loss or damage, he can order that they be deposited in the diocesan record office.
If and when Mr. Betjeman is next in Warwick, he may like to inspect the Coventry Diocesan Record .0ffice, the establishment of which in the Shire Hall some twenty years ago was made possible by co-operation between diocesan and county authorities, and which I hope and assume still functions as admirably as it used to do. He may think it a model of its kind.—Yours faithfully,
MERVYN HAIOH
Argoed, Dolgelley, Merioneth
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