The Parish records are stored at the Suffolk Record Office in Ipswich which offers a search service.
The catalogue to the parish records is now available online at www.suffolkheritagedirect.org.uk. To access the full list use the advanced search option on the Suffolk Record Office collections page and search for Ref No. FB91.
The Register of Baptisms dates from 1538 but the earliest surviving ones for marriages and burials go back only to1614.
E-mail address for contacting the record office in Ipswich: ipswich.ro@suffolk.gov.uk
Incumbents of St Mary-le-Tower
From 1177 until 1538 the Augustinian Priory of Holy Trinity in Ipswich provided the clergy to minister at the Tower.
Thereafter the appointment to the living, which was ” a Perpetual Curacy ” was in the hands of the parishioners.
Nowadays the Vicar of the parish is presented by the Bishop (for three turns out of four, the Church Patronage Trust taking the fourth).
1220 | Turstan (of Ipswich Church) |
1251 | Roger (Chaplain) |
1437 | Nicholas Wymbyssh or Walter Disse |
1443 | Andrew Woodhouse |
1446 | Adam Sabyn |
1449 | Thomas Lamberd |
1451 | William Clerk |
1455 | William Smith |
1464 | John Drayll |
1485 | Thomas Wade |
1499 | Thomas Tybenham |
1510 | William Lark |
1512 | William Baron |
1536 | Thomas Peacock |
1555 | John Somerton |
1555 | Edmund Gooding |
1569 | Hill |
1572 | |
1577 | George Webb |
1582 1587 | poss. William Negus to Leigh (see Denham Classis) |
1587 | John Ward |
1597 | John Shelton |
1606 | Nathaniel Roe |
1609 | Thomas Webb |
1615 | Thomas Nuttall |
1616 | John Ward |
1620 | John Gooding |
1624 | Samuel Ward |
1627 | Jonathan Skinner |
1630 | Richard Raymond |
1632 | Samuel Ward (again) |
1635 | John Ashburne (Ward's Son in Law) |
1636 | Nullus Curatus |
1637 | Gawen Nash |
1642 | William Fincham |
1656 | John Chapman |
1657 | Benjamin Brunning ? |
1662 | John Burrough |
1670 | Hugh Roberts |
1674 | Samuel? Brunning |
1677 | Samuel Golty |
1678 | Joseph Cutlove |
1708 | Thomas Bishop DD |
1737 | Thomas Bishop Junior |
1778 | Thomas Cobbold |
1831 | Francis Cobbold |
1838 | William Nassau Leger (later St Leger) |
1861 | James Robert Turnock |
1890 | Ythil Arthur Barrington |
1904 | William Pigot |
1915 | Hamilton Douglas-Hamilton |
1924 | Arthur Wallace |
1928 | Arthur Streeten |
1942 | Richard Babington |
1958 | Basil Spurgin |
1972 | Geoffrey John Tarris |
1982 | Keith Brynmor Jones |
1996 | Peter K Townley |
2008 | Charles Jenkin |