Parish magazine

A parish magazine is a periodical produced by and for an ecclesiastical parish, generally within the Anglican Church. It usually comprises a mixture of religious articles, community contributions and parish notices, including the previous month‘s christenings, marriages and funerals. Magazines are sold or are otherwise circulated amongst the parishioners of the relevant church or village. They are almost invariably produced by volunteers, usually working alongside the resident clergy. From their earliest days they have frequently been augmented by the inclusion of a nationally-produced magazine supplement or a regionally produced insert, such as a diocesan news leaflet or similar publication (and sometimes they might include both). It has been estimated that the collective readership of parish magazines exceeds that of many national newspapers. Similar magazines have also been produced by other religious denominations, including the Church of Scotland.

Parish magazines were arguably foreshadowed by the sporadic printed notices or pastoral letters, issued to the local community by parish clergy or by the more senior clergy and found very occasionally amongst 19th-century parish archives. However the first regular parish magazine is generally recognised as being started in January 1859 by Rev. John Erskine Clarke, Vicar of St Michael's, Derby. (Rival claims have sometimes been made for Rev. W. J. E. Bennett's Old Church Porch , issued at Frome in 1854.) Erskine Clarke had prepared a number of publications which were particularly aimed at children and which were designed to counteract the commercial publications then appearing. He later produced a sixteen-page periodical, which bore on the page headings the literal title The Parish Magazine. It contained general interest material, often with a strong moralising edge. The idea was that this inset should be offered to parishes to include within their own localised covers, which would very often comprise no more than four printed pages.

Starting with fifty-four parishes, the circulation of the Parish Magazine was eventually extended to over two hundred churches. Whilst Clarke’s inset continued to appear until 1895, competitors soon emerged and it was eventually overtaken by other alternatives. Many publishers began to produce rival insets - over thirty such examples have been described and listed. The last two of these national examples, Home Words and The Sign finally merged in 2009. For an analysis of these insets up to 1918 see Jane Platt, '"A sweet, saintly Christian business"? The Anglican Parish Magazine, 1859-1918' (Lancaster University PhD thesis, 2010). One or two of the earlier insets had also been produced on a regional or diocesan basis. Eventually the assortment of Diocesan Magazines which were increasingly appearing in many areas would often include a short monthly news bulletin in a design which could similarly be included as a parish magazine inset.

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