Vestry effect what would today usually be called a parochial church council, but was also responsible for all the secular parish business now dealt with by civil bodies, such as parish councils. Eventually, the vestry assumed a variety of tasks. It became responsible for appointing parish officials, such as the parish clerk, overseers of the poor, sextons and scavengers, constables and nightwatchmen. At the high point of their powers, just prior to removal of Poor Law responsibilities in 1834, the vestries spent not far short of one-fifth of the budget of the national government itself. More than 15,600 ecclesiastical parish vestries
A Sort of Life frankly with the personal demons he faced in his teens, including an account of several suicide attempts, the resulting psychoanalysis his father arranged for him and his brief fascination with Russian roulette. A Sort of Life A Sort of Life is the first volume of autobiography by British novelist Graham Greene, first published in 1971. This volume covers Greene's early life, from mundane childhood in Surrey, through to school and university and on to his early working life as a sub editor at The Times and his years as a struggling novelist. His memoirs have been criticized for being oddly