In my research to uncover the Brougham story I came across a very interesting and well put together site - Clergy of the Church of England Database or CCEd for short - www.theclergydatabase.org.uk. The database covers the years 1540 to 1835, and although not complete, more updates are happening all the time. At the time of writing the database reveals just 8 Broughams who went into the Clergy: Brougham, Bernard (1692 - 1751) Brougham, Edmund (0 - 0) Brougham, Henry (1728 - 1728) Brougham, Henry (1689 - 1696) Brougham, John (1771 - 1773) Brougham, Samuel Lindsey (1803 - 1805) Brougham, Thomas (1739 - 1783) Brougham, William (1821 - 1834)
The site provides lots of detail about the individuals such as which churches they served in and provides the date of their death where this is known. It is a good source for all family genealogists. There is an Information for Genealogists page which talks about how the site can be useful for family historians and some points to take into consideration.
Given there are so few Brougham's in the list it won’t help many of us who are undertaking Brougham family research. The clergy during this time was not made up of people who necessarily had a calling to the profession but instead people in the higher echelons of society. As the site states 'throughout this period the Church of England was the single most important employer of educated males in England and Wales, and at times possessed an institutional presence which surpassed that of the state.' The majority of these clerical Broughams appear in Peter Brougham Wryly’s research, A Gathering of Brougham’s but not a clean sweep, and are linked back to the Broughams of Askrigg and Scales.
I think this is an excellent research site for any family historian with Church of England clergy in their family tree.