OTHER LOCAL GOVERNMENT BODIES
Most Justices of the Peace also served on other Commissions. Some of these were temporary, such as those for disafforestation or for restraint of the grain trade. Others were permanent or semi-permanent bodies, such as the Commissioners for Sewers and the Parliamentary County Committees. In the nineteenth-century, Justices lost powers to various new bodies. Poor Law Unions, mentioned in Chapter 8, are an example. Boards of Health are another. All these bodies created records worthy of examination by local historians. Not all are considered here; departments of central government which employed local officers, such as escheators, excise officers, and ulnagers (who collected tax on wool) are excluded. So are the District Registrars who recorded births marriages and deaths.1 Improvement Commissioners and School Boards were local rather than county bodies, and are therefore outside of the scope of this book. I have not dealt with forest courts, which were responsible directly to the Crown.
BOARDS OF HEALTH
Local Boards of Health were elected bodies established under the Public Health Act of 1848 and the Local Government Act of 1858, and played major roles in improving public health. In Salisbury, for example, the local Board spent £27,500 in 1853/4 on main drainage and water supply, leading to a steep fall in the death rate.2
Board of Health archives are likely to be in local record offices. Minutes, accounts, letters, personnel files and other records survive. Reports to the General Board of Health provide detailed descriptions of local sanitary condition, and present well-argued cases for implementing their recommendations. They are valuable sources of social and political history.
Further Reading
Reports to the General Board of Health have been published on microfilm. See:
• Pidduck, William. Urban and Rural Social Conditions in Industrial Britain: the local reports to the General Board of Health, 1848-1857: a complete listing and guide to the Harvester Press microfilm collection. (Harvester Press, 1978).
These reports are briefly introduced in:
• Smith, H.J. ‘Local reports to the General Board of Health’, in Munby, Lionel M., ed. Short Guides to Records. (Historical Association, 1972, separately paginated).
For other sanitary authorities, consult:
• How to Look for Records of Public Health and Epidemics in the 19th and 20th centuries www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/public-health-epidemics-19th-20th-centuries/
COMMISSIONERS FOR SEWERS
The word ‘sewer’ historically referred to artificial watercourses for drainage, rather than drains for carrying away malodorous waste. The earliest known Sewer Commissions date from the thirteenth century; they were ad hoc, granted to meet emergencies. Commissions were initially temporary, but many had in practice become permanent when statute law first took notice of them in 1427. Disastrous floods occurred in 1530; according to the Grey Friars Chronicle, ‘this yere was gret wyndes and fluddes that dyde moohe harme’. This led to the 1531 Statute of Sewers, giving statutory authority for the granting of Commissions when need arose.
Commissioners’ activities were administrative and judicial in character. They conducted surveys of the embankments, streams, and sewers in their jurisdictions, and had authority to repair them. They appointed bailiffs (sometimes known as dike reeves), surveyors, collectors, clerks, treasurers, and other officers. Rates were levied on landowners, who might alternatively be required to maintain their own banks and ditches. Commissioners worked closely with jurors, who sometimes held office for many years. Juries had to present deficiencies in flood defences before any work could be undertaken. Foremen of juries frequently managed day-to-day activities.
The 1531 Act only permitted Commissioners to maintain existing works. When new sea defences were needed, new Commissions had to be created by private Acts of Parliament. These lacked the judicial authority of older Commissions, which they gradually superseded. Surviving Commissions were abolished under the Land Drainage Act of 1930.
Many records were kept by Commissioners of Sewers, and by central government. Petitions for new Commissions are held by The National Archives, series C 191. Commissions were enrolled on the backs of the patent rolls (series C 66) until 1573. The ‘laws and decrees’ of Commissioners were approved in Chancery, and are in C 225 and C 226. After 1571, estreats of fines were sent to the Exchequer (E 137).
Records retained by Commissioners are now usually in local record offices. They include minutes of orders and proceedings, presentments (sometimes referred to as ‘verdicts), reports from engineers and other officers, plans and petitions for new work, contracts with tradesmen, accounts, rate books and other financial records.
Commissioners of Sewers are well documented. Their archives present much evidence for a wide range of studies. Historians of the landscape, agriculture, and social structure can all find useful information, as can the genealogist.
Further Reading
The best general introduction to Commissioners of Sewer is Chapter 1 of:
• Webb, Sidney, & Webb, Beatrice. Statutory Authorities for Special Purposes. (Frank Cass & Co., 1963. Originally published Longman Green & Co., 1922).
For their records, see:
• Owen, A.E.B. ‘Commissioners of Sewers’, in Munby, Lionel M, ed. Short Guides To Records. (Historical Association, 1972, separately paginated).
• Owen, A.E.B. ‘Land Drainage Authorities and their records’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 2(9), 1964, pp.417–23.
• Kirkus, A. Mary, & Owen, A.E.B., eds. The Records of the Commissioners of Sewers in the Parts of Holland, 1547-1603. (Lincoln Record Society 54, 63 & 71, 1959–77).
London
• Darlington, Ida, ed. ‘The London Commissioners of Sewers and their records’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 2(5), 1962, pp.196–210.
Norfolk
• Owen, A.E.B., ed. The Records of a Commission of Sewers, for Wiggenhall, 1319-1324 [and] Owen, Dorothy M., ed. William Asshebourne’s Book. (Norfolk Record Society Publications 48, 1981).
COMMISSIONERS FOR CHARITABLE USES
The Statute of Charitable Uses, 1601, tackled the misuse of charitable trusts. It gave the Court of Chancery authority to appoint Commissioners (with juries) to investigate complaints and correct abuses. Their decrees had to be confirmed in Chancery. Appointments of Commissioners, 1629–1803, are in The National Archives, series C 192/1. Inquisitions and decrees, c.1558–1820, are in C 93; depositions are in C 91; confirmations of decrees are in C 90; appeals against their decrees are in C 92.
COUNTY COMMITTEES
On the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, Parliament created county committees to direct the local war effort. Committees developed from meetings of the Deputy Lieutenants. Various ordinances gave them power to raise money, impose taxation, and sequestrate delinquents (i.e. Royalists). Many judicial, military and taxing powers were granted under subsequent Parliamentary legislation. Some counties developed arrays of subordinate committees. Kent, for example, had twenty committees in all, including an accounts committee, a sequestration committee, and separate committees for each lathe.
Committee members were originally leading gentry believed to support Parliament. Most were Justices of the Peace. However, the lists of those nominated to serve were frequently ‘optimistic anglings for support’, rather than serious guides to the composition of Committees.3 Those who did the work are best identified in committee order books and related papers. As the war, and the subsequent Interregnum regimes, developed, the elite gradually withdrew; committeemen were increasingly drawn from the lesser gentry and tradesmen. The county gentry were unwilling to impose punitive sanctions on neighbouring Royalists.
Many of the problems facing County Committees were dealt with in peacetime by Quarter Sessions. As already noted, some Quarter Sessions ceased to meet during the war. County Committees tried to fill the gap. For example, in Staffordshire, the Committee appointed parish constables itself; they were needed to enforce its orders. It also exercised jurisdiction over petty crime, and administered Stafford Gaol.
The major task of the Committees was military administration. They raised Parliamentary forces, providing the financial and material support needed. The relationship between Parliament, the Committee, local officers and the army command was ill defined, but the Committees were on the spot, kept a strict eye on the behaviour of Parliamentary troops and had a say in military strategy, although army officers did not necessarily obey their commands.
Committees acquired their own staff; the Staffordshire Committee had a clerk, a treasurer, and a number of ‘commissaries’ with specific responsibilities for hay, provisions, the magazine, etc. The Provost Marshall was one of their better-paid officials; he took substantial fees from the Royalists he imprisoned. Sub-committees had their own staff; each of the two Kentish accounts committees had a ‘register’, an accountant, a clerk, a messenger, a door-keeper and a treasurer.4
Finance was raised by the ‘weekly pay’, from loans advanced ‘on the public faith’, and from the confiscation of Royalist estates. Income from these levies was supposed to go to London, but, in practice, finance went to those who could enforce their demands. The local commanders who extracted money from the populace needed it immediately, and frequently kept it. It was sometimes dangerous to transport money to London. Nevertheless, the central Committee for Taking the Accounts of the Kingdom received accounts of what had been done; its records in The National Archives, series SP 28, are extensive.
Increasingly, County Committees became concerned with the sequestration of Royalist delinquents’ estates. Their sub-committees seized estates and livestock, collected rents, felled timber, allowed maintenance to delinquents’ wives and children and pursued defaulters. Accounts committees audited their accounts. Administration of sequestrated estates during wartime was difficult. Tenants suffered from the threat of Royalist raiding parties, and were difficult to find. Delinquents themselves frequently became the Committees’ tenants. From their point of view, even if they had to pay heavily, they could at least prevent the extensive wasting of resources which occurred on some estates.
After the war, the difficulties of estate administration persuaded Parliament to allow delinquents to compound (pay a fine) to regain their lands. The Committee for Compounding appointed local sequestration committees, which sometimes merged with County Committees and their sub-committees. Sequestration activity, however, opened up the possibility of favouritism, prejudice, scandal and the abuse of power; it led to the committees becoming ‘contemptible in the eyes of the Country’ by 1647, especially when committeemen were of low status.5
Many County Committee papers can be found amongst the Commonwealth Exchequer papers in The National Archives, series SP 28. A few order books survive in the British Library and elsewhere; for example, the Staffordshire volume is now in the William Salt Library in Stafford. The papers of the Committee for Compounding are in The National Archives, series SP 23, and have been partially calendared.6
The Royalist equivalent to the county committees were the Commissioners of Array, or Arraymen. They similarly levied taxes and loans, sequestered their opponents’ estates and provided local support to Royalist armies. However, they lost the war. Their records were incriminating evidence and were quickly destroyed. The only substantial record of Royalist county administration to survive is the order book of the Glamorganshire Arraymen, unaccountably preserved amongst the archives of the Diocese of Llandaff.7
Further Reading
A useful introduction to the work of county committees, with bibliographical notes, is provided in:
• Pennington, D.H., & Roots, I.A., eds. The Committee at Stafford, 1643-1645. (Collections for a History of Staffordshire 4th series 1, 1956).
• Mayo, C.H., ed. The Minute Books of the Dorset Standing Committee 23rd September 1646 to 8th May 1650. (William Pollard, 1902).
COUNTY COURTS
In 1847, a new system of county courts was created for the recovery of small debts and damages. These displaced the old county courts of the Sheriffs (although these formally continued to exist) and the various courts of request created during the eighteenth century. Both had only dealt with very small debts. The new courts received a huge amount of business: by the end of 1847, over 429,215 plaints had been issued.8 They had no connection with Quarter Sessions; their district boundaries sometimes coincided with those of other local authorities, sometimes not. Judges were appointed by the Lord Chancellor, and appointed their own registrars and clerks.
The few surviving county court records are held in local record offices. Newspapers reported many of their judgements. Returns were published annually in the Parliamentary papers series between 1847/8 and 1858, and between 1867 and 1914–16. A central Registry of County Court Judgements was established in 1852; its registers are in The National Archives, series LCO 28. Useful information on other sources in The National Archives, and on related Parliamentary papers, are discussed in:
• Polden, Patrick. A History of the County Court, 1846-1971. (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
HIGHWAY BOARDS
These were created by Acts of 1862 and 1878. Quarter Sessions divided their counties into highway districts, in each of which roads were administered by a board consisting of parish Waywardens and the local Justices. Each board appointed its own clerk, treasurer, and surveyor. They took over parish responsibilities for the maintenance of roads, although individual parishes continued to be rated for the repair of their own roads until 1878. Boards also assumed the responsibilities of dissolved turnpike trusts (see below).
The establishment of highway boards was recorded in Quarter Sessions order books. Surviving records in local record offices may include minutes, accounts, reports, rate books, letters, plans, personnel records, and other papers. Their powers were surrendered to rural and urban district councils in 1894, although main roads became the responsibility of county councils in 1888.
TURNPIKE TRUSTS
The inability of parishes to adequately maintain highways led Parliament to create over 1,000 turnpike trusts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, each by a separate Act.9 The earliest Act was passed in 1662, but the next not until 1695. Promoters of trusts petitioned the House of Commons; their petitions, and Parliamentary proceedings related to them, provide much useful information. Trusts levied tolls on users, and applied revenues to road maintenance. Parishes might also have to contribute under the Highways Act of 1555, but that was rare. Local gentlemen, clergy, merchants and tradesmen, were appointed as trustees. Most Justices served on at least one trust; from 1823, they became trustees ex officio.
Trustees appointed clerks, treasurers, surveyors and toll keepers. These officers came from a variety of backgrounds. Clerks dealing with legal issues were frequently local solicitors. Treasurers were usually trustees themselves, and, increasingly in the early nineteenth-century, local bankers. Early surveyors came from a wide range of occupations, but were rarely competent in engineering. Their successors, however, such as Telford and McAdam, greatly advanced road construction technology. Officers sometimes held office in several trusts; the McAdam family collected no less than fifty-eight surveyorships between them.
Trusts installed turnpike gates and tollhouses, and set the tolls. The capital was frequently raised by mortgaging tolls. Trusts were created for terms of 21 years, but this was usually extended on petition to Parliament. Trustees, however, met infrequently. Attendance was usually low, and management often rested in the hands of officials. Many were incompetent. But trusts were independent, and not even required to render accounts. If they failed to adequately maintain roads, responsibility fell back on local parishes, who could be compelled to undertake repairs, although they had no remedy against the offending trust.
Justices of the Peace had some powers over trusts. They could arrange for roads to be surveyed, examine the applicability of tolls, determine disputes concerning funds, and check abuses. Travellers attempting to avoid paying tolls could be punished. Toll gates attracted much opposition from the poor, and were seen as an impediment to free trade. Receipts fell drastically when railways took over longdistance transport in the mid-nineteenth century. Trusts were gradually wound up towards the end of the nineteenth century and their responsibilities transferred to Highway Boards and subsequently to county councils.
Trust records frequently survive in local record offices. Minutes may record personnel matters, the leasing of toll gates, the evasion of tolls, the raising of finance, and the peculations of toll collectors. Mortgage books record the names of mortgagees. Other records include financial papers, surveyors’ reports, maps, estimates, contracts for work undertaken, and copies of related Acts of Parliament. The latter can also be found in the Parliamentary Archives www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives. From 1792, turnpike plans, and, from 1822, annual accounts, had to be deposited with Clerks of the Peace.
The records of trusts enable us to trace the involvement of local people, the techniques of road-making and the growth of traffic, as well as the history of trusts themselves. Family historians can use them to trace trustees, the staff they employed and the contractors who built roads.
Further Reading
For the history of turnpikes, see:
• Albert, William. The Turnpike Road System in England, 1663-1840. (Cambridge University Press, 1972).
• Pawson, E. Transport and Economy: the Turnpike Roads of Eighteenth Century Britain. (Academic Press, 1979).
• Webb, Sidney, & Webb, Beatrice. Statutory Authorities for Special Purposes. (Longmans, 1922. Reprinted Frank Cass & Co., 1963).
The records are briefly introduced in:
• Duckham, Baron F. ‘Turnpike records’, in Munby, Lionel M., ed. Short Guides to Records. (Historical Association, 1972, separately paginated).
For Parliamentary proceedings, see:
• Roads and Railways www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/transportcomms/roadsrail