Fragments of Two Centuries Part 4

"Is there any foundation in fact for the popular Belief of Ghosts and Apparit.i.tions [sic]?--J. Phillips.--Y, 15; n, 26."

If fifteen men of education voted for the Ghosts can we wonder at the stronghold they had among the common people, and that it has taken the hundred years which have elapsed to get them generally disestablished?

"Whether Old Bachelors ought to be most pitied, envied or blamed?"--No verdict, probably the bachelors were in pretty full force and resented the liberty implied by the question!

"Whether Good Sense, with a deficiency of Good Temper, or Good Temper with a deficiency of Good Sense, be preferable in domestic life?--W.

Nash.--12 in favour of Good sense, 14 Good Temper."

That the debates were often characterised by considerable freedom of thought and utterance is evident from other sources, as when the gifted young barrister of Bury St. Edmunds (Henry Crabb Robinson) {31} by his outspoken sentiments in one of the debates, and admitted leanings to G.o.dwin's philosophy, brought down the reproof from the great Robert Hall upon his friend Mr. William Nash, for receiving the young barrister of freedom of opinion on friendly terms into his family at Royston. But the family of the quiet and eminently respectable country lawyer appear to have had no cause to regret the enduring friendship of the brilliant young conversationalist, who afterwards became an intimate friend of Wordsworth, Southey the Laureate, and the Lake School, with Goethe, Madame de Stael, and many other great names in the world of letters and art, and even had the offer of the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Sax Weimar.

At such a time, however, these debates did make a good deal of stir, in fact "as the members were credited with holding what at that time were called dangerous principles, their meetings used to cause a great excitement in the place."

The peculiarity of these debates was the prevailing discussion of general principles. The region of practical politics for many of the coming questions was as yet almost half-a-century off, and having no effective means of influencing many matters which did, nevertheless, touch their daily lives very closely, they turned their attention inwards to the mental exercise of debating abstract questions of high philosophy and of morals.

The Book Club continued its meetings at the Green Man from 1761 until 1789, in which year it was "agreed to go to the Red Lyon," and from that time, during the remainder of the last and the earlier years of the present century, it continued to meet at the Red Lion, in the same room, curiously enough, which had accommodated the old Royston Club, and the two extremes of social and public life I have indicated, were in turn brought under the same roof! To many of the old habitues of the place under the older inst.i.tution this use of their place of meeting by "traitors, republicans and levellers," as they would have called them, would have been little short of desecration, and that it was possible for two such inst.i.tutions to have existed for some time at least side by side, can only be explained by the fact that one was an inst.i.tution reflecting the prevailing belief of the town at that time, while the other brought together many of the county families of the old order.

The only person living who ever attended one of the Book Club's debates, I believe, is Mr. Henry Fordham, who can just remember attending one meeting at the Red Lion towards the end of the Club's debating period.

Have we degenerated since the period of this stiff and vigorous debating of our great grandfathers? Would it be possible now to bring together forty or fifty ladies and gentlemen all eager for debating questions of moral philosophy, and public justice? Has the age of {32} plain living and high thinking completely deserted our local life, and left us comparatively high living and plain thinking instead? The conditions of life have so greatly changed that the comparison need not be pressed home, yet these are questions which naturally arise after a glimpse at the old Royston Book Club.

That the education of that day was very exact is afforded by the announcement of Mr. Jeremiah Slade, the keeper of a boarding school at Fowlmere in 1766, which reads:--"Young gentlemen genteely boarded and instructed in the art of true and correct spelling, and of right p.r.o.nunciation; reading English with a true emphasis, writing all the most useful hands with accuracy and freedom and elegance; arithmetic in all its branches in the most concise manner with its application to trade and commerce," &c., &c.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PAROCHIAL PARLIAMENT AND THE OLD POOR-LAW.

In these days, when so much is heard in favour of coming back to the Parochial area as the unit of local government, it may be of interest just to glance back at the condition of things when, in the last century, the parish vestry was almost omnipotent, and controlled all sorts of things, from a pauper's outfit, or from marrying a pauper, to the maintenance of the fire engine, the repair of the Church, and the wine used at the Communion! The oldest materials I have found available for obtaining a glimpse of the Parochial Parliament at work, both in Royston and neighbouring parishes, have been the Royston parish books, and sundry papers and accounts which have come under my notice belonging to neighbouring parishes.

It was customary for everyone attending a vestry to sign his name or make his mark, a good old custom worth continuing in every parish vestry--and it was no uncommon thing to find from a dozen to fifteen names entered. Parish business was not in those days the dry affair it often is in these days of "getting together a quorum." If the truth must be told, our forefathers in the good old times had a way of preventing its being "dry," and the parish accounts I have no doubt in every village in the district as well as in Royston, still record the unvarnished tale! The custom was for the clergyman to announce in Church on Sunday the day and hour of meeting of the vestry--generally on a Monday--and also the subject which was to engage the attention {33} of the vestry. Monday morning came and with it the tolling of the bell to summon the vestry, but this was only the letter and not the spirit of the Local Parliament, which was forthwith adjourned from the Church to a more convenient and also more congenial time and place, viz., at six o'clock in the evening "at the house of William Cobb, at the sign of the Black Swan," or some other name and house as the case might lie.

The general practice of holding meetings by adjournment from Church seems to have been framed on the principle of giving all the publicans a turn, for in the seven years, 1776-82, the vestry meetings for Royston, Herts., were held at twenty-two different inns or public-houses. Here is a typical entry which explains the whole system prevailing during last century:--

"Ordered that this meeting be adjourned to this Day Month at 4 o'clock at Church, and from thence to be adjourned to some public-house to finish the business for the month, during the Cold Weather."

In this way the tradesmen of the town, or the farmer, the blacksmith and tailor in the village, relieved from the cares of the day, a.s.sembled in the evening on the sanded floor of the old inn, and, studiously furnished by Boniface with long Churchwarden "clays," puffed away, until, through the curling fumes which arose from the reflecting group of statesmen, parochial projects loomed large and a little business was sometimes made to go a long way! The "licker" and the fumes inspired sage talk on mild politics, and of enhanced prices to come, some war that was talked of "in Roosia or som'er out that country," mixed up with reminiscences of wars that had been, and the rare prices that had ruled in Royston Market!

There was a blunt honesty and an entire absence of squeamishness in these public servants of the good old days, and what was considered necessary and proper on such occasions, both for their own proper dignity and "the good of the house," they did not hesitate to order, and for the benefit of posterity down went the candid acknowledgment in the parish accounts----

L s. d.

Paid at a vestry at Rogersis for licker . . . . . . . . . . 0 3 0 Paid Danl. Docwra what was spent at Easter Monday . . . . . 0 5 0

Danl. Docwra not only kept a public-house in Royston, but also at this time (1771) was rated for a bowling green as well, and it is possible that the Parochial Hampdens and their officers, like Drake and the Spanish Armada, prepared for work by a little play. As to the amount of "licker" necessary for the efficient control of parochial affairs I find that the villages had sometimes a different standard, for an entry in the Therfield parish papers gives ten shillings as the amount spent at a town's meeting, and a similar amount was entered for Barkway.

Strange as it may appear in these days of Government auditors, {34} the parish officer then debited something to the parish account at every turn of his official duty.

Here is one way in which they managed a Parochial a.s.sessment--

"Ordered that six of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of Royston look over all the estates in the town, and each send in his own estimated list of their ratable value to a special meeting, and from those different lists form a revised list of a.s.sessment to be afterwards stuck on the Church door, allowing objections to be made, and if necessary amending a.s.sessments accordingly, first calling in the a.s.sistance of Mr.

Jackson, of Barkway, the land surveyor."

The a.s.sessment was evidently a low one, for the highest amount paid for a shilling rate was 18s., and the lowest 1s. 6d. As to the property a.s.sessed, wool-staplers and maltsters were the princ.i.p.al items. A shilling rate for Royston, Cambs., produced about one-fourth of what it does now.

The year 1781 marked a new era in the local Parliament for Royston, both for the improved local authority then inst.i.tuted and for the unity of the town. This was brought about by what, for want of a better name, I will call the Act of Union, by which the divided parish of Royston in Herts. and Cambs. was made one for local government purposes, with one vestry, one clerk, and one beadle, but with separate overseers and churchwardens. The management of the business under this Act of Union was placed in the hands of a Committee, consisting of the churchwardens and overseers, and of eight gentlemen for the Hertfordshire side, and three for Cambs. The new local parliament was made up of the following:--For Hertfordshire, George North, churchwarden, Henry Andrews (the astronomer), and Wm. c.o.c.kett, the two overseers; Tuttle Sherwood, churchwarden, and Thomas Moule and Thomas Watson, overseers for the Cambs. side; and the following elected members, viz., for _Herts._, John Phillips, Michael Phillips, Edward Day, Wm. Nash, Samuel c.o.xall, Thomas Wortham, William Stamford, junr., and Thomas Watson; for _Cambs._, Joseph Beldam, William Butler and John James.

The above Act of Union was pa.s.sed as an experiment, and the Parliament was to be a triennial one, at the end of which period either party was at liberty to withdraw, but as a matter of fact it was formally renewed every three years and continued at least until 1809. The first act of the new local authority was to appoint Henry Watson as vestry clerk at a salary of five guineas a year, to decide that no poor should be allowed out of the Workhouse, only the casual poor, and also that

"All meetings to be at the Church at toll of Bell, and adjourn as they think proper * * their expenses from the Overseer at each meeting not to exceed a shilling."

If this meant a shilling each member it looked like "Rogersis'" bill for "licker" going up, but if for all the members together it {35} was decided retrenchment as well as reform. Among others who were parties to the agreement, but not in the first committee, were:--John Cross, John Warren, John Hankin, John Trudgett--what a lot of Johns they had in those old days!--Peter Beldam, Robt. Leete and Danl. Lewer. The new Local Parliament had not been in existence long before it began to set its house in order for business and framed other rules for its conduct.

Instead of being a mere vestry with a chairman waiting for a quorum, it became an active local body, and, thanks to its methodical five-guinea clerk, actually had its meetings convened by sending out printed cards, as appears by the following entry:--

"Ordered that 500 Printed Cards be got from the Printing Office at Cambridge for the purpose of calling the Committee."

There was no printing office in Royston till the beginning of the present century. Another innovation was more sweeping, and that was that the custom of meeting at the inns of an evening was, at least for a time, abandoned. The meetings were held at Whitehall, at the top of the High Street, and to make things smart and business-like, a dozen strong chairs were bought for the use of the Committee room. There was also a rule about attendances, and any member failing to put in an appearance was fined sixpence, and if he happened to be the overseer, the enormity of his offence was marked by a fine of a shilling--"unless a note be sent to the meeting" [explaining cause of absence]. Here was a model authority, the like of which the town of Royston has never had since, considered as a working body, and having a due regard to the light in which things were then regarded as compared with the present time.

In glancing at some of the things for which the Parochial Parliament was responsible, I must ask those readers who, though not resident in Royston, may take an interest in these pages, to bear with me while I refer to a matter which exclusively affects some of the townspeople of Royston. As it was, whether rightly or wrongly, brought into the parish accounts for Royston, Cambs., for many years during the last and the present century, it may be convenient here to make some reference to the property in Melbourn Street, Royston, Cambs., now generally known as the Cave House and Estate, and its management during the period of which I am writing. In the first place then, it has really nothing whatever to do with the Cave, as a property, excepting for the accidental circ.u.mstance that nearly at the end of last century the then occupier of the Town House, as it was called, Thomas Watson by name, and a bricklayer, set his men to work during the hard winter of 1790, at cutting the present pa.s.sage down through the solid chalk into the Cave from the house by which it is now entered. An interesting advertis.e.m.e.nt of this event which I have {36} found in the Cambridge University Library is given below. It bears the date 1794.

"ROYSTON CAVE OPENED.--

"T. Watson respectfully informs the public in general and the antiquarians in particular, that he has opened (for their inspection) a very commodious entrance into that ancient Subterraneous cavern in Royston, Herts., which has ever been esteemed by all lovers of antiquity as the greatest curiosity of the kind in Europe. T. Watson hopes that all those who may think proper to visit the above Cave will have their curiosity gratified to the full extent. The pa.s.sage leading to it is of itself extremely curious, being hewn out of the solid rock.

"N.B.--It may be seen any hour of the day."

[Ill.u.s.tration: STAIRCASE INTO THE CAVE.]

Since that time this old charity estate has become so closely a.s.sociated with the Old Cave--which, by the way, is really nearer to the houses on the opposite side of the street--that the shop now occupied by Mr. G. Pool, on the east side of the gate entrance is {37} generally described as the Cave House, and the tenant for the time being has become invested with the office of curator of this old antiquity, while the shop on the other side of the gateway (Messrs.

Whitaker's tailoring department), though equally a part of the estate, is not often spoken of in connection with the Cave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration of a portion of the Interior of Royston Cave]

Any account of the Cave itself would be quite foreign to the purpose of these Sketches, but it may be of interest to those readers who are not aware of the variety of curious and ancient carvings which adorn its walls, to give a glimpse of the interior, showing a portion of the figures. The part selected for the following ill.u.s.tration is that showing the High Altar, the Saviour extended on the Cross, with the Virgin Mary on the one side and the beloved disciple on the other, the bold figure to the left being St. Catherine and her wheel; the group of figures below this are supposed to refer to Richard Coeur de Lion and Queen Berengaria, but a further description would be out of place here, {38} suffice it to say that for this, and the foregoing ill.u.s.tration of the staircase cut by Watson in 1790, I am indebted to an excellent series of photographs of the interior of the Cave and its carvings, recently taken by Mr. F. R. Hinkins. For a full account of this interesting antiquity the reader is referred to the book by the late Mr. Joseph Beldam, a shilling edition of which is now published with numerous ill.u.s.trations.

The so-called "Cave" property, left for the benefit of the inhabitants of Royston in Cambridgeshire, dates back about ten years before the dissolution of the Monastery. It was originally the Old Ram's Head Inn. William Lee, of Radwell, Herts., was the owner of the house in the time of Henry VIII., and by his will bearing date 8th day of October, 1527, he, among other bequests and directions of a local character made the special bequest which follows:--

"And as to the disposicon of all my Lands and Tenements which I have within the counties of Hertford and Cambridge, ffirst I will that such persons as be ffeoffees to my use imediately after my Decease shall deliver estate in fee of and in my Tenement in Royston called the Ramm's head, to certain honest persons as shall be named and appointed by mine executors to the performance of this my last Will and Testament. I will that the yearly profitts of the said Tenement, the Lord Rent, reparcons, and other charges deducted and allowed, then the Rent thereof comeing nere every year to be taken and retained by two of the Antient of the said ffeoffees and putt in a Box Locked, and so to remaine in the safe custody of the said ffeoffees unto such time as any manner of Tax, Subsidie, and whatsoever any manner of other charges shall be granted unto the King or his heirs, Kings of England by Act of Parliament, and then the Money so coming of the Rent of the said Tenement to discharge and acquit all such Persons as then shall dwell in the said Towne of Royston, that is to mean within the side of Cambridge, every man and person after their porcon, and I will the said two ffeoffees, or their heirs, shall at the end of every three years make a true and faithful accompt of the revenues of the said Tenement to the Prior of the said Monastery, or to his successors Priors, and when it shall happen any great sume to remaine in the said Box then I will that part of the said sume, that is to witt, all that is more than four Pounds, shall be disposed in deeds of charity amongst the poor Inhabitants within the said Towne of Royston by the good Discretion of the said Prior and successors."

Little thought William Lee that within less than a dozen years Monastery and Prior would be no more, and still less that the time would come when no tax or subsidy to the King should be levied directly upon the inhabitants of the town. The beneficial interest of the townspeople in the trust, however, remained, and the question arose how, in the absence of any such levies and charges upon the {39} towns-people by King and Parliament, as were common enough in his day, the provisions of the benefactor's will were to be interpreted.

During nearly the whole of the reign of George III., and also during a part of that of George II., the Parochial Parliament for Royston, Cambs., made short work of that knotty point, by simply treating the Estate as parish property; the houses were let and rents collected by the Overseers, and the revenue is duly entered in the year's parochial balance sheet, with the names of the tenants, while the feoffees seem to have stood by and tacitly approved of so simple an arrangement.

The Charity is still in the hands of feoffees, and at the time of writing this a new scheme for its administration is under the consideration of the Charity Commissioners.

Naturally an important part of the functions of the Parochial Parliament was that of providing for those who could not, and often for those who would not, provide for themselves. In many villages this had to be done by the Churchwardens and Overseers meeting after service in the Church on Sunday afternoons. In Royston, however, and probably in the larger villages, the business was transacted in pretty much the same way as the Vestry business already referred to.

Whether in the villages or the town the "indoor" relief of the poor was at best like a system of farming on short leases; indeed, "farming the paupers" was the usual description of it, and the Vestry advertised, not for a master of the Workhouse, but "a Workhouse to let," was the very common form of announcement when the Overseers were in want of someone to "farm" the paupers.