Chapter 15

Local Government before 1863

We have already referred to the meetings to manage the common fields and the manorial court, through which the inhabitants of Cockermouth took their share in the affairs of the town. An early reference to the responsibilities of the town reads

• “Cockermouth 1292. In the 20th. Edward I, the same privileges (a view of frank-pledge, with infangthef, gallows, pilloty. assise ofbread and beer) were claimed for the borough ofCockermouth.” [I]

The lord of the manor was empowered to hold a manorial court or court leet (the origin of the word is unknown), usually summoned twice a year by the lord’s steward issuing an order to the bailiff for the burgesses to attend. On the appointed day they had to answer their names as being present. The autumn court, held within a month of Michaelmas, swore in a jury of twelve men for Cockermouth.

A similar court was held in Cockermouth at Easter for the ‘five towns’ and Derwent Fells, at which reports were received from the ‘turnsmen’ of Blindbothel, Branthwaite, Great Clifton, Dean, Eaglesfield, Greysouthen, Pardshaw, Stainburn, Ullock and Deanscales, and Whinfell. These medieval townships or vills were the basic unit of local administration and had

• “to perform various administrative duties – to deliver evidence at inquests, to catch and watch thieves, to mend roads, to contribute in keeping up bridges and walls, to assess and levy taxes, to witness transactions, etc.”

It was laid down in an old survey book belonging to the castle

• “And ther ys ailso to be remembred that the Burgefses or Borough Men of Cockermouth aforesaide being chozen upon the Lord’s Enquest and swome at the great Courte holden ther about the Feaste of St. Michaell th’arch angell do elect & yearlie chose a Baylife or Grave, who upon his Election is to be charged with the Gatheringe and collectings of all Rents and Amercyments ther due and payable for the Year followinge and therofto be aecomptable, to his Lord’s Use accordinglie.” [2]

The duties of this town officer eventually included such tasks as being registering officer for elections and clerk of the market. The castle records include a list of 109 bailiffs who served from 1640 to 1756 (Appendix 4).

The court also appointed a considerable number of other officials. Two constables were chosen for the year. They wore three-cornered hats as a symbol of their authority, with long coats, short knee-breeches and rough hose.

A town crier or bellman was appointed and there is a reference in vestry book records of the 1770s to the “public posts in the town” at which he ‘cried’. [3]

Four assessors were needed to value houses and land for dues payable to the lord of the manor, for the poor rate (later the responsibility of the overseers), for the church cess, etc. [4] Also four assessors of distraint who seized goods for non-payment of rents, etc.

Two assessors of bread and ale looked after these important items. Most inns had their own brew-house and the assessors had to ensure that the ale produced was not too weak – there was no upper limit, but it must not be below a certain strength. Fortunately the inn-keepers did not all brew on the same day. Tasting was not, however, the only method of testing strength – ale was considered to have sufficient body if, when the assessor poured some on to a wooden bench and sat on it in leather breeches, he found it difficult to stand up! The same men were responsible for the weight, quality and price of bread being satisfactory.

Two mill lookers ensured that the tenants, forced to take their grain to the lord’s mills, were not taken advantage of. They checked that stones and equipment were working efficiently, without undue wastage; saw that the miller took his correct proportion (multure or mooter) of corn for doing the job; and settled disputes about priority of batches. Three market lookers inspected and regulated the markets. Two pinfold lookers were responsible for the pound where stray animals were taken, its position at the upper end of St. Helen’s Street being perpetuated in ‘Pinfold Close’. Four hedge lookers checked boundary fences, two leather searchers were. busy in the tanneries and two swine ringers would be concerned with the identification of pigs turned out to find pannage.

None of these tasks, designed to protect the townspeople, was an easy undertaking and their performance often brought unpopularity. In fairness to all they were reconsidered each year and shared out and passed round amongst the inhabitants.

The court where this was done would be held in the Moot Hall after its erection in the Market Place and this same court gave its support to the assessors in their work, as when in 1677 the court leet fined Nicholas Plaskett 3s-4d [IM’2p] for not allowing his swine to be ringed.

While the officers of the borough administered the town, the townspeople themselves had a parallel involvement in what, at least as far back as the late 16th century, became known as the vestry meeting. The church played a major part in the life of the people, not only in providing religious services but in arranging festivities, running the free grammar school, etc. The church vestry was the natural place in which to meet to discuss such matters, although at times the ‘Vestry’ did meet elsewhere. Though mainly concerned with church fabric and other church affairs, this meeting gave people a voice in some more general town activities.

The Vestry elected its representatives, the churchwardens, wh0 did not have to be members of the established church. With the vicar’s warden they were responsible for much church administration. Meetings were usually called to discuss some specific issue and were open to all.

• “Notice is hereby given that a Vestry meeting will be holden on Wednesday next at two o’clock in the afternoon at the Ring of the Bell to consider some method for Recovering of the £100 lent by the Town to the late Mrs. Elizabeth Fletcher, decd., July 31st. 1791.”

In the vestry book the decision of the meeting was signed first by the churchwardens and then by all present.

We have referred to early methods of collecting taxes hearth tax, lay subsidies, etc. The lay subsidy list for Cockermouth in 1333 [5] contains 34 names, beginning.

COKERMOUTH HAS IN GOODS:

Henry, son of Richard £2-1s-8d

Robert Musey 12s-0d

William le Barker 15s-0d

Only three had goods valued at over £3, another four between £2 and £3. The total value was £42-16s 10d., the tax yield being a fifteenth, viz. £2-17s-1 d.

By the end of the 17th century the wardens were responsible for collecting the church cess or church tax, used for a variety of purposes in the early days. They were elected at the Easter vestry meeting, at which time an estimate of expenditure for the next year was made and the church cess settled accordingly. The wardens had to tread carefully, for they were held responsible for any overspending during their year of office.

The court leet reported in 1709

• “Whereas a complaint hath been made to us of several abuses by persons sessing and collecting of sesses within this Burrow. We order for the future no sess to be sessed and collected until first entered in a book kept by the Bailiff for that purpose, and for his reward we order that one penny in the pound be allowed him for every pound so sessed under ten pounds, and for every pound higher one farthing. And any person collecting any sess before it be entered and signed by the Bailiff for every default we put in pain 6s-8d.”

The first churchwardens’ account book is for 1668-1702, in effect an early ratepayer’s list for Cockermouth, but earlier books have existed. The title page reads:

• HA Booke of accounts of the Parish of Cockermouth. Wherein is contained the Bookes, Recordes, Writinges and other Utensals belonging to the Church and Free Grammar Schoole there: To be delivered from Churchwardens to Churchwardens successively.

•  Made by Christopher Peile, John Peile of the Swan, Anthony Plaskett, Peter Allanby, Anthony Fisher, Churchwardens, in the year ofour redemption, 1668″ [6]

The fifth warden, Anthony Fisher, came from Setmurthy, a chapelry of Cockermouth having right of representation.

When there was a publican amongst the wardens it was customary in many parishes to hold meetings in his inn instead of the church vestry and during John Peile’s term of office this happened in Cockermouth, the back parlour of the Swan in Kirkgate being the venue.

Expenditure of cess outside the actual church includes an entry in 1691 for “mending 2 Church bridges”, one of which crossed Bitter Beck in Kirkgate and the other the same stream in Church Lane, (Market Street) at the bottom of the ‘church stairs’ – both footbridges.

Burgesses claimed expenses from the cess, as in 1693 “paid George Pearson for going about town 4d.” In 1748 a meeting was arranged to talk about the sliping of the grammar school roof and Is 8d. was entered as “spent in drink at the meeting called to consider the matter”. In the same year someone was paid for “correcting ye boys for breaking Church Windows 6d.” The Vestry decided in 1789

• “That the salary allowed to the person appointed to ring the School Bell in the morning and the Supper Bell in the evening and to take care of the Clock and Chimes is not belonging to or part of the Salary of Parish Clerk of this Parish. but … these duties are separate and distinct from the Office of Parish Clerk, and that a Majority of the Inhabitants in Vestry assembled have a Right to appoint proper persons to perform the said Offices … “

To the appointment of churchwardens, overseers, sidesmen, bellringers and parish clerk was added before 1840 that of highways surveyors; and in 1832 an appointment was made of a collector of the various rates, with accommodation provided:

• “It was resolved that Nicholas Williamson, of Cockermouth, be appointed such assistant overseer and surveyor with a salary of £35 a year. It was resolved that the said Nicholas WilIiamson shall reside in the workhouse, in that part thereof which will be set apart for his use, with board and washing; and that he devotes the whole of his time to the services of the town; and that he shall collect the poor rates, highways rates, and lamp rates; and that he shall give a bond with one sufficient surety for the faithful performance of his office.”

Interest in local government increased from the late 18th century onwards. John Bolton reports that at the beginning of the 19th century Cockermouth was the second most important town in Cumberland, with a good reputation for managing its affairs. He mentions health, the poor, care of the sick and orphans, dispensaries and schools of industry. Government of the town was becoming a more specialised task, as instanced by the appointment of a special rates collector. Just before this, in 1829, towns had been given power to appoint Select Vestries to undertake certain duties. At the beginning of the following year Cockermouth appointed such a vestry (Appendix 5). This select vestry often, with the vicar, churchwardens and overseers of the poor, became responsible for local government.

A public vestry was still held, open to all whatever their politics or church allegiance, and still with some power, such as the fixing of certain rates. At this time the poor rate was about 6d. in the pound, the county rate Id. and the police rate Y4d. The church rate, kept separate and varying according to what needed to be spent on All Saints, the churchyard and the grammar school, was decided from year to year, as when on 14 May 1840 the Vestry resolved

• “to lay a rate for the necessary repairs of the Church. three-half-pence in the pound be laid.”

 It had been as high as 4d. in 1832.

A report issued about 1832 regarding proposed changes in the boundary of the Borough of Cockermouth said

• “The Town has not many houses of a better sort, and little seems to have been done towards its improvement. The streets are narrow in many places, with a want of foot-pavement everywhere; and though the lower orders of people seem to be better off than in many other Towns which we have visited, yet there seems generally to be very little about the place tending to improvement.” [7]

Fifteen years later, in 1847, a bill was promoted known as the Cockermouth Improvement Act. This followed a Vestry meeting held at the beginning of the year

• “for the purpose of taking into consideration the necessity of having a Local Act for Paving, Lighting, Watching, Cleansing and Improving the Town and Township of Cockermouth“.

The suggested bill caused deep dissension within the town. Two commissioners, John Job Rawlinson, a barrister of the Inner Temple, and William Hosking of Adelphi Terrace, London, Official Referee of Metropolitan Buildings, heard evidence for and against. Present at the preliminary enquiry at the Globe Inn were the promoters of the bill- Rev. Edward Fawcett, Abraham Robinson, Jonathan Cooper, Edward Bowes Steel, Joseph Brown, John Richardson jnr., Thomas Wilson, Richard Bell, John Steel, John Tyson, Joseph Banks and Thomas Bailey jnr., and the opponents – Jonathan Wood, John Sancton, Isaac Atkinson, William Bragg for Lieutenant-General Wyndham and for himself, George Sanderson, Jonathan Ashley and William Ponsonby Senhouse. After examining witnesses the commissioners prepared an 8-page report to lay before Parliament which is so revealing of conditions in the town in the middle of last century that it is worth quoting at length:

• “The Bill does not Profess to have for its object the improvement of the drainage or sewerage of the town; … we have to report that there is at present nothing which can rightly be denominated a sewer in the town, and consequently there are no drains to carry off the refuse and ordure from the houses, into common sewers. There are drains to carry off the surface water from the streets, into one or other of the rivers Cocker and Derwent, and some of them are laid in such a manner as to preclude the escape of water from them during freshets or floods in the rivers. The descent in the river Cocker is rapid, and it would be easy to carry a stream of water from it commencing at some point above the town, through the whole of the town west of that river, and to give it an outfall into the Derwent, below the town, so as to act at all times as a sewer, and to be at the same time a certain easement for the surface water.”

The report went on to say that the promoters had no intention of improving sewerage and draining, the main object being the provision of street lighting. The opposition stated that there were already sufficient powers to repair streets, keep drains in order and provide lighting. A special act for Cockermouth would be expensive and was also unnecessary, as the opponents expected

• “a general measure for the paving, cleansing, lighting and sewering of towns will be passed into a law and that they would be willing to avail themselves of the provision of such a general enactment.”

The report continued

• “We are of opinion, that the Promoters of the Bill have shown no special reasons why such a Bill as they are soliciting should be passed into law. It is true that the footways of the town of Cockermouth are roughly paved and ill kept; – that the streets are often in a dirty state from the duties of the scavenger being ill performed; – that the police is either insufficient in force or inefficient as to powers; – that the town is wholely unsewered except by the rivers, and by the becks or mountain torrents, which latter are greatly diminished, and sometimes wholly fail in the summer season; but we are unable to discover any security in the provisions of the Bill for these defects to be remedied.

Mr. Hosking perambulated the town, attended by some of the inhabitants ….

• Having just arrived from Sunderland, Mr. Hosking did not find anything peculiar in the dirtiness of Cockermouth; but it was remarked to him … the scavenger had been more than usually active in removing the dirt from the streets within a day or two preceding our arrival at Cockermouth. Some public middensteads, which Mr. Hosking was required to observe in the narrow and winding alleys north-west of the Market-place, and immediately under the walls of the Castle, … were brimming with their filthy contents; and a cluster of privies for the common service of some houses at a place called Camperdown .. were found to be as revoltingly offensive in their exposure as in their foulness … , such conveniences as those at Camperdown are not commonly to be found at Cockermouth, …and he could not fail to observe that wherever houses are upon one of the rivers or upon one of the becks, the margins of the stream are covered with human excrement, which falls from privates jutting out from the houses and overhanging the beds of the watercourses .. .in summer, when the streams are low, the accumulations must be great, inasmuch as on a wet winter day the margins of all streams in and through the town were much befouled.”

The opponents of the Cockermouth Bill approached the promoters to await the expected general act and they agreed to do so, without lessening their determination to see the bill through if necessary. However, the bill was finally dropped, perhaps because of the discouraging report of the commissioners.

It is clear that expense was the main ground of objection, at a time when in the country as a whole one child in six died in its first year and one in three before the age of five; when typhoid, tuberculosis, diptheria, etc. were rife; and when cholera epidemics occurred far too often. [8] General Wyndham submitted his own ‘humble petition’ to ‘the Honourable the Commons’, informing them

• “That your petitioner is Lord of the Honour and Manor of Cockermouth and the owner of considerable property within the town and neighbourhood of Cockermouth and his rights and interests will be seriously affected by the passing of the said Bill as it now stands inasmuch as the cost of passing the said Bill and the rates to be levied under the authority therof will impose a serious burden on your petitioner and other Inhabitants of the said town and neighbourhood. .the said Bill is wholly unnecessary and uncalled for and that it is being pressed forward without the sanction of the Inhabitants and rate payers of the Town and Township of Cockermouth between 200 and 300 of whom at the meeting held for the purpose of considering the proposed application to Parliament dissented therefrom while 9 only assented thereto.” [9]

Then came the ‘Health of Towns Act, 1848’. Instead of being “willing to avail themselves of the provisions of such general enactment” as stated in the commissioners report, the people of Cockermouth appear to have ignored it.

Meanwhile frequent Vestry meetings were held, one of which, in November 1847, did resolve by a two-thirds majority of the ratepayers present that from an act of the 1830s the part relating to lighting should be adopted and that eleven inspectors should be appointed to carry out the proposals at a cost of £200. At this time the poor, county and police rates amounted to Is in the pound (1848 figures).

Eventually the 1848 Act was superseded by the ‘Local Government Act, 1858’. Cockermouth was one of the few towns in Cumberland that had to make several attempts to adopt it. It was announced in December 1858 that “a meeting will be holden for the purpose of considering a resolution for the adoption of the Local Government Act 1858 … “.[10] There was a majority vote against it. Another attempt in April 1862 failed. Then an outbreak of fever in Whitehaven revived interest and in September a stormy meeting was held in the Free Grammar Schoo1. A poll was held and a decision to adopt the Act finally taken, voting being 388 to 292. The opponents of the Act still refused to accept defeat and petitioned the Local Government Board that the working of the Act in Cockermouth would be very expensive, but its adoption by the town was nevertheless gazetted by the Board to take effect on 25th December 1863.

Thus, after a long struggle, much of the responsibility for the town passed to the Local Board of Health, although there were still some aspects of local government which were the concern of other bodies.