Read Ebook: Worcestershire in the Nineteenth Century A Complete Digest of Facts Occuring in the County since the Commencement of the year 1800 by Turberville T C

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DROITWICH was formerly one of the closest of Whig boroughs, and was entirely under the influence of the Foley family. To the return for the first election recorded below, the names of nineteen persons are appended in the books of the Droitwich Corporation; and at a much more recent date, ten persons returned two members to Parliament. The present constituency of the borough numbers 368.

BEWDLEY.

THIS, before the Reform Bill, was a close Tory borough, with some thirty or forty self-elected burgesses, who returned their member with no confusion or turmoil. Under the new state of things, Stourport joins with it in the exercise of the franchise, and the united constituency now includes 371 electors. Parties have been very evenly balanced here of late years.

The return was petitioned against; and on the 4th March, 1848, the inquiry commenced before the Parliamentary committee, consisting of three Liberals and two Conservatives. Mr. Sergeant Wrangham and Mr. Sergeant Kinglake were the principal counsel employed by Sir Thomas Winnington; and Mr. Alexander, by Mr. Ireland. After five days' examination of witnesses, the committee decided that Mr. Ireland was not duly elected--that it had been proved that a voter, named Price, had received ?15 for his vote--and that treating had been proved against Mr. Ireland's agents. The recriminatory case against Sir Thomas Winnington occupied six days, and the committee decided that he had been guilty of treating, by his agents, and that therefore the election was void. Mr. Elgie, his principal agent, was himself examined, and proved that 26 or 27 inns were opened on Sir Thomas's side, some of which supplied as many as 1,000 gallons a day. The committee made a special report to the House that a most pernicious system of intimidation, kidnapping and treating prevailed in the borough, and the writ was suspended, on the motion of Mr. Hume, until the evidence was printed and laid before the house. On the 12th of April, Captain Rushout moved that a new writ should issue, but Sir John Hanmer proposed its further suspension. After a debate, in which the corruption disclosed in the evidence before the committee was pretty freely commented upon, the House came to a division, and 80 members voted for issuing the writ, and 38 against it; so the writ was ordered, and a fresh election took place in--

KIDDERMINSTER.

KIDDERMINSTER once returned two members to Parliament, but not liking to have to pay them was, upon its own petition, relieved of the "honour." It was again enfranchised by the Reform Bill; but had only one member allotted to it. The constituency here is remarkably small, in comparison with the population, owing to so few of the operatives living in houses which pay ?10 a year rent. The number of electors now on the register, including duplicates, is 490.

In the session of 1850 a petition was presented by some of the Liberal electors against Mr. Best's return, on the score of bribery and corruption, and the matter came before a committee of the House of Commons, on the 15th of April. The committee consisted of Mr. Bouverie , Lord Enfield, Mr. Augustus Stafford, Mr. David Morris, and Sir William Joliffe; the majority being Liberals. Mr. Sergeant Kinglake led the case for the petitioners, and Mr. Alexander, Q.C., for Mr. Best. The committee sat seven days, and a variety of witnesses were examined on behalf of the petitioners; but bribery was only attempted to be proved in two cases, the evidence, on all points, being decidedly weak. The committee confirmed Mr. Best's return.

DUDLEY.

THE privilege of sending a member to Parliament was conferred on this borough by the Reform Bill. The number of voters now on the register is 912.

ELECTIONS OF COUNTY CORONERS.

PUBLIC MEETINGS.

IT may be that the interest attaching to many of the meetings detailed here is gone for ever, but the interest of others will perhaps increase as time advances, and curiously serve to mark the ebb and flow of human feelings and affairs. Though there is often reason to coincide with the Duke's apothegm--"Public meetings are public farces," yet they at least give us the results of the popular instinct, which is often as sure a guide as the popular reason would be; and, when most foolish in their conclusions, they are to be regarded as fortunate escapements for those excitements without which a community cannot exist long together. If any explanation should be felt necessary by the reader, of the public occurrences which called forth these meetings, he will find it in another portion of this work.

Dudley, Droitwich, &c., petitioned against the measure, which was rejected by the House of Commons, in bringing up the report, by 116 to 110.

EVESHAM--One of the most numerous meetings ever known in this borough was held on this subject. Mr. Easthope moved the petitions, which were supported by Mr. Phillips, Mr. Barnes, &c., and opposed by Colonel Cooper, Rev. Mr. Shaw, and Mr. Phelps. They were carried by a large majority.

Mr. C. E. Hanford said if this amendment passed, the meeting would be a farce. The Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Bedford, and Mr. Coke thought the remedy was to be found in retrenchment and Parliamentary Reform.

Mr. Spooner replied to Mr. Beale Cooper, who had told them that because corn was imported duty free, therefore it had diminished in price; but there had been no importation at all for the last three years, and so that argument must be fallacious. The conduct of Parliament in endeavouring to swindle the nation into payment of an unjust debt, which, as it had been incurred in paper, ought to be paid in paper, showed the necessity for reform. He was for triennial Parliaments and an extension of the franchise, so that those who by direct taxation contributed towards the burdens of his country, should have a voice in electing those by whom they were imposed. He had been but a short time in Parliament, but he had had sufficient opportunity of seeing how matters were managed there; swarms of boyish members came in just at a division, and only looked where the Marquis of Londonderry or Mr. Tierney stood, to see on which side of the house they should go.

Mr. G. W. Perrott seconded Mr. Cooper's amendment, which, however, was lost by a very large majority. Mr. Richards's resolutions were then all carried, excepting the last, which called for Parliamentary Reform; but after several persons, and the High Sheriff amongst others, had begged him to withdraw it as not pertinent to the objects of the meeting, that also was carried by acclamation. Petitions were then agreed to, founded on Mr. Richards's resolutions, and the meeting broke up. Lord Foley and Sir Thomas Winnington, who were unavoidably absent from the meeting, attached their names to the petitions.

As to the first matter, John Williams, Esq., moved a resolution requesting the magistrates to be satisfied with alterations and additions to the city Guildhall. This was seconded by Richard Spooner, Esq. The Rev. Thomas Pearson proposed, as an amendment, that the county ought to erect courts suitable to its respectability, but that the measure should be postponed till the depression of the agricultural interest had passed over. Dr. B. Cooper seconded this. Sir C. S. Smith and R. Spooner, Esq., supported the original proposition, which was carried almost unanimously.

Colonel Lygon having briefly addressed the meeting, warning them not to regard Parliamentary Reform as a panacea for their ills, Richard Spooner, Esq., rose and proposed a petition for the adoption of the meeting: it complained, in the first place, of extravagant salaries to placemen, and next of the standard of currency to which the county had been obliged to return by Mr. Peel's act, and prayed for a thorough reform in Parliament as the only means of setting these things right. Mr. Spooner bitterly inveighed against the corruption of the Parliament as it then existed. The petition was seconded by Charles Hanford, Esq. Sir C. Smith, Major General Marriott, Dr. B. Cooper, and J. Williams, Esq., agreed with all the statements of the petition; but did not want reform, and begged Mr. Spooner to put it into a separate petition by itself. Mr. S. refused, and the petition was carried almost unanimously. It afterwards received 2,180 signatures.

Meetings were held at Kidderminster and at Evesham with similar intentions and results.

THE COUNTY MAGISTRACY.

THE conduct of the general affairs of the counties of England, such as their police, the regulation of the gaols and lunatic asylums, the preservation of the county bridges, the levying of rates, &c., is intrusted to the unpaid magistracy, nominated by the Lords Lieutenant, and appointed by the Lord Chancellor; and at a time when an agitation is afoot to change the character of the body by whom these important matters are transacted, some consideration of the manner in which they have discharged their high trust may be opportune and useful. It is now proposed that a certain number of persons, chosen by the Boards of Guardians of the different Poor Law Unions, should be associated with a chosen body of the magistracy to manage all the county business. The principle sought to be carried out is one now generally acknowledged as a just one--viz., that "representation should be coordinate with taxation;" but it is worth consideration whether anything will be gained by such a change of system as is suggested, whether the interests of the ratepayers are likely to be better cared for than they are at present, and whether, indeed, they had not better let well alone. The Bench of County Magistrates in Worcestershire may be supposed to be a fair representation of the magistracy of the kingdom generally, and certainly on a review of their proceedings during the last fifty years, especially with regard to financial matters, the ratepayers must feel satisfied that their affairs could not have been in better hands. The Worcestershire Magistrates have had to consider, during the first half of the nineteenth century, many matters involving a very large outlay of the public money; and upon a review of the course they have taken, no one will be able to point to an instance of grossly unnecessary expenditure, or a lavishness in dealing with the public purse. They have always given attention to the representations of the ratepayers, but have not often suffered themselves to be turned aside from what was a plainly desirable, or necessary, object, by false considerations of economy, and have generally taken an enlarged view of the question before them. A most vigilant check has been kept upon the details of the county expenditure, and a laudable desire to lessen the general burden always been manifestly apparent. And they have, of course, been free from those changes which representative bodies from limited constituencies are ever and anon pretty sure to undergo, when the fickleness of public favour--some party cry, or prejudice, or the efforts of individuals striving for place and power--suddenly dispossess old and tried men from the offices for which they may be eminently suited, in order to make way for unqualified busybodies, whom the passing commotion may have brought into notice--"Straws," as Junius said of Wilks, "on the surface of the torrent." And while such commotion lasts, brief as it may be, mischief is often done which years are required to set straight again.

The Worcestershire Bench has, of late years, been singularly fortunate in its chairmen. It is only another mark of their anxiety to conduct their business on the soundest principles, that they have not suffered party considerations to sway them in the choice of the person upon whose discretion and judgment so much will always depend. The services of the Right Hon. Baronet who now fills the chair at Quarter Sessions have often been acknowledged, and are fully appreciated both by his fellow magistrates, and the body of the county at large.

In the very commencement of the present century, the county magistracy were occupied with a matter as important--at least, if the question of expense be taken as the criterion of importance--as any that has been the subject of their deliberations at more recent periods. It was the rebuilding of the county prison. The county gaol formerly stood on what is now known as Castle Hill, near to Edgar's Tower, in the city of Worcester. It was extremely insecure; several prisoners had escaped from it, and the complaints of its absolute insufficiency for the purposes it was intended to answer, were many and frequent. The county magistrates had at length come to a determination to build a new gaol on a different site; but this was no sooner known than a violent opposition was raised on the score of the cost, and few matters seem to have created so much general alarm and excitement throughout the agricultural districts as this proposal. In April, 1802, a meeting of landowners and others paying county rates was convened at the Guildhall, Worcester, at which the High Sheriff, Mr. Newnham, presided. There it was resolved, that the erection of a new prison would be accompanied with great and unnecessary expense, and that the existing gaol might be sufficiently enlarged and repaired, at a moderate cost. The magistrates still appearing determined to proceed, parish after parish protested against any such step being taken, and these protests signed by most of the influential tenant farmers, were published time by time, occupying many columns of the then diminutive Worcester newspapers. W. Welch, Esq., Chairman of Quarter Sessions, in order to correct the misrepresentations which were abroad on the subject, replied to these protests by a public letter, in which he stated that the cost of a new gaol would only be ?19,000, and that properly to repair the old one would cost ?13,000; that the grand jury had so often presented the gaol, that something was absolutely necessary to be done; and that the burden on individual ratepayers would not be anything like what was represented. Mr. R. Hudson of Wick, on the other hand, challenged the magistrates to meet him at the Crown Inn, Worcester, when he would prove to them that the proceedings lately taken in the erection of a new prison had been irregular, and could not be supported.

At the Midsummer Quarter Sessions in that year, Mr. Welch, in his charge to the grand jury, recapitulated the causes which had compelled the magistrates to determine on a new gaol, and in proof of their desire to study the general interest of the ratepayers, stated that, since he had occupied the chair, the county accounts, which had formerly been in great confusion, had been methodised and arranged, a saving had been effected in the expenditure of the gaol of some hundreds a year, and a considerable annual allowance from the exchequer, hitherto considered as a perquisite of the Under Sheriff's, proved to be due to the county, and in future would be paid into the general fund.

Yet so strong was the feeling against the new building that the magistrates were compelled for awhile to abandon the project, and it was not till the escape of more prisoners caused the Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, at the Summer Assizes in 1807, to warn the county grand jury that, if the gaol were not altered or rebuilt, the county would be attached with a heavy fine for neglecting so essential a part of its duty, that any further steps were taken in the matter. At the Midsummer Sessions, 1808, the magistrates determined, without delay, to build a new gaol, as they believed that the old one admitted of no sufficient alteration. The expense was estimated at ?18,000, and the site in Salt Lane was fixed upon. The bench published a minute statement of the number and amount of rates this expenditure would render necessary.

At an adjourned sessions, held in February, 1809, the magistrates finally determined on the land in Salt Lane as the site for the new gaol, and adopted the plan of a Mr. Sandys. They published the reasons for their decision at length, the principal being, that the nature of the ground upon which the old prison stood would not admit of their obtaining a good foundation for the extensive buildings contemplated.

The new prison was, after this, vigorously proceeded with, and at the Epiphany Sessions, 1813, the chairman announced that the new gaol was completed, and in spite of much difficulty about the foundations, &c., the cost was within the estimate. The grand jury having inspected it, declared their entire approbation of the works, and thanked the magistrates for their attention to the interests of the county.

At the same Sessions, Edmund Meysey Wigley, Esq., was chosen chairman, in the room of Earl Beauchamp, who had expressed a wish to relinquish the office. The noble Earl, however, afterwards resumed its duties.

At the Michaelmas Sessions following, Henry Wakeman, Esq., of Perdiswell, was unanimously chosen to the chair, on the motion of Lord Deerhurst, seconded by Richard Spooner, Esq.

The society thus formed has continued to thrive and flourish to the present day, and has been productive of many direct and indirect benefits to a large number of the poorer class; helping them to a knowledge of the advantages of frugality--affording them a safe and profitable investment for their surplus earnings--enabling them to escape from the temptations of the public house, where the village club would have required their attendance--and saving them from the distress and misery that overtake the members of so many benefit societies constructed upon false principles, or upon no principles at all. The society at present numbers 1,899 members, of whom one-third are females, and it has a very large reserve fund. Great part of its successful working and prosperity are attributable to the fostering care and interest of the Rev. Thomas Pearson. The following is a statement of the pecuniary affairs of the institution, from its formation to the present time, which has been compiled by its efficient secretary, Mr. Thomas Holloway.

At these Sessions, the magistrates of Droitwich denied the authority of the county magistrates to appoint visitors to the Asylum for Pauper Lunatics kept by the Messrs. Ricketts in the borough, and on the matter being referred to the law officers of the crown, it was decided by them that the act passed in the previous session of Parliament vested the appointment of visitors in the magistracy of the borough in which the asylum was situate. Major Bund gave notice of a motion thereupon, to consider the propriety of building a County Lunatic Asylum.

Nine Catholic noblemen and gentlemen were now for the first time inserted in the Commission of the Peace for this county--viz., the Earl of Shrewsbury, Viscount Southwell, Sir E. Blount, Sir C. Throckmorton, R. Berkeley, Esq., W. Wakeman, Esq., T. C. Hornyold, Esq., C. E. Hanford, Esq., and W. Acton, Esq.

"That the general peaceable state of the county of Worcester affords a subject of great congratulation. The magistrates, however, viewing with the utmost abhorrence the atrocious acts of violence which have taken place in other counties, feel it their duty to declare that they have made such arrangements as, by giving full effect to the existing laws, are best calculated to prevent the occurrence of similar calamities in this county."

A vote of thanks was passed to Earl Plymouth and the Yeomanry, for their promptitude and firmness in quelling riots in the county.

At these Sessions was discussed a matter which excited great interest amongst the legal profession, viz., the allowance of fees to attorneys, who for some two or three sessions had only been paid ?1. 1s. for brief and attendance, instead of ?2. 14s. 4d., as formerly. The solicitors were heard by counsel, and the former payment was restored.

The question of erecting county courts again came under consideration--the present site in Foregate Street, and one in Pierpoint Street, both being proposed, and the former was adopted by a majority of 30 to 14. Premiums were offered for the three best plans.

The county was called upon to pay ?759. 17s. for special constables employed by the Sheriff to keep the peace at the last election.

Three plans were laid before the court, by the committee, for the new county courts, viz., one by Mr. Charles Day, Worcester; Mr. Mead, London; and Mr. Habershon, London. Previous to deciding upon them, General Mariott moved that the erection of the courts should be postponed till the enlargement of the gaol should be completed, in order that two such serious expenses might not be pressing on the county at the same time. A number of letters from different parishes had been received by the chairman, remonstrating against new courts, but General Mariott's motion was lost by 30 to 10. The three plans were then submitted to the court for choice, and the Rev. Mr. Pearson regretted that one from a Mr. Haycock, which he thought undoubtedly the best, was not amongst them. Mr. Mead's was recommended by the committee as the best, but fifteen magistrates voted for Mr. Day's, and only three for each of the others. Many magistrates refused to vote; and the general feeling of the public at the time was, that the advantage of the county, and the embellishment of the city, had been sacrificed to personal interest created by a canvass. A committee was appointed, with the Rev. Thomas Pearson as its chairman, to carry the plan thus chosen into execution.

"That the court is fully sensible of, and grateful for, the valuable services of their late chairman, Sir C. S. Smith, Bart., and deeply regrets that he feels himself unable to continue those services for the benefit of the county."

This was seconded by John Williams, Esq., and carried unanimously.

The chairman at these Sessions addressed a most valuable statement to the grand jury on the county expenditure, and the causes of the increase in the number and cost of criminal prosecutions.

Mr. Simcox Lea at great length entered into the subject of the rural police, and moved, as a resolution, that their benefit had not been equivalent to their cost. He wanted the Bench to adopt the plan of paid parish constables in their stead, and insisted particularly on the inefficiency of the chief constable. Mr. Noel seconded the motion. The chairman made an able defence of the police, and adduced several instances of their efficiency. Mr. Scott would vote for the motion, because the police were too few to be of much use. Mr. Onslow complained of the number of offences that were committed without detection ensuing. Colonel Bund, the Rev. Thomas Pearson, Mr. Benson, and Colonel Clive, spoke in favour of the police, and the motion was rejected by 34 to 13.

At the dinner of the magistrates, at the Shire Hall, after the transaction of the county business, the Rev. Thomas Pearson being in the chair, a portrait of Sir John Pakington, Bart., the result of a subscription amongst the magistrates, and which now hangs in the drawing room at the County Courts, was inaugurated.

REMARKABLE TRIALS.

THE following are brief notes of some of the more interesting trials, as well civil as criminal, which have occupied the attention of the Courts of Assize, or Quarter Sessions, in this county, during the present century.

"O cruel, cruel, cruel masters, Dare ye thus mock at our disasters? See parent, child, to phrenzy given, And dream yourselves of reaching heaven?

Rouse from your slumbers! count the price Of your own cursed avarice; And count it well, ere taught too late To dread than ours a far worse fate."

Mr. Campbell defended the Rev. gentleman, but he was found guilty, and being brought up for judgment next term, was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, and adjudged to pay the costs.

THE ODDINGLEY MURDER.

THE annals of crime record few tragedies so fearful in their enactment, so mysterious in their present concealment, so singular in their ultimate discovery as the Oddingley murder. A clergyman is shot at noon-day, while walking in his own fields--the assassin and the motive are perfectly known, yet he eludes justice, and suddenly and for ever disappears. Some of the men to whom common rumour points as the probable instigators of the crime, pass to their account, and make no sign. At last, when twenty-four years have elapsed, the body of the murderer is strangely discovered, in a state of preservation and under circumstances which leave no room to doubt that he was himself murdered by those who had hired him to commit the crime they were afraid to perpetrate with their own hands.

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