Victoria County History: Leicestershire LUTTERWORTH DRAFT TEXT by P.J. Fisher and A. Watkins LOCAL GOVERNMENT Overview Lutterworth’s institutional structure resembled that of a village, with three-weekly manor courts, and twice-yearly views of frankpledge, presided over by the lord’s bailiff. The only court rolls to survive before the 18th century are from 1562, 1564 and 1657.1 Many survive from 1732 to 1857.2 One of the town’s two medieval religious guilds evolved into what became the Town Estate, which repaired the roads and funded town ‘improvements’.3 Town-masters’ accounts survive from 1707 to 1726 and 1761 to 1872.4 Constables’ accounts survive from 1651 to 1707 and 1809 to 1832.5 Their duties in 1657 included reporting ‘Popish Recusants’, houses erected without the statutory 4 a. of land, unlicensed alehouses, people playing unlawful games and those buying or selling corn before the market opened.6 The accounts include expenditure in the 1650s on a cuck-stool (ducking stool) with wheel, a whipping post and a cage (lock-up).7 Vestry minutes survive from 1789 to 1960.8 The town also had a Nuisances Committee from 1855, but it had little power to effect sanitary improvements. There was never a burial board. Town (parish) council minutes survive from 1894.9 Lutterworth was the main market town in Guthlaxton Hundred, and had a minor administrative role in the county in the 14th and 15th centuries. It became the centre of a Poor Law Union in 1835, and a Rural District Council in 1894. It hosted petty sessions and a county court from the 18th century, and magistrates’ courts until 1998. Since 1974, Lutterworth has been within Harborough District Council area, based in Market Harborough. Manorial government The manor was said to be held with the liberties pertaining to the crown (regale) in 1279.10 There are few relevant records from the Middle Ages, but the revenue from the courts and views of frankpledge and the returns of the clerks of the market of the Marshalsea of the royal household in 1406–7,11 indicate that it would have been quite a busy court. There were three tithings in 1562, for the town, Moorbarns and the village of Catthorpe.12 1 TNA, SC 2/188/83; SC 2/188/84; Warws. RO, CR 2017/M34. 2 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M35–7. 3 ROLLR, DE 914/2, f. 1. 4 ROLLR, DE 2559/102; DE 914/1–2. 5 ROLLR, DE 2559/24–25. 6 ROLLR, DE 2559/24. 7 ROLLR, DE 2559/24, for example, entries 3 Apr. 1654, 20 May 1657, 10 June 657, 25 June 1657 (cuckstool); 8 Apr. 1657 (whipping post); 2 Oct. 1655, 21 Feb. 1659 (cage). 8 ROLLR, DE 1463/6; DE 4336/33/1–8. 9 ROLLR, DE 2254/1–13. 10 Rot. Hund., I, 239; Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. B 350, f. 23; Nichols, History, IV, 247–8. 11 TNA, E 101/258/2; above Economic History. 12 TNA, SC 2/183/83. 1 Victoria County History: Leicestershire LUTTERWORTH DRAFT TEXT by P.J. Fisher and A. Watkins The profits of jurisdiction in the courts returned 25s. in 1322.13 This had increased to £8 13s. 6d. in 1339 (8.6 per cent of the manorial income).14 In 1359, the two views of frankpledge yielded 57s. 7d.15 In 1445, the pleas and perquisites of the courts and the view of frankpledge were said to be worth nothing beyond the fee and expenses of the steward.16 The perquisites of the courts returned 51s. 10d. in 1512–13 (2.7 per cent of the manorial income of £94 3s. 9¾d).17 The manor court held a keen interest in prosecuting illegal gambling in the 1560s. Seven innkeepers each paid 12d. for ‘keping & usinge unlawful games’ in their house in 1562, and a further four men paid 4d. for ‘playing at the shovelboard’. Four of the innkeepers were amerced again for the same offence in 1564, when ten people also paid sums from 4d. to 12d. for playing ‘Shovegroat’.18 Isaac Billington’s inn had a room known as the ‘Shoveboard chamber’ in 1676.19 Two bread-weighers and two ale-tasters were appointed in 1657.20 In 1734, the two bread-weighers also weighed butter, and two ale-tasters, two flesh- and fish-tasters, two leather-sealers, two constables, two townmasters, two headboroughs, two pinders and two neatherds were also chosen.21 Pump-reeves were not appointed that year, but twenty were appointed for ten street pumps in 1731, with duties probably including washing the streets at the end of every market and fair.22 The number of constables had increased to four by 1751.23 A town crier was also elected in 1857, when there was still one pinder, despite the open fields having been inclosed.24 Almost the only presentments made in the 19th century were for nuisances, including steps and bow windows which projected beyond the building line, and cellar windows. The latter may be an indication of overcrowding, with cellars turned into tenements. Penalties for infringements ranged from 1d. to 3s.25 Some retailers may have regarded this as a small annual cost for the benefit of a bow window to display their stock. The manor court also acted as a quasi-planning authority. A special court met in 1802 to inspect the alterations made by wine merchant George Smith to his property in Church Street, and to consider further proposed alterations. The jurors specified in detail how far the building could be extended, and ordered Smith to pay an annual fee of 3s. for the privilege of encroaching upon the street.26 The manor had two ovens, worth 10s. yearly in 1316,27 and in 1360.28 One oven, worth 6s. 5d., was leased out for 40s. in 1322, when it was repaired with stone and thatch.29 The smaller of the two manorial ovens fell out of use by 1648, and the larger one could only bake half of the town’s 13 TNA, SC/1146/17. 14 G.A. Holmes, The Estates of the Higher Nobility in Fourteenth-century England (Cambridge, 1957), 147, citing TNA, SC 11/801. 15 TNA, SC 6/908/33. 16 Cal. Inq. p.m., XXVI, 195–6. 17 TNA, SC 6/HENVIII/1824. 18 TNA, SC 2/183/83; SC 2/183/84; B. Waddell, ‘Governing England through the manor courts, 1550–1850’, Historical Journal, 55 (2012), 287. 19 ROLLR, PR/I/78/121. 20 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M34. 21 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M35/4. 22 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M35/2. 23 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M35/9. 24 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M37/3. 25 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M/36/17–23; CR 2017/M37/1–2, 11. 26 Warws. RO, CR 2017/M35/56. 27 Cal. Inq. p.m., VI, 36 28 TNA, C 135/152/5. 29 TNA, SC 6/1146/17. 2 Victoria County History: Leicestershire LUTTERWORTH DRAFT TEXT by P.J. Fisher and A. Watkins requirement. At least 16 and possibly as many as 30 of the ‘better sort’ had their own private ovens by 1659.30 Town government The Town Estate The origins of the Town Estate probably lay in Edmund Muryell’s endowment of a chantry in 1478, which stipulated that rents from landholdings were to be kept in the ‘Com[m]on box’ of the town until they were sufficient to employ a priest.31 Other gifts of lands and tenements by Richard Palmer, Roger Smith and Alice Smith in 1484–5, Edward Wells in 1489–90, John Hutt in 1495–6, William Cocks in 1497–8 and William Pawley in 1505–6 were later recorded as belonging to the town.32 Freehold land in the town valued at 11s. 10d. in 1518 and owned by the Master of the Guild, was held by the ‘Master of the Towne’ in 1536.33 By 1540, ‘every man in the town’ was ’compelled’ to pay his share of the cost of keeping the bridges and pavements in repair.34 Gifts for secular town works, including bridges and pavements, were made by Sir William Feilding in 1518,35 John Paybody in 1520,36 John Chapleyn in 1524,37 John Wheatley in 1563,38 and Francis Peake in 1579.39 A new feoffment for the Town Estate was made in 1710, restating that two town-masters should be chosen annually at the manor court, and present accounts annually. Leases were to be granted for no more than 21 years, and approved at a meeting of the inhabitants.40 Most of the Town Estate’s income was spent on repairing the roads, and there was no separate ‘surveyor of the highways’.41 By 1839, when annual rental income was £241 18s., all the principal streets had been made up with the ‘best materials’, the footways were paved or flagged and had kerb stones.42 Other occasional expenditure included the construction of almshouses and a workhouse in 1721 on a site in Hartshall Lane (later George Street),43 demolishing and rebuilding the schoolhouse in 1781, and building a new workhouse in 1801.44 A new scheme was agreed by the charity commissioners in 1871. The assets were vested in the official trustee for charity land, and the office of town-master lapsed. The new trustees would comprise the rector, churchwardens, any magistrate resident in Lutterworth and nine others chosen at a vestry meeting from among those who paid annual rates of £25. Income could be used to 30 TNA, E 134/1658-9/Hil 16, mm.