CHELTENHAM SE’ITLEMEN f EX AM A. NATIONS, A8J5-1826 PUBLICATIONS OF THE BRISTOL ANO GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY Records Section Volume VII X Issued 1969 CHELTENHAM SETTLEMENT EXAMINATIONS 1815-1826 Edited by Irvine Gray College of St. Paul & St. Mary Francis Close Hall Library Printed for the Records Section of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Price 20/- ST. PMJL’8 COLLEGE Llbh>RY. CHELTENHAM. < ^2^ 3 83986 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY HEADLEY BROTHERS LTD 109 KINGSWAY LONDON WC2 AND ASHFORD KENT PUBLICATIONS OF THE BRISTOL AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY RECORDS SECTION Hon. General Editor: Patrick McGrath, M.A. Vol. i. Marriage Bonds for the Diocese of Bristol, 1637-1700, transcribed by Denzil Hollis, B.A., and edited by Elizabeth Ralph, M.A., F.S.A. Price 10/- to members of the Society; 30/- to non­ members. Vol. 2. Gloucestershire Marriage Allegations, 1637-1680, edited by Brian Frith. Price 10/- to members of the Society; 25/- to non­ members. Vol. 3. The Registers of the Church of St. Augustine the Less, Bristol, 1577-1700, transcribed and edited by Arthur Sabin, M.A. Price 10/- to members of the Society; 25/- to non­ members. Vol. 4. The Registers of the Church of St. Mary, Dymock, 1538-1790, edited by Irvine Gray and J. E. Gethyn-Jones. Price 10/- to members of the Society; 25/- to non­ members. Vol. 5. Guide to the Parish Records of the City of Bristol and the County of Gloucester, edited by Irvine Gray and Elizabeth Ralph. Price 20/- to members of the Society; 30/- to non­ members. Vol. 6. The Church Book of St. Ewen’s, Bristol, 1454-1584, transcribed and edited by Betty R. Masters and Elizabeth Ralph. Price 30/-. Vol. 7. Cheltenham Settlement Examinations, 1815-1826, edited by Irvine Gray. Price 20/-. Future Publications Marriage Allegations in the Diocese of Gloucester, Vol. II, edited by Brian Frith. Local Government in Gloucestershire, 1775-1800: A Study of the Justices of the Peace, by Esther Moir. v This volume is issued under the terms of the legacy of the late Alfred Bruce Robinson for the printing of Bristol and Gloucestershire parish records. I ROBINSON BEQUEST The terms of the bequest are as follows:— “To the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society of which I am a member the sum of Five thousand pounds (the receipt of the Treasurer or other official to be a sufficient dis­ charge) such sum to be applied for the purpose of promoting any one or more of the objects of the said Society as defined in its Rules for the time being but at the same time I request the Society without however imposing any trust or legal obligation upon it so to do to use such sum for the purposes following that is to say:— (a) Provided due permission can be obtained to cause to be printed The Marriage Allegations and Surrogate Marriage Bonds in the Diocesan Registries at Gloucester and Bristol giving full details of the proposed marriage. (b) To continue the printing of ‘Gloucester Marriages' as commenced by Phillimore of Chancery Lane London W.C.2. (c) To print such other parish records and parish registers appertaining to the County of Gloucester or the City and County of Bristol as the Society shall think fit. (d) To send without charge one copy of every publication which shall be printed under the above headings (a), (b) and (c) to the Colston Boys' School aforesaid to form part of the library of such School and in deciding whether and to what extent it shall comply with my request I desire the Society to give full consideration and attention to any suggestion which may be made in regard thereto by the said C. Roy Hudleston who is a member of the Society’s Council.'' vi BRISTOL AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY RECORDS SECTION Committee, 1968 Dr. John Cannon {Chairman) Mr. C. R. Elrington, M.A., F.S.A. The Revd. Canon J. E. Gethyn-Jones, M.B.E., M.A., F.S.A. Captain H. S. Gracie, C.B., M.A., F.S.A., R.N. Mr. Irvine Gray, M.B.E., M.A., F.S.A. Lt.-ColoneL A. B. Lloyd-Baker, D.S.O. Dr. Margaret Sharp The Hon. W. R. S. Bathurst, T.D., M.A., F.S.A., F.G.S., Hon. Treasurer Mr. Patrick McGrath, M.A., Hon. General Editor Hon. Secretary Miss Elizabeth Ralph, M.A., F.S.A., The Council House, Bristol, I vii FOREWORD Cheltenham Settlement Examinations, 1815-1826, is the seventh in a series of volumes published by the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society in accordance with the terms of a legacy left by the late Mr. Alfred Bruce Robinson. Responsibility for publication was entrusted by the Society to a Records Section which has already produced two volumes of Marriage Licences and Marriage Allegations and two volumes of parish registers, records in which the late Mr. Robinson was particularly interested. In addition, it has issued a complete guide to the parish records of Bristol and Gloucestershire, and earlier this year it published the Church Book of St. Ewen's, Bristol, which contains a wealth of material relating to the life of an important Bristol parish in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Records Section wishes to express its thanks to Mr. Irvine Gray, Past President of the Society, who has rendered so many valuable services to historical and archaeological studies and who has now made available a calendar of the settlement papers of Cheltenham relating to a particularly interesting period in its history. His book is all the more welcome because settlement examinations, in spite of their great interest in relation to movements of population and the life of the poorer sections of the community, have not hitherto been published by Record Societies. Another volume of Marriage Allegations in the Diocese of Gloucester is in an advanced stage of preparation under the terms of Mr. Robinson’s legacy. The Society has now decided to authorize the Records Section to publish from time to time records other than parish records. For this purpose, cost of publication will be met from general funds and not from the Robinson Bequest. The additional volumes will include not only archive material but also works based on a detailed study of records. The first volume to be published will be Local Government in Gloucestershire, 1775-1800: A Study of the fustices of the Peace, by Esther Moir. Patrick McGrath, Hon. General Editor. ix CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION xiii NOTES ON THE OFFICIATING JUSTICES .. xxii NOTE ON THE FORM OF ABSTRACTS OF EXAMINATIONS . XXIV CHELTENHAM SETTLEMENT EXAMINATIONS I INDEX 95 xi INTRODUCTION The Law of Settlement Under the system of poor relief created by the celebrated Elizabethan Acts of 1597 and 1601, overseers of the poor were to be appointed annually for every parish by the justices of the peace, and were to provide work or maintenance for the indigent poor. Funds were to be provided out of parish rates. ‘Wherever a pauper became unable to support himself, there he had to be maintained.’1 Half a century later, when the Civil War had seriously increased the numbers and mobility of the poorer classes, ‘some defects in the law concerning the settling of the poor’ had become apparent. The preamble to the Act of Settlement, 1662,2 complains that ‘poor people are not restrained from going from one parish to another and therefore do endeavour to settle themselves in those parishes where there is the best stock, the largest commons or wastes to build cottages, and the most woods for them to bum and destroy; and when they have consumed it, then to another parish, and at last become rogues and vagabonds, to the great discouragement of parishes to provide stocks where it [stc] is liable to be devoured by strangers’.3 It was accordingly enacted that any persons coming to settle in a parish, in any tenement under the yearly value of £10, might, if considered likely to become chargeable to the parish, be removed by order of two justices to the place where they were legally settled, ‘either as a native, householder, sojourner, apprentice, or servant’. There was a right of appeal to Quarter Sessions. Thus was founded the law of settlement, to which the poor were subjected for the next two hundred years. Later Acts introduced modifications. In 16914 several means of acquiring a legal settlement were defined: serving a parish office, paying parish rates, being apprenticed in the parish, and serving a year’s hiring in it if un­ married and childless. Ownership of an estate, however small, also conferred settlement by virtue of decisions of the court.5 To determine the place of settlement a deposition on oath called an ‘examination’ was made by the pauper before two justices of the peace. 1 A. F. Vulliamy, The Law of Settlement and Removal (1895), Introduction, p. 1. 1 14 Car. II, cap. 12. 3 It is difficult to say whether there was any evidence to support this asser­ tion; perhaps what lay behind the Act was the desire of the London parishes to check the influx of those who might become a burden on the rates. 4 3 Wm. & Mary, cap. 11. 5 From 1723, by 9 Geo. I, cap. 7, property purchased had to be worth at least Z3O. xiii CHELTENHAM SETTLEMENT EXAMINATIONS, 1815-1826 Successive legislation, as the author of The Parish Chest observes, 'seems to have been designed in general to deal with abuses in the existing system, and to ensure that some regard was paid to the claims of humanity in its administration’.1 Meanwhile, throughout the 18th century, disputes between parishes over settlement cases occupied much of the time of Quarter Sessions, and consumed in legal costs vast sums of money which might more usefully have been devoted to the relief of the poor.