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Abstract
The processes through which northern townships, customarily governed by strong manorial institutions, came to embrace the structures and routines of vestry governance and supervision by county justices have long required further scholarly investigation. This paper presents a reassessment of the role played by the constables of the West Riding township of Sowerby, Halifax parish, in managing the highways function over the seventeenth century. This is feasible through the happy combination of contemporaneous paper records for the Wakefield court leet and of unusual and exceptionally revealing petty constables’ accounts. Sowerby’s constables creatively exploited mechanisms at the leet to enforce tenurial and township obligations for road repairs. While the appointment of surveyors is unattested before 1694 and statute duty arrangements are, at best, uncertain, a precocious policy of tax-funded maintenance became embedded in governance routines, as the township’s propertied and clothier elite responded to the mid-century political crisis and pulses of assertiveness from the Justices’ bench. Independency and improvisation are strongly supportive of change from below as the north’s distinctive contribution to state formation in early modern England.
Notes
1 West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS, Calderdale), SPL:143, Sowerby constables’ accounts (1628–1715), hereafter ‘SCA’. The accounts were first discussed by H. P. Kendall, ‘Sowerby Constables’ Accounts’, Pts I–V, in Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society (1902–6); twenty-eight years of itemized accounts survive for 1629–64 and fourteen for 1672–94.
2 Surveyors’ rates were permitted by Cromwellian Ordinance (1654–60) and, temporarily by highway statute, 14 Cha. II c.6 (1662–65) and 22 Cha. II c.12 (1670–73).
3 WYAS (C), HPC/A:1, Heptonstall town book (1716–37); TT101-9 Langfield surveyors’ accounts (1723–61).
4 A continuous set from the much smaller, lowland parish of Millington (East Riding) contains almost no highway references: Borthwick Institute, PR/MIL/10-11, Constables’ account books (1618–1713).
5 R. M. Seccombe, ‘Highways, Law and Governance: Parish of Halifax, c.1550–1700’ (Ph.D. thesis, Lancaster University, 2022), available at: https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/176925
6 The leet data derives from the paper court rolls of Wakefield Manor, attended by nineteen of twenty-one Halifax townships: Leeds University, Brotherton Library, YAS/MD225/1/287A-425A (1561–1699).
7 Seccombe, ‘Highways’, pp. 90–96.
8 J. R. Kent, The English Village Constable 1580–1642: A Social and Administrative Study (Oxford, 1986), pp. 24–56.
9 2&3 Phil. & Mar. c.8 (1555); 5 Eliz. c.12 (1562); 18 Eliz. c.10 (1576); for a full review of seventeenth-century legislation and customary regulation, see Seccombe, ‘Highways’, pp. 24–57.
10 Ordinance dated 31 March 1654, annulled 1660.
11 1662–65, by virtue of 14 Cha. II c.6 (1662); 1670–73, 22 Cha. II c.12 (1670).
12 3 Will. & Mar. c.12 (1692).
13 M. J. Braddick, Parliamentary Taxation in Seventeenth-Century England: Local Administration and Response (Woodbridge, 1994); M. J. Braddick, The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714 (Manchester, 1996), pp. 12–16.
14 Braddick, Parliamentary Taxation, pp. 126–67, 290–91.
15 Ibid., pp. 271–93.
16 J. R. Kent, ‘The Centre and the Localities: State Formation and Parish Government in England, circa 1640–1740’, Historical Journal, 38:2 (1995), 363–404 (366); H. R. French, The Middle Sort of People in Provincial England 1600–1750 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 90–140.
17 J. Healey, The First Century of Welfare: Poverty and Poor Relief in Lancashire, 1620–1730 (Woodbridge, 2014), pp. 66–70; M. J. Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England, c.1550–1700 (Cambridge, 2000), p.104.
18 A. Fletcher, Reform in the Provinces: The Government of Stuart England (New Haven, 1986), pp. 87–179.
19 Ibid., chs 7–9.
20 For Yorkshire, see G. C. F. Forster, The East Riding Justices of the Peace in the Seventeenth Century (York, 1973); ‘County Government in Yorkshire during the Interregnum’, Northern History, 12:1 (1976), 84–104; ‘Government in Provincial England under the Later Stuarts’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 33 (1983), 29–48.
21 J. Healey, ‘The Development of Poor Relief in Lancashire, c.1598–1680’, The Historical Journal, 53:3 (2010), 570–72.
22 Kent, Village Constable: for elections, pp. 57–79; for leet presentments, pp. 34–35.
23 Kent, Village Constable, pp. 24–56, 80–138.
24 Kent, ‘Centre and Localities’, p. 404.
25 Ibid., pp. 402–03.
26 The term ‘privy’ sessions, as found in the Sowerby constables’ accounts, is preferred in this essay to acknowledge the less formalized character of interactions with Justices than ‘Petty Sessions’ would suggest.
27 K. E. Wrightson and D. Levine, Poverty and Piety in an English Village, Terling 1525–1700, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1995), pp. 103–09; S. Hindle, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550–1640 (Basingstoke, 2000), pp. 18–19, 204–30; French, Middle Sort of People, pp. 90–140.
28 K. E. Wrightson, English Society, 1580–1680 (1982), pp. 222–26.
29 Hindle, State and Social Change, pp. 208–09; S. Hindle, ‘The Political Culture of the Middling Sort in English Rural Communities, c.1550–1750’, in T. Harris (ed.), The Politics of the Excluded, c.1500–1850 (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 125–52 (pp. 137–41).
30 Excellent probate records for all townships in the parish (1688–1700) have been published by Hebden Bridge Local History Society and Halifax Probate Group; see for example, Sowerby Probate Records: Household and Family in the Upper Calder Valley 1688–1700, ed. D. Cant and A. Petford (Hebden Bridge, 2013).
31 Pennine Valley: A History of Upper Calderdale, ed. B. Jennings (Hebden Bridge WEA Local History Group, Otley, 1992), pp. 18–19.
32 N. Smith, The Medieval Park of Erringden (Hebden Bridge, 2021), pp. 97–114; West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey to A.D. 1500, ed. M. L. Faull and S. A. Moorhouse (Wakefield, 1981), pp. 367–68.
33 The adjoining townships are shown on Map 1: Erringden, Langfield, Stansfield, Heptonstall, Wadsworth, Midgley, Warley, Rishworth-cum-Norland and Barkisland.
34 National Archives (TNA), Duchy of Lancaster: Survey of copyhold lands, DL 43/11/23 (1607/8).
35 WYAS (C), Agreement, SH:4/T.HX/1636; SPL:31, Account books for poor relief monies paid out (1737–58).
36 Seccombe, ‘Highways’, p. 182.
37 Extent: Sowerby (3 quarters), 1,485 ha, 42.5%, Soyland, 2,007 ha, 57.5%, calculated from acreages in the 1831 census; John Crabtree, Concise History of the Parish and Vicarage of Halifax (Halifax, 1836), p. 312; population: B. Atack et al., ‘The People of the Parish of Halifax, 1539 to 1670: Parish Registers and the Reconstruction of the Population’, in History in the South Pennines: The Legacy of Alan Petford, ed. N. Smith (Hebden Bridge, 2017), pp. 33–66 (p. 44).
38 West Riding Quarter Sessions (WRQS), Orders, Apr. 1666, Jul. 1667, Oct. 1668, via http://www.ancestry.co.uk (accessed November 2019).
39 See also Table 2 below.
40 M. Francois, ‘The Social and Economic Development of Halifax 1558–1640’, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society, 11 (1966), pp. 217–80 (pp. 252ff); Jennings, Pennine Valley, pp. 76–85.
41 Atack et al., ‘People of the Parish’, p. 44.
42 TNA, DL 43.11.25, Sowerby survey (c. 1600); Wakefield Manor Book 1709 (Leeds, 1939).
43 Manor Book 1709, p. 11.
44 Atack et al., ‘People of the Parish’, p. 44; calculation based on average household size of 4.75.
45 WYAS (W) WDP53/1/1/6, Baptisms, marriages, burials, Halifax St John the Baptist (1644–57), via http://www.ancestry.co.uk (accessed June 2020); see also P. Hudson, ‘Landholding and the Organization of Textile Manufacture in Yorkshire Rural Townships, c.1660–1810’, in M. Berg, Markets and Manufacture in Early Industrial Europe (1991), pp. 261–91; J. Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture: Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660–1780 (Ithaca, 1994); D. Hey, ‘The Domestic Economy of the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Holmfirth Textile Industry’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 85:1 (2013), 160–74.
46 John Ogilby, Britannia, Part the First (1675), pl. 89, ‘The road from York to West-Chester’.
47 SCA, 1639.
48 SCA, 1649.
49 Forster, ‘County Government’, pp. 89–95; R. A. H. Bennett, ‘Enforcing the Law in Revolutionary England: Yorkshire, c.1640–c.1660’ (unpub. Ph.D., King’s College London, 1987), pp. 108–18.
50 SCA, 1645–49.
51 WRQS, Orders, Apr., Oct. 1648, Apr. 1649; SCA, 1649.
52 J. G. Miall, Congregationalism in Yorkshire: A Chapter of Modern Church History (1868), pp. 50–52.
53 Seccombe, ‘Highways’, pp. 90–96.
54 The maps were drawn in ArcGIS; higher frequencies are indicated by broader lines; locations could not be mapped where orders were ascribed to landholders by name.
55 YAS/MD225/1/338A, Langfield, Michaelmas 1612; YAS/MD225/1/348A, Rishworth, Michaelmas 1622; YAS/MD225/1/349A, Erringden, Easter 1624.
56 YAS/MD225/1/348A, Michaelmas 1622.
57 YAS/MD225/1/308A, Michaelmas 1582.
58 YAS/MD225/1/334A, Easter 1609; YAS/MD225/1/354A, Easter 1629.
59 J. T. Swain, Industry Before the Industrial Revolution: North-East Lancashire, c. 1500–1640 (Chetham Society, 1986).
60 YAS/MD225/1/362A, Michaelmas 1636; YAS/MD225/1/363A, Michaelmas 1637.
61 YAS/MD225/1/385A, Michaelmas 1659.
62 YAS/MD225/1/407A, Easter 1682.
63 YAS/MD225/1/397A, Michaelmas 1671.
64 YAS/MD225/1/397A, Easter 1672; YAS/MD225/1/398A, Michaelmas 1672.
65 Erringden: YAS/MD225/1/407A, Easter 1682; YAS/MD225/1/413A, Easter 1688.
66 Bennett, ‘Enforcing the Law’, p. 116.
67 Seccombe, ‘Highways’, pp. 81–82, 97–99.
68 Bennett, ‘Enforcing the Law’, pp. 117–18.
69 See S. and B. Webb, The Story of the King’s Highway (1913), pp. 20–21.
70 SCA, 1634, 1635.
71 SCA, 1638.
72 YAS/MD225/1/378A, Michaelmas 1652; SCA, Oct. 1652.
73 The width of lines in Maps 4 and 5 represents repair frequency, not amount spent.
74 14 Cha. II c.6 (1662).
75 22 Cha. II c.12 (1670).
76 YAS/MD225/1/397A, Michaelmas 1671; YAS/MD225/1/399A, Michaelmas 1673; YAS/MD225/1/400A, Easter 1675; SCA, 1684.
77 SCA, 1677.
78 SCA, 1684.
79 SCA, 1691, 1692.
80 SCA, 1689, 1691.
81 The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes, ed. C. Morris (Stroud, 1995), p. 183; Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 3 vols (1724—26), ed. G. D. H. Cole and D. C. Browning (1962, repr., 1983), III, 64–68.
82 W. B. Crump, ‘Sowerby Highways’, in Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society (1928), pp. 1–42 (pp. 36–39).
83 SCA, 1672.
84 4 Will. & Mar. c.1 (1692).
85 SCA, 1694.
86 SCA, 1652.
87 Fletcher, Reform, pp. 116–42.
88 Kent, Village Constable, pp. 35–38.
89 SCA, passim.
90 B. W. Quintrell, ‘The Making of Charles I’s Book of Orders’, English Historical Review, 95:376 (1980), 553–72; Fletcher, Reform, pp. 56–60.
91 John Rushworth, Historical Collections (1659–80), ii, part 2, appendix, 82–89.
92 Quintrell, ‘Book of Orders’, pp. 561, 568.
93 H. A. Langelüddecke, ‘Secular Policy Enforcement during the Personal Rule of Charles I: The Administrative Work of Parish Officers in the 1630s’ (Ph.D. thesis, Oxford, 1995), pp. 41–42, 44.
94 Seccombe, ‘Highways’, pp. 58–109.
95 SCA, 1629.
96 Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, iii, 77.
97 Hindle, State and Social Change, pp. 148–49.
98 Kent, Village Constable, p. 37; Hindle, State and Social Change, p. 7.
99 SCA, 1662.
100 The list of articles is included within orders to the constable of Haworth in the parish of Bradford, WYAS (Bradford), HEA/B/55 (1694). The high constable was Joshua Dearden of Sowerby.
101 Fletcher, Reform, pp. 138–39; see also scattered bridge and highway references in B. W. Quintrell (ed.), Proceedings of the Lancashire Justices of the Peace at the Sheriff’s Table during Assizes Week, 1578–1694 (RSLC, 1981).
102 Justices listed, WRQS, Orders and Indictments, via http://www.ancestry.co.uk (accessed November 2019).
103 The word ‘vestry’ does not appear in surviving documents until the last decade of the century: J. L. Cruickshank, ‘Courts Leet, Constables and the Township Structure in the West Riding, 1540–1842’, Northern History, 54:1 (2017), 59–78 (p. 64); Hindle, State and Social Change, ch. 8.
104 The Farrer and Dearden families are both mentioned in John Watson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax in Yorkshire (1775), p. 300.
105 Kent, Village Constable, pp. 130–39.
106 Farrer: YAS/MD225/1/406A, Easter 1681 to YAS/MD225/1/422A, Easter 1697; Holgate: YAS/MD225/1/410A, Michaelmas 1684 to YAS/MD225/1/4018A, Michaelmas 1692.
107 Autobiography of Captain John Hodgson, ed. J. Horsfall Turner (Brighouse, 1882); The Rev. Oliver Heywood, 1630–1702: His Autobiography, Diaries, Anecdotes and Event Books, 4 vols, ed. J. Horsfall Turner (Bingley, 1885).
108 WRQS Order, May 1668, via http://www.ancestry.co.uk (accessed November 2019).
109 SCA, 1672; YAS/MD225/1/397-8A, Easter & Michaelmas 1672.
110 WRQS Order, Jan. 1674, via http://www.ancestry.co.uk (accessed November 2019).
111 Bennett, ‘Enforcing the Law’, pp. 413–14.
112 Healey, ‘Poor Relief in Lancashire’, p. 571.
113 Kent, ‘Centre and Localities’, p. 403.
114 J. A. Chartres, ‘Road Carrying in England in the Seventeenth Century: Myth and Reality’, Economic History Review, NS, 30:1 (1977), 73–94; K. E. Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain, 1470–1750 (2002), esp., ‘Traffic’, pp. 245–48; Seccombe explores local economic factors and impacts in ‘Highways’, ch. 6, pp. 210–68.
115 Hindle, State and Social Change, p. 216.