SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



of the ' Warden and Commonalty of the town and borough of Gateshead,' 

 and granted them a common seal. 



We hear of even earlier companies. In 1583 Bishop Barnes incorporated 

 and confirmed the rules of the weavers, and in 1602, the cordwainers received 

 their charter. These two companies apparently became extinct at an early 

 date, but the weavers supplied the aldermen of Gateshead. These aldermen, 

 however, had nothing to do with any corporate body, but together with two 

 wardens formed the executive of the company. The gild of dyers, fullers, 

 &c., leased a meeting-place from the churchwardens in 1726 for twenty-one 

 vears, but decay went on rapidly, and by 1835 only the companies of the 

 joiners and the chandlers remained, with a total membership of five. 



The flourishing borough of South Shields had no claim to prefer before 

 the commissioners of 1835. Strangled for centuries by the jealousy of New- 

 castle and by the unsatisfactory leasehold system under which all land was held 

 from the dean and chapter by leases of twenty-one years, it had barely found 

 a fresh substitute for its ruined salt industry in ship-building. However, it 

 grew rapidly in the nineteenth century. It became an independent port in 

 1848, and received a modern charter of incorporation in 1850. Its progress 

 was retarded because men were unwilling to build on leasehold sites. In 

 practice, but perhaps not formally, the leases could be perpetually renewed 

 every seven years at a fine of a little over a year's rent. Towards the end of 

 the eighteenth century the actual amount exacted for renewal fines began to 

 increase considerably, and matters grew serious when the ' Voluntary Enfran- 

 chisement ' Act of 1 85 I gravely altered the position of church leases. The 

 terms on which the leasehold could be enfranchised practically ignored any 

 beneficial interest in the lessee, although the dean and chapter lessees at South 

 Shields and elsewhere in the county were in an exceptionally favourable 

 position by custom. It has been explained already how the land held by them 

 included both demesne and bondage land, how their right to renewable leases 

 had been confirmed by the Council of the North and under the Common- 

 wealth. Unfortunately the model lease which appears as a schedule to the 

 Elizabethan settlement contained no clause mentioning the right to renewal. 

 Most church lessees outside Durham simply held the old demesne lands and 

 could not plead tenant-right as the tenants of the Durham chapter did, and 

 with some show of equity, if not of law. 



Matters continued in an unsatisfactory state till 1871, when the Ecclesi- 

 astical Commissioners were allowed to take over the estates of the see and 

 chapter of Durham under the Ecclesiastical Commission Act of 1835. They 

 had already induced Dean Baring and his chapter to announce that no leases 

 would be renewed on the old terms after 28 September, 1870. The South 

 Shields lessees at once took alarm. In 1837 they had organized a powerful 

 committee and had issued tracts to defend their interests, which they con- 

 sidered to be threatened by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposed legis- 

 lation. The defence committee was reorganized by 1870, and energetic pro- 

 tests were sent to the queen in council asking her not to confirm the transfer 

 to the commissioners. The two parties finally met before the Judicial Com- 

 mittee of the Privy Council, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners made a 

 vague promise to investigate the title of the petitioners, and maintained that 

 no injustice would occur. 



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