88 History of the 



obsolete, but the duties of some of those which still continue to 

 exist, change, or are greatly modified by the fleeting manners of each 

 succeeding age. These remarks are specially applicable to the 

 office of the Grave, Greave, or Reeve ; (a) an important func- 

 tionary here in days of yore, and wielding a considerable share of 

 authority within his jurisdiction. The office is one of great 

 antiquity, dating its origin far back into Sa.xon times. 



Before the introduction of the Magistracy into the district; 

 when Guardians of the poor, as we now understand the term, had 

 no existence therein ; and when Local Boards and Town Councils 

 were unknown, Rossendale was governed by one of these officers, 

 who bore the tide of " Greavfe of the Forest." 



The duties of the Greave were of the most onerous and respon- 

 sible kind ; but they also descended to and embraced matters the 

 most trivial and unimportant. Nothing seems to have been too 

 weighty for him to undertake, nothing too insignificant to claim 

 his attention. He was the Taxing Officer and " Bang-Beggar " of 

 the district. At one time we find him closely engaged in tracking 

 the footsteps of some notorious criminal, or in collecting evidence 

 for his prosecution ; at another he is relieving the necessities of a 

 poor half-starved tramp on his way to Yorkshire, or it might be 

 to Liverpool, in the opposite direction. Now he is taking measures 

 to ascertain the number, and prepare a return accordingly, of all 

 the able-bodied men within the Forest, capable of serving " the 

 King His Majesty in his most just and holy wars ; " and again he 

 is giving instructions for the repair of the Stocks at Crawshawbooth 

 or Bacup, or of the Guide Post at Four-Lane-Ends. One day he 

 is superintending the erection of a "Dungeon" at one of the 



(a) "Praposiius VilliB is sometimes used for the head or cliief officer of the 

 king in a town, manor, or village, or a Reeve." — Note by John Harland, 

 F.S.A., in " Manchester Court Leet Records,'' p. 67. Jacob in his Law 

 Die. ed. 1743, spells it " Reve," and thus defines it ; " More especially met 

 with in the West of England, signifies the bailiff of a manor, and hence 

 comes the word shire-reve, or sheriff." 



