A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



periods. From 1756 until 1781 the surveyors usually 

 served for i or 2 years consecutively but the Revd. 

 T. A. Abdy and John Palmer served in the office 

 throughout the period 1781-1792. In 1780 it was 

 resolved to appoint an assistant to the overseer at a 

 salary of 6 guineas; by April 18 14 the salary was £20. 

 In 1792 among the parish officers appointed was a 

 'reive of the waste.' 



Between 17 15 and 18 17 all bills of the church- 

 wardens and constables, and of the parochial charities 

 were paid out of one account — that of the overseers. 

 There was also a single and undifferentiated rate. A 

 iJ. rate in 1683-4 produced £% p. 4^.^^ and it does 

 not appear that this assessment was altered. In 1783 

 a resolution to do so was defeated.^* 



The vestry appears to have been watchful of the 

 general interests of the inhabitants. In 1776, for 

 example, the vestry agreed to prosecute Richard Palmer 

 of Epping should he complete the building of cottages 

 for the habitation of poor persons within the parish 

 without intending to lay 4 acres of land, which it was 

 deemed would bring great charge to the parish. Palmer, 

 who was present, agreed not to go on with the building. 

 In 1 78 1 the vestry adjourned to supervise the over- 

 throw of fences on illegal encroachments made by the 

 people of Epping upon the waste of the manor of 

 HemnaUs, and in 1797 it was agreed that a gate should 

 be erected to keep off forest cattle. One scandal occurs 

 in the parish records. In 1774 it was reported that 

 William Le Cocq, one of the overseers, and then in 

 Chelmsford Gaol, had not delivered in his account, and 

 the vestry ordered the parish officers to borrow ;^ioo 

 to pay off his debts. 



Most of the parish business naturally concerned poor 

 relief. When the parish accounts begin it appears that 

 the policy was one of out relief only. In 171 5 there 

 was a payment of £3 for badges for paupers. There 

 were similar payments for badges in 1729 and in 1746 

 it was ordered that badges should be worn by all those 

 receiving weekly doles. In 1728 there were 19 people 

 receiving doles; in 1732 16 people, and in 1733 13 

 people, were receiving doles totalling respectively 

 £1 13/. jJ. and £1 6s. ^J. a week. There were also 

 frequent payments for the provision of clothing, for 

 nursing at home, and for rents. Occasionally, at least, 

 paupers' children were bound out as apprentices. In 

 June 1 78 5 it was decided to advertise in the Chelmsford 

 papers in order to get 3 or 4 boys placed as apprentices ; 

 in the following month one was apprenticed to a baker 

 at Henham. 



There is a reference to a parish house in 1714,^' but 

 this may have been only a pest house, which is men- 

 tioned in August 1766. In August 1729, however, the 

 vestry resolved that the churchwardens and overseers 

 should look for a convenient place and house for a work- 

 house, and in September of that year it was resolved 

 to provide a workhouse. In March 1730 it was again 

 resolved that the parish officers should look for a work- 

 house with all speed, but there does not appear to be 

 any evidence of one until 1 742 when it was agreed to 

 take Mr. Rogers's house for three years at £8 a year. 

 In 1746 the vestry agreed to take the house on a yearly 



tenancy at a rent oC £j.^^ Subsequent entries for the 

 payment of the rent make it clear that this was being 

 used as a workhouse, and sometimes describe it as in 

 'The Street', presumably Coopersale Street. The parish 

 appears to have let an orchard attached to this building 

 to John Palmer at an annual rent of los. By April 



1774 the parish had leased another house, Mr. 

 Bishop's, at a rent of £9. Rogers's house, which in June 



1775 was described as 'the old workhouse', was still in 

 use until June 1776, when the parish accounts record 

 a payment for beer when the people were carried out 

 of 'the old workhouse.' In 1782 the vestry agreed that 

 a house called Newmans, belonging to John Palmer,^' 

 should be leased for 2 1 years and converted into a work- 

 house. In 1805 the parish was given notice to quit 

 both Palmer's and Bishop's houses.^" By June 1793 

 the parish had leased a cottage on the common from 

 the lord of the manor at a rent of £1 10/.; the parish 

 was given notice to quit this house in 1807.3' In 1829 

 the parish held a house at Coopersale Common; it was 

 then occupied by William Brown, a 'poor person', who 

 in November of that year was given notice to quit.^^ 



In February 1774 Edward Robinson was appointed 

 master of the workhouse, in succession to the 'late Mr. 

 Jepp', at a salary of 1 3 guineas. He was also allowed 

 one pint of ale a day, but was not permitted to charge 

 for tea and sugar brought in. In June 1775 Giles 

 Ashby of Halstead was appointed 'to be the master and 

 mistress of the workhouse' at a salary of 1 2 guineas, 

 with an allowance of i guinea for tea.'^ In 1803 the 

 parish made an agreement with Thomas Finch for the 

 farm of the poor. He was to be allowed 3/. a head 

 weekly whilst flour should remain under y. a peck, 

 and to be allowed a surplus according to the exact con- 

 sumption in the house to be proved by the bills of 

 parcels. He was to provide three meals daily, to include 

 'hot meat dinner' on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. 

 He was also to be allowed the benefit of all the work'* 

 produced by the poor in the house, an extra guinea for 

 every lying in with p. a week for the child at one 

 month old, 4J. for every pauper dying in the house (the 

 parish, however, paying the cost of burial), i guinea 

 for loss of time and trouble for every pauper laid up 

 with a broken or fractured limb, and 2J guineas for 

 shaving the paupers once a week and for sweeping the 

 chimneys. 35 In 18 16 the parish contracted with 

 William Nutt for the maintenance of the poor in the 

 workhouse for one year; the contract was renewed in 

 1817, Nutt being allowed 5X. a head weekly.36 There 

 is in the records one undated proposal, from John 

 Stubbs of Orsett workhouse, for undertaking to main- 

 tain the poor at 5^. a head, with an allowance of ij 

 chaldron of coal.'' In 1828 the parish seems to have 

 found some difficulty in arranging a price per head for 

 the workhouse, and two letters survive from people 

 willing to enter into a contract.' 8 



At first it seems that the parish tried to get all its 

 poor into the workhouse, and the weekly doles ceased 

 in 1762. It was, however, found necessary to reintro- 

 duce them during the worst period of the depression 

 at the end of the century, and in November 1799 it 

 was resolved that every family should be allowed i^. 



" E.R.O., D/P 152/5/1. 

 2« E.R.O., D/P 152/11/3. 

 " E.R.O., D/P 152/18/11. 

 2» Ibid. 



^' The house was described as 'late 

 Rogers's.* 

 » E.R.O., D/P 152/18/10. 



" Ibid. 

 " Ibid. 



" E.R.O., D/P 152/18/7. 

 ^* In 1804. spinning-wheels were pur- 

 chased for the workhouse. 

 " E.R.O., D/P 1 52/ 1 8/7. 

 36 E.R.O., D/P 1 52/1 1/4. 



3' E.R.O., D/P 152/18/7. 



38 E.R.O,, D/P 152/18/14. Several 

 inventories of the workhouse (1792— 

 1 8 19) survive as also do regulations for the 

 workhouse diet (1803): E.R.O., D/P 

 152/15/8; ibid. D/P 152/18/4. 



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