A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



applications for the office of petty constable at Bow Brickhill had been so 

 numerous as to arouse the suspicions of the bench that the constables had 

 made a considerable profit over this part of their duty. It was therefore 

 ordered that the yearly charge should be reduced to a certainty, and 80 

 a year was agreed upon as a suitable remuneration, to be paid to two men 

 recommended by the minister, overseers, and others of the parish. The 

 system of contracting for the carriage of vagrants was evidently found to be 

 satisfactory, and was adopted at various places in the county. 



A scale of allowances to constables and governors of the houses of cor- 

 rection was also drawn up to regulate the treatment of vagrants on the road. 

 For food gd. a day, or yl. for each meal, was allowed ; the charges for the 

 hire of carts and sufficient horses was settled, and the constable or guide 

 conducting the vagrants received is. a day, including his maintenance, with 

 3</. per mile for his horse. If a vagrant died on the road i QJ. was allowed 

 for his burial, and the charge of the justices' clerk for making out a vagrant's 

 passport was limited to is. 



Up to the close of the reign of George II the labourers seem to have 

 been prosperous, and the poor relief given on more or less strict lines, 

 able-bodied labourers not often receiving relief unless work was done. 

 The prosperity of the labourer was but the reflection of the prosperity 

 of the farmer in the early part of the eighteenth century, after the conclu- 

 sion of peace in 1713. The introduction of improved methods, encouraged 

 by the Board of Agriculture, brought great profits to the farmers and in- 

 creased the rents of the landlords, in spite of the low prices during the 

 peace. The inclosure of common fields was urgently recommended by the 

 Board, since improvements were impossible under the old system of common 

 cultivation. Inclosure was urged on the different parishes, for the purpose 

 of arable farming, and not for the conversion of land to pasture. In Bucking- 

 hamshire it had been recognized that much of the land was not suitable for 

 sheep-farming, being too heavy and wet, so that the inclosures at this time were 

 not accompanied by evictions. An Act of Parliament was in many cases obtained 

 for the inclosure of each parish, and the tenants of strips in the common fields 

 were awarded separate fields and meadows, to be cultivated in severally and 

 inclosed with hedges. The first Act was obtained to inclose the common 

 fields at Ashendon in 1739, and two more were passed in 1743 and 1745 for 

 Wotton Underwood and Shipton in Winslow respectively. Between 1760 

 and 1770 there were eight inclosures, and between 1770 and 1780 sixteen. 

 In the following decade the numbers dropped to five, but there were a series 

 of bad harvests to account for the decrease. The number rose between 1770 

 and 1780 to twelve, and between 1800 and 1810 to fifteen, and inclosures 

 were made continuously during the next fifty years ; other instances occur 

 later, but the rate of inclosures by Act lessened, and many fields must have 

 been inclosed under an agreement between the tenants. 



Two reports to the Board of Agriculture, 804 dated 1794 and 1813, fully 

 describe the methods of farming and the terms of tenancy which prevailed 

 in the eighteenth century. In the earlier report, the area of the county 

 was reckoned at 518,400 statute acres, and of these 91,000 odd lay in 



104 W. James and J. Malcolm, Gen. View of Agru. of Bucks, (i 794), and Rev. St. John Priest, Gen. View 

 ofA&ic. of Bucks. (1813). 



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