SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



of correction. The overseers advanced X^ioo for a stock of flax and wool, 

 but this was to be repaid within seven years. '**' Possibly there was a 

 speculative element in the undertaking. Clearly, when the poor were 

 farmed the farmer could only make his profit by their earnings, and their 

 employment in textiles and straw went on into the 19th century. Until 

 1830 the parish children of Hatfield earned enough for their support at the 

 silk mills of a Mr. WooUam at St. Albans. The parish gave a shed, in 

 which the work was carried on ; the children supervised the silk winding 

 and tied the threads when they snapped. The old men were employed on 

 the parish roads, earning 4J. to 4J. 6d. a week. This more than covered 

 their keep, which was reckoned at 3J. id. a week, including all expenses."' 

 The straw-plaiting was still made by the St. Albans paupers under the 

 farmer in 1797, when they also made mops, but the cloth-work had ceased. 



The housing of the poor came under the cognizance of the Privy 

 Council. The commissioners in 1630 ordered the justices to report on the 

 numbers of cottages newly built with a view to limiting the increase, and 

 the returns show that in the district of St. Albans there was practically no 

 building ^* ; yet the want of cottages was great, owing to the working of the 

 Act of 1589'' forbidding the erection of cottages without assigning 4 acres 

 of land to them, which was not repealed until 1775. That some standard of 

 comfort was maintained by public opinion is clear from presentments made 

 at the sessions of houses ' unfit for a Christian to inhabit.' Additional 

 accommodation could be made under the Act of 1589 by agreement between 

 the justices of the peace and the lord of the manor for the erection of 

 habitations for paupers on the waste.'* In 1665, for example, the church- 

 wardens and overseers of Great Gaddesden petitioned the justices for an 

 order for cottage-building, as they ' were exceedingly straithened for the 

 providing of habitations for the poor at exceeding dear rates as inmates with 

 other persons, whence they are frequently removed, and the petitioners 

 much troubled to replace them again.' "^ This limitation of cottage-building 

 led to great public dangers, especially in the towns. Overcrowding caused 

 fires '* and the infection of many families with plague or pestilential fevers. 

 This seems to have been realized about the end of the 17th century. The 

 county juries were on the watch for the division of tenements.'' 



Early in the 1 9th century building had apparently not kept pace with 

 the population. At Hatfield in 1831 carpenters bought land and put up 

 cottages with no gardens, which let at the ' very high rent ' of 2s. to zs. bd. 

 a week ; but even those who disapproved of this speculative building 

 admitted that without it the poor could not have been housed at all.*" 



The inclosure of arable was unlikely to lead to quarrels, as each man's 

 amount of arable was definite and the advantages obvious. It went on 

 steadily in the 17th century. Large part of the arable at Barnet was inclosed 

 before 1640.*^ This was true at Aldenham and North Mimms.*'' Round 



32 A. Gibbs, Hist. Rec. of St. Albans, 282. ^3 p^^^ i^w Rep. (183 i), 272. 



'* S. P. Dom. Chas. I, ccccxviii, 21. '^ Stat. 31 Eliz. cap. 7 ; 15 Geo. Ill, cap. 32. 



38 Many cottages erected in this way on the roadside waste may still be seen. 



3' Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 174. 38 i^id. 347. 39 jbij. j;^ ^^^ ^7. 40 p^^^ ^^^ ^^^_ (183 1), 273. 

 *l Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cclxxxiv, 15 ; cccix, 189 ; cccvii, 95 ; cccliv, 136. 



^^ Ct. of Wards, Feod. Surv. 17; Cal. S. P. Dom. 1638-9, p. 274; Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), 

 cccclxsxi, 14. 



221 



