WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



WALTON 



Sdez in 1094.' During the twelfth century an 

 assized rent of £^ from this vill was accounted for 

 in the corfius comitatus or total sum rendered yearly 

 as farm of the honour, but in 1201 it was increased 

 to £^ i6s.,' the increment perhaps representing the 

 sherifF-scot or fee for the sheriff as farmer of the 

 demesne manors.^ The manorial history of Everton 

 is the same as that of West Derby.* In 1 3 1 5 Sir 

 Robert de Holand entered into the manor by the 

 favour of Thomas of Lancaster and held it until the 

 earl's attainder in 1322." Thirty years later it was 

 given to John Barret in fee, but he appears to have 

 died without issue, and this grant also failed." 



Being granted by the crown in 1629 as an appen- 

 dage of the manor of West Derby,' the tenants of 

 Everton refused suit and service at the patentees' 

 court, asserting that their manor was distinct and 

 separate from that of West Derby. After legal dis- 

 putes the patentees thought it best to obtain new 

 letters patent in 1639, in which the vill of Everton 

 and the rents and services of the tenants were named. 

 The manors of West Derby, Everton, and Wavertree 

 were then sold to James, Lord Strange, and in 1 7 1 7 

 were purchased by Isaac Greene of Liverpool, whose 

 descendant,* the marquis of Salisbury, is the present 

 lord of the manor. Some land is still held as copy- 

 hold of the manor of West Derby. 



The Everton tenants had successfully asserted the 

 rights of their vill in 1620. In this year the copy- 

 holders of West Derby and Wavertree, having obtained 

 a commission confirming to them their copyhold 

 estates and for granting the wastes and commons by 

 copy of court roll, surveyed and proposed an allotment 

 not only of the wastes of West Derby and Wavertree, 

 but also of Everton, to be allotted among the copy- 

 holders of the three vills. The people of Everton, 

 however, insisted that theirs was a distinct vill,' with 

 known bounds ; that the benefit of the wastes had 

 from time beyond memory been taken and enjoyed by 

 the inhabitants ; that the tenants of Kirkdale paid 

 Everton 6s. ^d. a year for liberty of common in part 



the borough ot 

 single ward until 



of the wastes, and that the inhabitants of Wavertree 

 and West Derby had no rights in them.'" 



In 1642 it was found that the people of Everton 

 paid j^5 I IX. ^\d. for their enclosed lands and 13/. 4a'. 

 for their commons — Hongfield (Anfield), Whitefield 

 and Netherfield ; this last payment was known as 

 Breck silver, the commons lying on the Breck or slope 

 of the hill." An agreement was made in 1667 

 between the tenants and the earl of Derby, as lord ot 

 the manor, for enclosing a third of the commons, 

 which then extended to 1 80 acres large measurement ; 

 they were afterwards leased to the tenants." Then in 

 1 7 1 6 Lady Ashburnham granted to the copyholders a 

 lease for a thousand years of 1 1 5 acres of the 1 20 acres 

 unenclosed, for ;^ii5 paid and a rent of ^^5 15/. a 

 year." 



Everton was incorporated in 

 Liverpool in 1835. I' formed 

 1895, when it was divided into four — Everton, 

 Netherfield, St. Domingo, and Brockfield wards, each 

 with its aldermen and three councillors. 



The first place of worship erected in the township in 

 connexion with the Church of England was St. George's, 

 on the summit of the hill. It was planned in 1812 

 somewhat as a commercial speculation, the land being 

 given by James Atherton, and the money raised in 

 shares of ^100 each, any profits to be divided among 

 the proprietors. It was opened in 1814." The 

 incumbents, now called vicars, were the chaplains of 

 the proprietors until 1879, when, the conditions 

 having totally changed and any ' profit ' ceased with 

 the migration of the wealthier inhabitants many years 

 before, the proprietors made the church over to the 

 district." The next, St. Augustine's, Shaw Street, was 

 built in 1830, shares being subscribed and Thomas 

 Shaw giving the land.'" Christ Church, Great Homer 

 Street, was built in 1 848 by the family as a memorial 

 of Charles Horsfall, mayor in 1832—3. St. Peter's, 

 Sackville Street, followed in 1849. St. Chrysostom's 

 in 1853 replaced a chapel of ease in Mill Road, 

 which had been built in 1837." The preceding 



1 Farrer, Lanes. Pipe R. 290, 299. 



2 In 1226 the total payable was £1^ l6j. ; 

 Lanes. In^. and Extents (Rec. Soc. Lanes, 

 and Ches.), 136. The increment of 16s. 

 a year first appears in the Pipe Roll ac- 

 counts of 1 200- 1 ; Lanes. Pipe R. 131. 



3 In 1206 the manor was tallaged at 

 68r, 4^. (ibid. 202) ; and in 1227 at yos. ; 

 Inq. and Extents^ ^35- 



* As in the case of other adjoining 

 demesne manors the villeins of Everton 

 had a prescriptive right to obtain timber 

 in the underwoods of West Derby for 

 building or repairing their houses and 

 enclosing their arable lands. In or before 

 1225 this right had been contested, prob- 

 ably by the forester, but upon the com- 

 plaint of the 'king's men of Everton' 

 the sheriff was commanded to let them 

 have their right of taking estovers, as they 

 had enjoyed the same before the barons' 

 war, and not to exact other services and 

 customs than they had been used to per- 

 form before that time; Close R, 1225-7, 

 p. 64.A. In 1252 William de Ferrers, 

 earl of Derby, had a grant of free warren 

 here ; Chart. R. 36 Hen. III. m. 24. 



Upon the death of Edmund, earl of 

 Lancaster, in 1296 it was found that the 

 men of Everton held 24. oxgangs, for which 

 they rendered ^4 i6s. a year, and 34J 

 acres and a rood and a half of improve- 

 ment from the wastes for ijs. ^\d. ; 

 Inq. and Extents, 286, 



5 Inq. p.m. I Edw. Ill, n. 88. No 

 grant or livery of seisin was made to 

 Holand, There isarental of I323giving 

 particulars of the holdings. William the 

 reeve and his sons John and Robert con- 

 tributed half the sum of ly. i^d. collected 

 here for the fifteenth granted in 1332 ; 

 Exch, Lay Zubs. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and 

 Ches.), 5. 



* Gregson, Fragments, 145. It was 

 confirmed by the king ; Pat. 33 Edw. Ill 

 pt. i, m. 21. 



7 See the account of West Derby j and 

 Gregson, 146-8. 



8 Syers, Hist, of E-verton, 34, 35; see 

 also the account of Childwall. 



^ Everton is called a manor in 1340 ; 

 De Banc. R. 322, m. 279. 



1° Syers, Hist, of E'verton 21-3. 



11 Ibid. 28. 



^2 Ibid. 29. At 413 is a rental of 

 Everton of 1692; William Halsall was 

 the principal tenant. 



^ Ibid, 32. The names of the copy- 

 holders who shared the improved lands, 

 also the field names, will be found on 

 400-3. It appears that each copy- 

 holder doubled his holding ; thus Henry 

 Halsall, who held Z5J acres of old land, 

 received 26 acres of new. The other 

 principal tenants were John Seacome, 

 George Heyes, William Williamson, 

 Samuel Plumpton, John Johnson, William 

 Rice, and John Rose. The Heyes' house 



21 



in Everton village bore the initials and 

 ; see Trans. Hist. Soe. iv, 

 A settlement as to dis- 



H 



ies8 



I 



M 



date 

 70, 



puted land at the Breck, on the border 

 of West Derby, was effected in 1723 ; 

 Syers, op, cit. 410. 



The ' lord's rent ' of ^^5 I 51., as also 

 the ancient * Breck silver,' i p. ^d. was 

 in 1830 raised and paid out of the rent 

 of a cottage built, together with a new 

 pinfold, on a waste spot by the mere 

 or public watering-place; ibid. 113, 

 171. It had been agreed, as early as 

 1759, to pay these charges out of the 

 town's lay ; ibid. 417, 



" An abstract of the Act of Parliament 

 obtained in 181 3 is printed in Syers* Hist, 

 of Everton, 422. The patronage is now 

 exercised by a body of trustees, of whom 

 the rector of Walton is one, Thomas 

 Rickman was the architect, and the build- 

 ing was called an * iron church,' the metal 

 being largely used in the construction. 



^* These particulars are mostly taken 

 from a pamphlet issued in 1896, which 

 also contained portraits of the different 

 incumbents. The district was formally 

 assigned in 1881 ; Lond. Gaz. 26 June. 

 The churchyard was closed in 1854. 



^^ A district was assigned in 1873 ; 

 Lond. Gaa. 27 June. 



^7 A district was assigned in 1855 ; 

 Lond. Gaz. 6 April. 



