Last summer we were fortunate to have two MA History students from the University of Essex on placement with us, jointly sponsored by the University and the Friends of Historic Essex. In this post, David Perkins tells us about his placement project: cataloguing settlement papers for the parishes of Rayleigh and Hadleigh. Thanks to David, you can now find more information about individual settlement papers on Essex Archives Online. For Rayleigh, search for the reference ‘D/P 332/13′ and for Hadleigh, search ‘D/P 303/13‘.

The work I did for my placement forms a small part of a larger project by the Essex Record Office (ERO) to make more information about individual settlement papers available through Essex Archives Online. By making this information digitally available, the ease of accessing and the searching of those documents for details, of say, name, age, location, or date, is then greatly increased.

As a current MA student, the opportunity to not only undertake research for my dissertation in an archive and with the primary sources, but also to be a small part in the process of making those same documents more accessible and available to future researchers has been an absolute pleasure.

As a historian, the physical connection with the material past, both through the handling and reading of the settlement papers, has given me a far better sense of the real lived lives of those people named on the page. And in turn, this has given me a better appreciation for the existential realities of the people noted in those documents.

The settlement papers for Rayleigh and Hadleigh span from the late seventeenth century through to the early nineteenth century, and comprise three main types of documents: settlement certificates, removal orders, and settlement examinations.

Settlement certificates were given by the overseers and churchwardens of a parish to an individual or family as evidence that they had been granted legal settlement in that parish and so were then entitled to poor relief in that parish. Removal orders were issued by the Justices of the Peace against an individual or family, ordering them to be removed to their parish of legal settlement. Settlement examinations recorded an account of the life of an individual or family who had applied for poor relief from that parish but did not have legal settlement there. These three types of documents are individually quite formulaic in how they record the information. The date, name, and location is given in each case. Of the three types of documents, it is the settlement examinations that provide the most detailed information of that individual or family’s history.

The number of settlement papers that the ERO have for the parishes of Rayleigh and Hadleigh are markedly different. For Rayleigh there a total of 824 documents; 147 settlement certificates, 231 removal orders, and 446 settlement examinations. Whereas Hadleigh has a fraction of that, with only 54 documents in total, comprising of 48 settlement certificates, 5 removal orders, and 1 settlement examination. The difference in the volume of the ERO’s holdings for these two parishes is not necessarily a reflection of the contemporaneous quantities of those documents, but rather a reflection of what has survived. The difference between the number of documents that remain from these two parishes is a telling example of the un-uniform survival, even amongst similar items, of materials from the past. 

Aside from the most beneficial use that these documents have, in informing genealogists and researchers of family history, by looking at the settlement papers in a different way there also lays a vast wealth of other fascinating information that can be gained.

In the papers we can see a changing world over the course of more than a century. A world that in 1752 changes its observation of the new year from 25 March to 1 January, we can see the transition in the way that the names of settlements are described, from the Norman-French ‘Magna’ and ‘Parva’ (D/P 332/13/1A/70) to the English ‘Great’ and ‘Little’ (D/P 332/13/1A/79). We can even detect glimpses of changes in society’s attitudes and use of language and terminology; in the early documents single pregnant women are noted as ‘with child that is likely to be born a bastard’ (D/P 332/13/1A/96), whereas in the later documents we see the term ‘singlewoman, now pregnant’ (D/P 332/13/2/121). In local administration we can see the regularity of bureaucracy with a move away from handwritten documents (D/P 332/13/3/1) to the increasing use of printed and standardised official forms that are purchased from a state authorised stationer (D/P 332/13/3/4).

It cannot be forgotten that settlement papers are both official and legal documents that represent one part in the machine of poor relief. And although they do contain accurate information, that was sworn on oath, the information that has been written down on the documents, especially in the case of the settlement examinations, is a condensed and edited form of what the examinee said, it is not a verbatim transcription of their voice. The documents only tell us the facts; they do not and cannot convey an accurate account of that person’s emotional and social experience as they were when they came to request poor relief. The only place where we can see the real presence of the person is with their sign or signature. Although ranging from a shaky X (D/P 332/13/4/295) to an experienced hand (D/P 332/13/4/247, see above), the mark made is the only physical act on the document that is attributable to that individual.

Aside from the individual or family, or the churchwarden and the overseers as named on the documents, and indeed the purpose of the document, be that a certificate, removal order, or examination, there is no other indication or comment given on what would happen next, or by whom. Fortunately for us however, there is amongst the documents evidence of how poor relief operated in the real world. On the reverse of William Thorrowgood’s removal order (D/P 332/13/2/17) there is a glimpse into the costs incurred by the parish. The removal of William and his wife Mary from Rayleigh to Great Stambridge, a distance by road of only about seven miles, on or shortly after 12 February 1795 tells us that the total cost of removal was 15s 10d, from which 5s was paid for the horse and cart, and 8d paid for the turnpike. This then gives us evidence of potential local travel costs in late eighteenth century Rayleigh. Further, the cost list on the reverse of the document also notes that 2s 2d, later altered to 2s 8d, was paid to a tailor. From this we can likely conclude that since it was the end of February, therefore late winter, the Thorrowgoods were insufficiently clothed for the journey, and so by reasonable inference had insufficient clothes in general. Although the removing parish were entitled to, and able to, and, in general, did claim the money back from parish that the individual or family was being removed to, the very evidence of the parish of Rayleigh ensuring the well-being of the Thorrowgoods, even on such a short journey, provides evidence of a social contract between the parish and the parishioners that not only works to fulfil a legal obligation, but one that also cares for the individual’s wellbeing.

Since we know that 8d was paid for the turnpike, it is then a confident statement to make that the Thorrowgoods travelled on the horse and cart, in their new warmer clothes, along the turnpike. The turnpike road that they travelled on left Rayleigh and went to Leigh, from where the Thorrowgoods would have travelled north to Great Stambridge. The 1746/47 Act of Parliament (20 Geo. II. c. 7) gave rights to twenty-six miles of turnpike roads around Rayleigh, and as much as the improved roads were to the speed and comfort of travel, there were those who saw the new roads as an opportunity to take poor relief into their own hands. In the November of 1772 the toll gate at Hadleigh, a few miles south of Rayleigh, was robbed of 19s 6d by masked men on horses, who then after rode to the Stroud Green toll gate just east of Rochford, about five miles east of Hadleigh, and repeated their crime (Chelmsford Chronicle, 6 November 1772). Although the story of the Thorrowgoods and the highwaymen are not related – the incidents are after all separated by twenty-three years – the knowledge that highway robbery was a real lived possibility can help with building a better picture of the society and potential concerns that the Thorrowgoods may have had but are not, nor could be, written down on theirs, or anyone else’s settlement papers.

The operation of poor relief relied on more than just the gentlemen overseers, churchwardens, and parish vestry. In the case of the Thorrowgoods, we know not the name of the person who drove the horse and cart, nor the name of the place where the clothes were bought. These additional actors in the mechanism of poor relief are seldom named. However, on the reverse of the removal order of William Maize (D/P 332/13/3/77) we can see a named third party involved in the process.

A note on the reverse of the removal reads that ‘John Pretty is charged to convey William Maize from Sittingbourne to Rayleigh’. This note then raises the question of why the person being removed was to be accompanied. Unfortunately, we do not know the age of William, but it is possible that he was a child, and so was accompanied for his safety. Should William have been an adult, then we can consider, if elderly he may have needed accompaniment, or as in the case of John White and his wife Mary (D/P 332/13/3/81 and D/P 332/13/3/92), that they do not return again after having been removed on two previous occasions.

Since it was the parishioners of the parish who through the levy of the poor rate paid for poor relief in the parish, those same parishioners desired that those administering the system of poor relief were doing so in an economical way.

Evidence of this comes first from John Rout’s settlement examination (D/P 332/13/4/425), which is written, although it should be noted as not being signed or dated, on the reverse of two lost dog posters. The posters state that two dogs have strayed from Dunton Hall, about ten miles west of Rayleigh, and a reward of 1 guinea will be given by Mr W. Gale on their return. The poster states that the dogs went missing on 30 July 1826, with the poster being published on the 2 August. This then can help us in giving a date to John Rout’s Examination as no sooner than 2 August 1826.

The frugality of Rayleigh’s administrators is further bolstered by their use of old tax ledgers. Beginning with William Waight (D/P 332/13/4/271) on 21 January 1807 and ending with William Synett (D/P 332/13/4/305) on 2 February 1809, there are in addition five other incidents where the settlement examination has been written on a page cut from what appears to be a ledger for the receipt of tax payments. The rectitude shown in recycling the paper is admirable, and no doubt the contemporary parishioners of the parish would have been pleased to know that the administrators were not needlessly spending their rates. But the length of time over which these ledgers were re-purposed is curious. One or two on the same day, or even concurrent months would show a short-term solution to the lack of other paper. But since this occurred over a period of two full calendar years – and it must be remembered that we only have remaining to us a small fraction of the documents produced – then it has to be concluded that the administrators of Raleigh had a vast excess of unused tax ledgers. Why this was so is of course speculation, but a possible cause is the discontinued use of that form of ledger, so making the pages suitable for another purpose.

In helping to catalogue the settlement papers I have been overwhelmed by the research possibilities that they can offer. Apart from settlement papers being an invaluable source for their names, dates, and places, they do also contain hidden secrets about the lives and world of those past people. I look forward to finding many more.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, you can also read about Aaron Archer’s experience of cataloguing parish Poor Law documents for Colchester for his placement back in 2021. Next week we’ll be publishing David’s guide to settlement papers – watch this space!