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VILLAGE DOCUMENTS

Have you ever come across Poorstock or Powerstoke or Powerstock as it is spelt to day. Clinging to the sides of the hills of this secluded part of West Dorset, it’s as if some gigantic hand sprinkled the houses as one sprinkles decorations on a cake. The church stayed on top whilst the cottages came to rest on the slopes.

Tradition tells us that Athelstan had a Winter Palace here and the Court Rolls of John’s time record tiles being brought from Southampton to repair the houses. In Domesday Book Pour estock was held by Hugh of Roger Arundel and then contained six hides. In 1341 Edward III granted a Charter for a “Market on Thursdays and a Fair on the Eve, Day and Morrow of Saints Phillip and James and two days afterwards”.

Written records are scarce and the earliest I have found to date is an Overseers’ account of 1749. Apart from the Parish Register, nothing seems to have survived from earlier times. Those that have are now in safe keeping in the County Archives - and I appreciate the help I’ve had from Miss Holmes on various visits - but many must have literally rotted away in damp ill-ventilated cupboards. Lack of education in those early days would preclude anything but what was essential.

Up to 1849 it was common for six differently constituted parish authorities to exercise different civil and ecclesiastical functions in the same place. These authorities included the incumbent, the churchwardens, the overseers, various combinations of these and the vestry. The Local Government Act of 1894 created the parish meeting and the parish council which took over the civil functions of the older authorities and thus separated the church and state at parish level. The powers of the overseers, who were elected by the annual vestry, to make and collect rates, were not transferred to Local Authorities until as late as 1927.

Prior to 1894 the village overseers had a lot to say in the running of the parish. They made and collected rates, doled the monies out to the poor, of which there seems -here at least - to have been many, were responsible for the homeless, the orphans, the welfare of the unmarried expectant mothers and many others. They would have well-earned the £25 per year they were paid. To support the bastards they would, through the courts, force an often-unwilling father to sign a bond, which made him responsible for the upkeep of his child and so exempted the parish. A similar bond was sometimes entered into to exempt the parish from the responsibility for old folk who were unable to keep themselves. They arranged apprenticeships for the poor children of the parish, funerals for the paupers - the account of 1749 shows four shillings for ‘streeching out and carrying to church’ ! They administered the workhouse and by and large ran the parish.

Should a person or family ‘intrude! into the parish the overseer would arrange a settlement examination before the magistrates. These documents, written by the clerk of the court, often told a miserable tale, of a family turned out of their home because the breadwinner had fallen ill: of their wandering from parish to parish, living on charity from the parish funds, until they could establish before the court their right to settle in a certain place. The court would accept that they were born or had a job to take up in a parish as reasons for settlement. Some of the applicants were obviously ne’er do wells who had large families of illegitimate children. Because of the finances of many poorer parishes such cases were often moved from parish to parish. I’m told that this method of qualifying for residence was in practice in some of the islands of the South Seas up to quite recent times. The Settlement Examination was invariably signed by ‘X’ . . . his mark.

An Indenture made in 1749 is not so very different in wording to those made in the early 1900’s. One, made by the Justices on behalf of ‘A Poor Child of the said Parish’ binds him to a master until ‘the said apprentice shall accomplish his Full Age of Twenty Four Years’. During this term he undertakes ‘to serve in all lawful business according to his Power, Wit, and Ability; and honestly, orderly and obediently, in all things demean and behave himself towards his said Master’. This lad was going to be an Apprentice in ‘all Manner of Seafaring Affairs

His Master undertook to “allow meet, competent and sufficient Meat, Drink, and Apparal, Lodging, Washing and all other Things necessary and fit for an Apprentice”. The Master also had to provide that the apprentice “be not a charge on the said parish in any way and at the end of the said term provide the said Apprentice with double Apparal of all sorts, that is say, a good new suit for the Holydays and another for the working days”.

In 1808 one John Mowson was chosen by lot to serve in the County Militia. As he did not want to serve he found a substitute. When the substitute had served one month and was not disapproved of or discharged by the Commanding Officer, the Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor of the Parish were ordered to pay to the said John Mowson the sum of twelve pounds, adjudged to be half the current price paid for a Volunteer. This sum was to be paid out of the rate made for Volunteers, or if there was no rate then out of the Poor Rate. Should the John Mowson have possessed an estate in Land, Goods or Money more than Five Hundred Pounds apparently he would have got nothing.

It is only when one sees written records of the past and can imagine the stories behind them that one realises how far this country has progressed. That the “good old days” were not as good after all, at least, not for most people.