chatteris parish community

This book was acquired by the Justices for the Chatteris District in 1792. The size is fifteen inches by ten and it is magnificently bound in cream coloured leather, has about five hundred pages of hand made paper still in perfect condition and weighs about ten pounds.

Two of the Justices were a Mr Dunn and a Mr Gardner. Their families intermarried, and took the name Dunn Gardner This is explained on memorial tablets in Chatteris Church. The family carefully preserved the “Justices’ Book” and it has recently been presented by Mr. Donald Macrae of Stradishall Manor to Chatteris Town Council for Chatteris Museum.

One side is described “Justices Precedents” and the other, opening when turned upside down, “Justices Meetings”. For some reason its use ceased in 1802 when it was only half filled.

The “Precedents” consist of 279 pages, beautifully hand written, of specimens of legal documents for the most part. A small number are copies of actual local documents with local names and appropriate dates. There is a full index, and subjects include: Alehouses; Apprentices; Assault and Battery; Bastards; Burglary; Discharges; Distress; Excise; Felony; Game; Highways; Horses; Houses; Informations; Land tax; Licence to Beg; Militia; Poor; Robbery; Servants; Swearing; Vagrants; Weights and Measures; Woollen Manufacture and Wood.

The interest taken by the justices in bastards and lewd women was not so much moral as financial, because in those days, when you needed support, through poverty, age or sickness, the charge fell on your native town; people could be, and often were, sent back there. Obviously an illegitimate child was a liability - the putative father must be found and if possible, made to marry the girl.

Sarah Peacock of Chatteris was, in 1794, said to be “a lewd woman of bad life and conversation, and refuseth to provide for the maintenance of the child” Moreover she had two children “which she had run away from” and was now living with a single man, one Robert Cave. A warrant was issued and she was sent to the “House of Correction” in Wisbech for a month.

The Chatteris Justices included in their district the “hamlets” of March, Doddington, Wimblington, Manea and Benwick. Normally they met at the George, at Chatteris, there being no court building. There was probably a lock-up near the church, but March had none and petitioned the justices to provide one in 1802. They go one, in the Market Place, for thirty pounds.

Weights and measures were the concern of the justices who appointed a local publican as officer. When he took some weights from William Curtis, grocer, of Chatteris to test, the grocer took them back by force and impeded the official. Edward Elam of March, also a grocer, had his defective weights broken up. Two Doddington bakers were caught selling light loaves. Several of the 12d loaves were 10 ounces short and the standard penalty was one penny per ounce found deficient. Spinning wool was still done locally. A standard skein was 560 yards, but skeins spun by Ann Smith of Chatteris, Jane Slater of Benwick and Elizabeth Fuller of Chatteris were short by up to 240 yards! 

Elizabeth Peck of Chatteris was convicted of a second offence and fined 40/- but she refused to pay. As neither she, nor her husband had any goods worth distraining on she was arrested and committed to the constables to convey and deliver to the House of Correction at Wisbech for one month. Precedents are provided for dealing with the swearing of profane oaths, and an added note recommends:

• Labourer for every oath 1d
• Farmer or tradesman 2d
• Gentleman 5d

Amongst copies of a sworn complaint is the following example:

“FOR OBBROBRIOUS WORDS

“… who says that yesterday morning the wife of A.B. as this deponent did tell this examiner’s husband that this examiner was whoring with the miller in Chatteris among the barns in his yard there and used several opprobrious expressions which caused great uneasiness between this examiner and her husband and several times when passeth … in the street calls this examiner “Whore” “.

The war against France necessitated a form of conscription in 1792. The constables of the parishes were instructed to list all able bodied men between eighteen and forty years age. Peers, those already serving, members of “either university”, clergy, apprentices, seafaring men and poor men having two children born in wedlock were exempt. In Chatteris 12 were balloted to serve, 13 in March and 7 from Doddington Wimblington and Benwick. Either £10 or £20 would buy release from the obligation to serve (up to 5 years or the duration of the war) by sending a substitute.

Further details in this wonderful book include the taxation of land, property, servants and the payment of tithes to the church. A Quaker, James Bateman, naturally objected to paying tithes to the Anglican Church and managed to avoid paying for 23 years, a total of eleven shillings, before proceedings were started. He was a grocer and draper in Chatteris.

The sale of tobacco and alcohol was also regulated - and this led to the fact that smuggling was rife in East Anglia.

Information such as this, written as it was from day to day, gives us a close insight into life in the past in the fenland area around Chatteris. History becomes more alive, more immediate, more interesting. Since this is the “Justices Book” one may assume that all the facts contained therein are correct and not embellished at the time of writing. It is good to know that this important historic document has found its way back to its original home, Chatteris

 

Edited by Jonathan Finch (from article by M.K.Kidd)

Original Article in Life Magazine- October 1988

Kindly provided by Richard and Janet Smith

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