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The evolution of the office of county surveyor in Essex, 1700-1816

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Nancy Briggs
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Extract

Writers on the history of local government from Sidney and Beatrice Webb to Esther Moir have commented on the slow rate of appearance of the county surveyor as a salaried officer. The justices of the peace only with the greatest reluctance admitted the necessity of appointing a permanent and professional skilled architect or engineer instead of farming out jobs to small local craftsmen. Unlike the clerk of the peace, the county surveyor has not hitherto attracted the attention of county or architectural historians. A recent study of bridge-building in Kent by Christopher Chalklin has drawn attention to the factors behind the increasing expenditure on this class of work from the 1770s leading to the employment of a regular surveyor to deal with bridges and county buildings in West Kent from 1796, although a specialist architect, D. A. Alexander, was subsequently employed for major bridges and the County Gaol at Maidstone.

Type
Section 4: Architecture and its Organization in the Provinces
Information
Architectural History , Volume 27: Design and Practice in British Architecture , 1984 , pp. 297 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1984

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References

Notes

1 S. and Webb, B. English Local Government: The Parish and the County (1906), pp. 512-21 Google Scholar; Esther Moir, The Justice of the Peace (1969), p. 118.

2 Chalklin, C. ‘Bridge Building in Kent, 1700-1830: the Work of the Justices of the Peace’, Studies in Modern Kentish History presented to Felix Hull and Elizabeth Melling, ed. Detsicas, A. and Yates, N. (Kent Archaeological Society, 1983).Google Scholar

3 Chalklin, p. 50; Essex Record Office, Bridge Money Accounts, 1671-1702, Q/FAc 1; D. H. Allen, Essex Quarter Sessions Order Book, 1652-1661, Essex Record Office Publications No. 65 (Chelmsford, 1974).

4 ERO, Q/SO 3, pp. 188, 244.

5 ERO, Q/SO 3, p. 254.

6 ERO, Q/SO 4, p. 23.

7 ERO, Q/SO 4, p. 5.

8 ERO, Q/SO 4, pp. 24, 69.

9 ERO, Q/SO 4, pp. 98, 173.

10 ERO, Q/SO 4, p. 96.

11 ERO, Q/SO 4, p. 267.

12 ERO, Q/SO 4, p. 244.

13 ERO, Q/SO 4, p. 319.

14 ERO, Q/SO 5, p. 25.

15 ERO, Q/SO 5, p. 80.

16 ERO, Q/SO 5, pp. 126, 140.

17 ERO, Q/SO 5, p. 177; K. C. Newton, Highways and Byways of Essex, ERO Publications no. 48 (Chelmsford, 1969).

18 7 and 8 William, III c. 9; Holmes, J. H. and Newton, K. C. Highways and Byways of Essex, ERO Publications no. 23 (Chelmsford, 1955), 7-8.Google Scholar

19 ERO, Q/SO 6, pp. 58, 64, 100, 107.

20 ERO, Q/SO 6, pp. 196, 372.

21 Cox, J. C. Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals (London and Derby, 1890) 11, 222.Google Scholar

22 Webb, Parish and County, p. 515, quoting North Riding Q.S. Records, viii, 179, 182.

23 ERO, Q/SO 6, p. 196; Addison, W. Audley End (1953), pp. 83, 171 Google Scholar; Will of Thomas Pennystone, gent., Saffron Walden, 1757, ERO, D/ACR 16/113.

24 ERO, Q/SO 6, pp. 250, 277.

25 ERO, Q/SO 7, p. 289.

26 ERO, Q/SO 7, pp. 152; Q/SO 8, p. 91.

27 ERO, Q/SO 8, pp. 145, 151; Q/SO 9, p. 17.

28 ERO, Q/SO 8, pp. 246, 262.

29 ERO, Q/SO 7, p. 289; Q/SO 8, p. 229.

30 ERO, Q/SO 6, p. 195.

31 ERO, Q/SO 6, p. 719.?

32 ERO, Q/SO 6, p. 792; Q/SO 7, p. 132.

33 ERO, Q/SO 7, p. 20.

34 ERO, Q/SO 9, pp. 77, 113, Erith, E.J. Woodford, Essex, 1600-1836, Woodford Historical Society, x (1950), 98 Google Scholar; Essex, V.C.H. vi, 342.Google Scholar

35 ERO, Q/SO 7, pp. 343, 398.

36 Essex, V.C.H., v, 186-87; ERO, Q/SO 9, pp. 290, 309.Google Scholar

37 Essex, V.C.H., v, 187, pi. f. p. 234 Google Scholar (medieval bridge); Essex Review, viii, 108 (eighteenth-century bridge); ERO, Q/SO 10, p. 312; ERO, Q/ABb I, unsigned grey wash plan and elevation.

38 ERO, Q/SO 11, p. 269; Q/SO 12, pp. 7, 31-33; Erith, Woodford, pp. 98-99; Essex, V.C.H., vi, 342.Google Scholar

39 ERO, Q/SO 11, pp. 17, 35, $0-51, 58-59.

40 ERO, Q/SO 12, p. 302; Q/SBb 258/11 A.

41 ERO, Q/SO 10, p. 428; Q/SO 11, pp. $-6; Q/SBb 235/10, 237/1.

42 For Hillyer, see Colvin, H. Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840 (1978), p. 418.Google Scholar

43 ERO, Q/SO 11, pp. 213, 256, 302, 312, 345, 346, 368, 391; The several Petitions and Evidence laid before Parliament for and against obtaining a Bill to remove Chelmsford Gaol, [1771], 50 (copy in ERO, D/DBe Ol).

44 ERO, Q/SO 12, p. 82; for Baldwin, see Colvin, pp. 84-85, citing engraved design (BL, Kings Maps, xiii, 11 f); elevation in ERO, Mint Portfolio (Chelmsford); Several petitions. . ., p. 51.

45 ERO, Q/SO 12, pp. 4-7, 53; ERO, T/B 251/7 (Xerox copy, typescript volume of letters from Bamber Gascoyne tojohn Strutt, Strutt MSS, Terling Place; 20 August, 27 September 1770); ERO, Q/AGb 1/2.

46 Several petitions . . .,pp. 9—12.

47 ERO, Q/SO 12, pp. 137-38; for abstract of gaol proceedings, 1767-73, see ERO, Q/AS 2/4/6.

48 ERO, Q/SO 12, pp. 171-72, 234, 511, 527-28; Q/SO 13, pp. 120-21; ERO, Q/FAc 5/1.

49 Surrey Record Office, QS 2/1/22, pp. 230, 231; QS j/i/i, pp. 43-45; 47; for Gwilt, see Colvin, pp. 369-70.

50 SRO, QS 5/1/1, pp. 98, 136, 168, 190, 221, 222, 230, 233, 249.

51 Colvin, p. 370; SRO, QS 2/1/32, pp. 427-28; QS 2/1/33, PP- 16-17, 97-98; QS 5/4/2.

52 Webb, Parish and County, pp. 518-19, quotingQ.S. Minutes, l8July, 6August 1785, 28 April, i5May 1786.

53 Colvin, pp. 189-92, hi, 867-68.

54 Colvin, pp. 113-14, 881.

55 ERO, Q/FAc s/i.

56 ERO, Q/SO 12, pp. 138, 258; Q/SO 13, pp. 119, 144, 159; Q/FAc 5/1; Essex, V.C.H., iv, 113.Google Scholar

57 ERO, Q/SO 12, pp. 285, 286, 307; Q/FAc 5/1; D. M. M. Shorrocks, ‘John Abell’s Bridge, Nayland’, Essex Review, lxi, 225-32 (photos of bridge), ERO, Q/ABb 2 (plan and elevation attached to contract and specification, 5 November 1774).

58 ERO, Q/SO 12, p. 497; Q/FAc 5/1.

59 ERO, Q/SO 14, pp. 432, 549.

60 ERO, Q/SO 12, p. 528; Q/FAc 5/1.

61 ERO, Q/SO 13, pp. 26, 44; Q/FAc 5/1.

62 ERO, Q/SO 12, p. 309; N. Scarfe, Essex: a Shell Guide (1968), p. 145.

63 ERO, Q/SO 13, p. 206; Q/FAc 5/1; Q/SO 13, pp. 284, 299, 300, 314, 371; N. Pevsner, Buildings of England: Essex (1965), p. 219.

64 ERO, Q/SO 13, p. 159.

65 ERO, Q/FAc 5/1; Q/SO 13, p. 263.

66 ERO, Q/SO 13, p. 263, 370; for Johnson’s official career, see Colvin, pp. 462-63, andj. Simmons, Parish and Empire (1952), pp. 129-35.

67 ERO, Q/SO 14, p. 230; Simmons, 133-35, R- Negus, A Short history of the Shire Houses of Essex (1937); for Johnson’s domestic architecture, see Nancy Briggs, ‘Woolverstone Hall; some reflections on the domestic architecture ofjohn Johnson (1732-1814)’, Proc. Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, xxxiv, 59-64.

68 Colvin, pp. 50, 614, 418.

69 Colvin, p. 787.

70 Colvin, p. 389.

71 Colvin, p. 396; D. Watkin, The Buildings of Britain: Regency (1982), p. 81.

72 Dell, R. F. ‘The building of the County Hall, Lewes’, Sussex Arch. Colls, c, 1-11 Google Scholar; Catchpole, J. ‘The Restoration and Repairs to the Front Elevation of County Hall, Lewes, 1958’, Sussex Arch. Colls, c, 12-23.Google Scholar

73 York Georgian Society, The Works in Architecture ofjohn Carr (1973), p. 36; Colvin, pp. 370, 705.

74 Guide to the Essex Record Office, ERO Publications no. 51 (Chelmsford 1969), 13, ERO, Q/ABz 2/1.

75 ERO, Q/SO 15, p. 92, Q/SO 16, pp. 194, 257.

76 ERO, Q/SO 15, pp. 335, 365; Q/SO 16, pp. 81, 256, 437.

77 ERO, Q/SO 14, p. 359; Simmons, p. 133.

78 ERO, Q/SO 13, pp. 488, 510; Q/SO 14, p. 84; Q/ABb 3, 4.

79 ERO, Q/FAb 50/1 (No. 7); Q/FAb 50/4 (No. 18); Q/FAb 60/1, 4; Q/SO 14, p. 260; Q/AS2/4/5.?

80 Webb, Parish and County, p. 519, quoting Minutes, Q. S. 10 April 1809; for Bernard Hartley I and II, see Colvin, P- 398.Google Scholar

81 ERO, Q/SO 20, pp. 18-24; C- C. Western, Remarks on Prison Discipline (1821), pp. 91-94; Simmons, p. 131; Colvin, p. 63.

82 ERO, Q/SO 21, p. 588; Simmons, p. 136.

83 ERO, Q/SO 22, pp. 40-41, Colvin, 526-28, 433-34, 413, 600.

84 ERO, Q/SO 24, pp. 22-23, 116-25, 194-98; Colvin, pp. 600, 486, 704; ERO, D/DKe A3.

85 Essex Standard, 17 October 1856; Webb, Parish and County, p. 520.