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A Typology of Travellers: Migration, Justice, and Vagrancy in Warwickshire, 1670–1730

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2012

DAVID HITCHCOCK
DAVID HITCHCOCK*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines the relief of travellers in Warwickshire, England. By using an unusually rich set of Constables’ Accounts for the parish of Grandborough, it interrogates the relationship between charity, local justice, and both official and popular perceptions of migration. It argues that the large number of migrants who passed through rural parishes were categorised by the local constable according to cultural and discretionary criteria. This ‘typology’ of travellers determined the nature and extent of the relief they might receive and the actions that might be taken against them. Socially threatening migrants, such as poor pregnant women, the sick, and vagrants, also found themselves affected by this same ‘proscriptive calculation’, often to their detriment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , April 2012 , pp. 21 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

Notes

1. Warwickshire County Record Office (hereafter Warwickshire RO), CR103, f. 99. Bromley's judicial notebook covers the period between 10th October 1685 and 6th December 1728.

2. More specifically, the reign of Edward III, Statute: 23 Ed. 3. Additional statutes follow with regularity in from 1572 onwards, see 14 Eliz. c5 in Statues of the Realm: Volume 4 (London, 1819), p. 590.

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4. Ibid., p. 4. The 1572 Vagrancy act (14 Eliz. c5) provides the list of trades and persons that were considered vagrant, a list repeated verbatim in the pre-amble to the 1662 Settlement Act (14 Car 2. c12).

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13. (14 Car 2 c.12) Raithby, ed., Statues of the Realm, p. 401.

14. Many studies, correctly cite a well-known ‘crisis-point’ in the two decades between 1610 and 1630, alongside rapid and sustained population growth from the late Elizabethan period. See Slack, Paul, ‘Vagrants and Vagrancy’, in Souden, and Clark, , eds, Migration and Society in Early Modern England (London, 1987), pp. 49–76Google Scholar. The introduction to the same volume also makes a similar contention regarding demographics. Beier's argument in turn also revolves around the pressures of economics and population, although he is careful to note that these causes are not exclusive, see Beier, Masterless Men, p. 172. Also see Sharpe, J.A., The History of Crime in Early Modern England, 1550–1750 (London, 1999), p. 142Google Scholar.

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30. Beier, Masterless Men, p. 171.

31. For an example of a surviving vagrant pass, see Chester RO: QAV-1, 1701. For several issued and signed by a Justice of the Peace, see Chester RO, PC 16/5 f. 126–149.

32. For examples of another parishes’ constables’ accounts, see Cheshire RO: P241/7/1 Capesthorne with Siddington.

33. For Wrightson's key work on this subject, see ‘Estates, Degrees, and Sorts: Changing Perceptions of Society in Tudor and Stuart England’, in Corfield, P. J., ed., Language, History and Class (Oxford, 1991), pp. 30–52Google Scholar.

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37. Hindle, On the Parish?, p. 380.

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41. Although begging could be licensed by Justices of the Peace under the 1598 poor legislation, it should be noted that begging was technically illegal in England after the 1601 reforms to the law, except in several very specific circumstances such as the awarding of formal ‘alms places’, or in case of fire or other personal disasters.

42. Dalton, The Countrey Justice, pp. 202–5.

43. Gardiner, Robert, The Compleat Constable (London, 1692), pp. 30Google Scholar, and 43 for servant testimonial legislation.

44. Ibid., pp. 30–1.

45. Dalton, The Countrey Justice, p. 204.

46. Francis Harvey in the 1630 Assize Resolutions, as quoted in Dalton. Ibid., p. 212.

47. Pugh, R. B., ed., The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Warwick, Volume VI (London, 1951), pp. 94–7Google Scholar.

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51. The following discussion is based on Warwickshire RO, DRO 111/22: ‘Constables Accounts 1671–1720’, and DRO 111/23: ‘Constables Accounts 1720–1750’; QS 40/1/8 ‘Quarter Sessions Order Book 1709–1720’; QS 40/1/9 ‘1720 onwards’.

52. Warwickshire RO, DRO 111/22.

53. The rest of a constable's expenses were typically administrative or associated with the maintenance of roads and bridges. Warwickshire RO, DRO 111/22, f. 82–84. Accounts for Year 1686–87.

54. Warwickshire RO, DRO 111/22, f. 113. Accounts for Year 1693–94.

55. Wrightson, Keith, ‘Estates, Degrees and Sorts: Changing Perceptions of Society in Tudor and Stuart England’, in Corfield, P. J., ed., Language, History and Class (Oxford, 1991), pp. 30–52Google Scholar.

56. For the phrase ‘Parish and Belonging’, and its fuller formulation, see Snell, K. D. M., Parish and Belonging: Community, Identity, and Welfare in England and Wales, 1700–1950 (Cambridge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57. Warwickshire RO: DRO 111/22, f. 90. Accounts for Year 1688–9.

58. See Walter, J., ‘Gesturing at Authority: Deciphering the Gestural Code of Early Modern England’, Past and Present, 203, Supplement 4 (2009), 96–127Google Scholar.

59. Warwickshire RO: DRO 111/22, Years 1675 and 1690.

60. Ratcliff, S. C. and Johnson, H. C., eds, Warwick County Records: Volume VII. Quarter Sessions Records Easter 1674, to Easter 1682 (Warwick, 1946), p. xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

61. These injunctions were issued in Warwickshire in 1670, 1674, 1677, 1684, 1687, routinely in the 1690s, and yearly in the early eighteenth century. See Warwick County Records, Volumes V, VII, VIII, and IX. For orders in the eighteenth century see Warwickshire RO: QS/40/8/1 ‘to 1720’ and QS/40/9/1 for post 1720. Other counties document similar levels of concern. See Hertford County Records, Volume VI: 1658 to 1700 (Hertford, 1930) and Volume VII for 1700–52.

62. Here the statistical indices of Peter J. Bowden are highly illustrative. See Thirsk, ed., The Agrarian History of England, p. 879.

63. Warwickshire RO: QS 40/1/8 for 1709 to 1720 and QS 40/1/9 for 1720 onwards.

64. Warwick County Records, Volume VII, p. 4.

65. Ibid., p. 93.

66. Ibid., p. 184–5.

67. For more on vagrant spaces see Fumerton, Unsettled.

68. Warwick County Records, Volume VII, p. 195.

69. Beier, Masterless Men, p. 172.