PARISH GOVERNMENT AND POOR RELIEF
The surviving parish book for Beauchamp Roding
covers the period 1723
to 1817. (fn. 35) It records
only the annual Easter
vestry meetings for the
passing of accounts and the election of new officers.
John Siday, rector until 1752, presided every year at
these meetings. Often the only other attendants were
the churchwarden and one parishioner. Siday's successor, William Wicksted, attended frequently but less
regularly. After 1780 the name of the churchwarden
always headed the list of signatures. There were never
more than eight parishioners present during this
period, four being the average. In 1745 the church
clerk received 25s. in wages-a sum charged to the
overseer's account.
In 1699 the rateable value of the parish was £693, (fn. 36)
and it was not much higher in 1817, when a 2s. rate
produced £81. Rates of 7½d. and 8d. were levied in
1790 and 1791 towards the building of the new Shire
Hall at Chelmsford. The parish officers seem to have
conducted their business honestly. When expenditure
was highest about 1800 balances of as much as £75
were successfully carried from year to year. In 1723
the rector and three parishioners resolved that every
parishioner should maintain a poor person for a period
proportionate to his rateable assessment, receiving 18d.
a week for so doing.
All officers except the overseers tended to remain in
office for long periods. Thus Richard Nicholas was
surveyor of highways from 1741 to 1757 and churchwarden from 1753 to 1762, and John Lunnon was
constable from 1786 to 1815. No woman was ever
appointed to a parish office between 1723 and 1817.
The overseer served for only one year at a time, and
service was probably by rotation. The same names
recur at intervals of six or seven years, but the absence
of women seems to indicate that the service was purely
personal and was not associated with the occupation of
particular properties. After 1792 a longer list of
nominees was entered each year and the order thus
established was strictly observed in subsequent years.
Each person thus knew several years in advance when
he was due to serve.
In 1613 £2 11s. 10d. was raised for poor relief,
assessed on nineteen contributors who paid sums
ranging from 2d. to 10s. (fn. 37) At the beginning of the
18th century the overseer's annual expenditure was
about £25-£30, and it had not risen much by the middle
of the century, when only two or three families were
receiving regular relief. Expenditure thereafter rose to
£193 in 1795 and then almost doubled in the following year. It reached a peak of £515, the equivalent of
a 12s. 6d. rate, in 1800-1. The average annual
expenditure between 1800 and 1817 was over £350. (fn. 38)
It dropped slightly to £260 for the period 1829-35. (fn. 39)
A parish almshouse existed in 1745 and 1749, when
the overseer's accounts included sums spent on its
repair. In 1776 the parish was renting a house for use
as a poorhouse but its site is not known. (fn. 40) In 1830 the
vestry borrowed £350 from Sir Eliab Harvey, the lord
of the manor (see Beauchamp Roding manor, above)
for the erection of a workhouse. (fn. 41) The final instalment
of the debt was repaid in 1837, but by that time
Beauchamp Roding had become part of the Ongar
Poor Law Union, formed in 1836, and the workhouse
was converted into a school.
There were stocks in the parish in 1767. (fn. 42)