LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
The franchises which
belonged to Isleworth manor in the 13th and 14th
centuries were perhaps first enjoyed by Richard of
Cornwall: in 1274 his heir exercised frankpledge
jurisdiction, held pleas of withername and the
assizes of bread and ale, and was alleged to hold
pleas between his free tenants without a royal writ.
He also had a gallows and a prison, (fn. 68) and certain of
the cottars of the manor owed the service of guarding
the prisoners captured within the liberty. (fn. 69) In 1293
it was said that the tenants of the manor and hundred
of Isleworth had stopped attending the county court
since Isleworth had been granted to Richard. (fn. 70) From
1448 Syon Abbey had the return of writs in all its
lands and in 1492 it was given the right to appoint
its own coroner for Isleworth manor. (fn. 71) Of the
several courts generally held each year in the 14th
and 15th centuries, one or two were usually views of
frankpledge, and these were most often held in the
late autumn, and sometimes in April or May. (fn. 72)
In 1650 courts baron, and presumably leets as well,
were held each Michaelmas, and in 1831 courts leet
and baron were held in April and October. (fn. 73) By
1863 there was only one court a year, which was held
at the 'Northumberland Arms', (fn. 74) and this seems to
have been given up soon after. (fn. 75) In the Middle Ages
the court officials included keepers of the heath.
Constables, headboroughs, and aletasters were appointed for Isleworth, Heston, Hounslow, Twickenham, and Whitton. (fn. 76) In the 17th century and later the
number of constables for each hamlet varied between
one and two. (fn. 77) About 1690 the constable of Hounslow was in charge of the billeting of soldiers in the
town. (fn. 78) The respective parishes paid the constables'
expenses, Isleworth and Heston each paying half of
those for Hounslow, and in 1822 the parish beadle of
Isleworth was performing the constable's duties, but
the constables continued here to be manorial rather
than parish officers probably for as long as their
office survived. (fn. 79)
In 1293 the Prior of St. Valéry (fn. 80) and the Master of
St. Giles's Hospital claimed the assizes of bread and
ale over their tenants in Isleworth and Heston. (fn. 81)
St. Giles's liberties are not referred to later, but St.
Valéry successfully claimed the right to chattels from
the convicted tenants of the rectory manor in 1344, (fn. 82)
and also held view of frankpledge from the 14th
century. The rectory courts seem to have been held
at varying times of the year: (fn. 83) in 1831 there was an
annual court leet. (fn. 84) By the 17th century its jurisdiction over nuisances and so forth was restricted
to a small area immediately round Isleworth
church. (fn. 85)
The working of Isleworth vestry can be followed
from 1654, when the first surviving order book
begins. (fn. 86) The usual phrase describing those who
made vestry orders in the next 50 or 100 years is 'the
gentlemen and inhabitants of the parish'. The dozen
or so who attended the vestries held three or four
times each year included very few who could not
sign their names. The members of the aristocracy
with houses in Isleworth, however, took no part in
its affairs, except when the vestry decided to consult
them before embarking on any very costly enterprise.
In 1749 the beadle was created a third overseer so
that he could remove paupers who had to go to
distant parishes, as this duty had become very inconvenient to the overseers who were tradesmen. In
addition to the two churchwardens and two overseers, there were, for at least part of the time, four
surveyors, of whom two collected and spent the
highway rates of the Hounslow area.
Litigation took a fair amount of time and money
in the earlier part of the 18th century, and about the
middle of the century the vestry gave attention to
the licensing of alehouses. Stocks were set up in
1743 (the manor had apparently provided them in
the 15th century) (fn. 87) and a parish cage was mentioned
in 1751. Already by the late 17th century, however,
poor relief was the most expensive and troublesome
business. There were regular payments for medical
attention by 1722, and in 1785 the parish decided to
subscribe to St. George's Hospital in London. In
the second half of the 17th century the parish seems
to have owned three almshouses or poorhouses.
One was in Hounslow and was burnt down before
1692: (fn. 88) it may have been the almshouse maintained
by townspeople in 1547. (fn. 89) Another was in Church
Row and may have been the house by the church
called the Stone or Porch House, though this was
more often leased to provide part of the income of
the parish charities known as the poor's lands. (fn. 90) The
third was in Brentford End, at the west end of the
bridge, (fn. 91) and was perhaps part of the almshouses
formerly belonging to All Angels' Chapel. All seven
of the All Angels' houses were still apparently
standing and used as almshouses in 1576, and in 1608
five were said to be used by the parish of Isleworth
for their poor. (fn. 92) In 1729 the vestry rebuilt the
Brentford End house as a regular workhouse, accommodating 60 persons in four wards (widows, children, married couples, and the sick). The trustees of
the new workhouse were referred to in 1753 as the
'committeemen of the parish', though they denied
exercising undue influence over general parish affairs.
A committee was appointed in 1749 to set the poor to
work, but regular workhouse committee records do
not survive before 1773.
In spite of the mounting cost of relief, interest in
the parish affairs seems to have declined. Because of
the 'fraudulent practices of the poor', the workhouse
was farmed from 1796 to 1807, and a paid assistant
overseer was appointed in 1801. In 1811 a special
committee, appointed to study the reasons for rising
expenditure, recommended greater strictness in the
keeping of accounts and the collection of rates. In
1812-13 the rates reached their highest point under
the old poor law, with £4,014 spent on relief, 77
people in the workhouse, and 223 getting regular
out-relief. (fn. 93) The workhouse was farmed again from
1813, the Speenhamland system was introduced in
1816, and the workhouse was enlarged in 1818.
Another committee the following year made much
the same suggestions as the earlier one, and attributed
the state of the accounts to the habit of leaving
all the work to the paid assistant overseer. Isleworth
did not have recourse to a select vestry, but administration seems to have become much more efficient
in the 1820's. James Clitherow, of Boston House,
who was a ratepayer in Isleworth, seems to have
played a leading part in the vestry at this time. (fn. 94) A
new workhouse was built in 1821 in Link Lane, and
put under an annually elected committee and a paid
master and mistress. The old workhouse was sold
and pulled down. (fn. 95) The vestry clerk's return to the
Poor Law Commission inquiry suggests that increased efficiency and economy had not entailed
undue harshness. Those requiring relief were said
to be chiefly agricultural or market-garden labourers,
whose wages did not allow them to save, and to
restrict relief to the unemployed would cause great
distress to those whose only crime was having large
families. There were generally over 80 people in the
workhouse, and the cost, including the master's and
mistress's salaries, was 4s. 3d. a head. An assistant
commissioner reported that the house was so wellmanaged and comfortable that it was difficult to
eject inmates in winter, and commented that 'the
more that is done for this class of persons the more
they expect'. The vestry clerk also asserted that, as
the same persons rarely attended vestries twice in six
months, and in any case acted on impulse or to serve
private interests, it was much better to follow the
Isleworth practice of leaving the management of the
poor as far as possible to the overseers. (fn. 96) Isleworth
became part of Brentford Union in 1836, (fn. 97) and the
Link Lane workhouse was sold in 1839. It was later
converted and used as almshouses. (fn. 98) The union
workhouse in Twickenham Road (on the site of part
of the West Middlesex Hospital) was built at about
the same time. (fn. 99)
Vestries became less frequent after 1836, often
only meeting in the spring to inspect accounts and
elect officers. In 1837 the parish appointed a board
of management for the highways under the Highway
Act, 1835, (fn. 1) which relieved the vestry of another
duty. In 1862 a vestry clerk was appointed at £50 a
year, and a combined vestry hall and reading-room
was built in South Street. (fn. 2) By this time, however,
growing jealousies between Isleworth, Hounslow,
and Heston were prejudicing local government in the
whole area, and it is necessary to consider the situation in the other two districts before tracing further
developments in Isleworth.
Much less is known about how Heston conducted
its affairs, partly because no records survive except
for part of the 18th century, and partly because it was
a much smaller and probably less active community.
The one vestry minute book, for 1710-82, has many
gaps and is much more roughly kept than the Isleworth records. (fn. 3) Vestries were held irregularly, and
the numbers attending seldom rose above a dozen,
some of whom were illiterate. Richard Bulstrode the
elder of Hounslow came sometimes, and so did some
vicars. One incumbent quarrelled with the parishioners over the use and amount of a church rate and
other matters and was said to be detaining the parish
books, perhaps including some vestry minutes and
accounts which have not been preserved. In the
1750's the parish farmed its poor and almost the only
business of the vestry seems to have been the
election of a beadle. In 1700 the churchwardens used
a gift of £50 to buy a cottage at the east end of
Hounslow for the use of the poor. (fn. 4) This was sold in
1726 and the proceeds were used to improve the
Church House: the situation and use of the Church
House are not known, but it was still in existence in
1734. (fn. 5) In 1777 there was said to be a workhouse for
30 persons, (fn. 6) but a new one was built out of parish
charity funds in 1786 or just before. (fn. 7) There was still
a workhouse in 1813, and in 1818 it stood at the
south end of Sutton Lane, on the west side of the
road. (fn. 8) According to a return of 1818 there seem to
have been no inmates in 1812-14, and 35 in 1814-15.
This workhouse continued to be used until Heston
became part of Brentford Union, when it was presumably sold. The highest expenditure on relief
before this seems to have been £2,043 in 1814-15,
when 60 persons received relief, in addition to those
in the workhouse. (fn. 9) In 1834 the vestry clerk reported that the parish was managed by the vestry,
with no committees and no paid overseer. No relief
was given to those with work, who, it was thought,
ought to have been able to live on their wages. The
workhouse was now kept in hand and had 28 inmates,
mostly children and old people, costing 4s. 2d. a head,
very little less than at Isleworth, though the régime
seems to have been less generous. (fn. 10)
Hounslow, except for the constable appointed by
the Isleworth manor court, had no separate provision for local government. The select vestry
appointed for the chapelry in 1836 only had cognizance of ecclesiastical matters, and the growth of
the town made the lack correspondingly great. (fn. 11)
There was a fire-engine by 1847 (fn. 12) and a town hall
(now replaced by the Empire Cinema) was built by
a joint-stock company in 1858. (fn. 13) Street-lighting, too,
was achieved after some difficulty: lamps were put up
in Isleworth village as early as 1751, (fn. 14) and the turnpike trustees had powers to light the main road
through Hounslow from 1767. (fn. 15) They had apparently
more or less given up doing so (fn. 16) by 1839 when a
public subscription financed eighteen gas-lamps in
the town. (fn. 17) When the subscriptions ran out, application was made to the Isleworth and Heston vestries in
vain, and it was not until 1856 that the Isleworth half
of Hounslow succeeded in raising a rate for lighting under the Lighting and Watching Act, 1833. (fn. 18)
A year later the Act was adopted for Isleworth town
itself and both the districts were extended in the
next ten years. (fn. 19) A burial board was also formed for
Hounslow, which opened a cemetery just outside
the boundary in Twickenham in 1868. (fn. 20) One for
Isleworth, over which the vicar presided, was
formed in 1877. (fn. 21) Both boards transferred their
functions to the urban district council in 1909. (fn. 22)
Little is known of affairs in Heston: the lighting
arrangements suggest that it was not a progressive
parish or one likely to establish ad hoc boards which
would put up the rates, but apparently it had a highway board, and two of the leading members of the
local board, when it was formed, came from Heston. (fn. 23)
In spite of the partial solution of lighting and
burial problems which was achieved in the middle
years of the century, the chief need of Isleworth and
Hounslow was proper drainage, and this continued
unsatisfied. Isleworth vestry discussed it as early as
1853. The fifties saw outbreaks of 'low fever' in the
poorer parts of Hounslow, and an epidemic of
typhus in 1870 was attributed to the open sewer
which provided the only drainage of the new Spring
Grove and Woodlands housing areas. A Hounslow
Ratepayers' Association had meanwhile frustrated all
attempts to form a local board. (fn. 24) The chief impediments were the impossibility of providing adequately
for Hounslow without uniting the parishes of Heston
and Isleworth, and the unwillingness of each part of
the area to co-operate with the others. The local
board was eventually formed in 1875 in the teeth of
opposition from its constituent parts. (fn. 25)
The Borough of Heston and Isleworth
Tierce in pairle azure, sable and gules, in chief two wings joined argent, bottony, and to the sinister a lion rampant guardant parted fesswise gold and silver. (Granted 1932.)
It began with 18 members, who met until 1905
in Hounslow Town Hall. Their number was increased in 1907 to 21 (from five wards), and in 1921
to 24 (from eight
wards). The urban district was created a
borough in 1932 and
since then another ward,
with 3 more members,
was added in 1949, so
that in 1957 the council
consisted of 36 members including 9 aldermen. (fn. 26) During the time
of the local board and
the first years of the urban district council the
matters most frequently
and heatedly discussed
were the fire brigade
and the provision of
adequate sewerage. The
fire brigade issue provided an outlet for
continuing local jealousies since both Isleworth
and Hounslow had already had engines for many
years: an amateur brigade called the Hounslow
Original survived for some years as a result of the
disagreements. Drainage was a more important
matter, but it was not until 1886, after the collapse
of the abortive Thames valley scheme, that the
Mogden sewage works were opened, and not until
about 1900, when the works had been much
enlarged, that drainage stopped causing trouble in
the council. The first recreation ground, in St. John's
Road, was opened soon after 1893, and in 1895, after
some scandal about conditions in the council's
isolation hospital at Dockwell Lane, a new hospital
was established jointly with Richmond in Mogden
Lane. This was replaced in 1937 by the present
Isolation Hospital. In the early years of the 20th
century the council began to implement a more
expansive policy. It became an elementary education
authority in 1902, taking over board schools both
in Heston and Isleworth where boards had been
formed in 1879 and 1893 respectively. The first
new council school was built in 1908-9. (fn. 27) A library
committee was constituted in 1902. In 1904-5 the
council house and offices, library, and public baths
were built in Treaty Road, and the council began to
supply electricity. Although the library building had
been presented by Andrew Carnegie, the result was
the formation of a Reform Association in Hounslow,
pledged to reduce the rates, and the party favouring
economy secured a majority on the council in 1907. (fn. 28)
National party names were adopted about 1926, but
there was no party majority until the thirties. Thereafter the Conservatives were in the majority until
after the Second World War. The last Independent
resigned in 1957. (fn. 29)
The first housing estates (Worple, Warren, and
Sutton Lane estates) were bought in 1919, and 25
council houses were built in 1919-20. (fn. 30) By 1939
there were 1,766, (fn. 31) and by 1957 there were 2,875
permanent houses and 464 flats on 25 estates
scattered over the borough. There were also 196
prefabricated houses on 9 sites. (fn. 32) The council
opened about a dozen elementary schools before 1944
when it became an 'excepted district' under the
county council. Branch libraries were opened at
Heston, Osterley, and Isleworth in the 1930's: the
Isleworth library replaced the old parish readingroom which had been used for the purpose. A
further branch was opened at Cranford in 1957. (fn. 33)
Other departments expanded in the same way, and
by 1928 the council staff had outgrown the Treaty
Road buildings. In 1958 the council had 243 officers,
divided between a number of offices, as well as
about 600 servants. (fn. 34)
In 1876 the local board raised a 1s. rate on a rateable value of £74,291. In 1919-20 the rates were at
10s. (rateable value £236,309). In 1957-8 the rates
were 15s. 4d., and the council spent some £2,241,000,
of which about half went to the county council and
the Metropolitan Police. (fn. 35)