LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
At the end of the 13th
century the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's claimed
various liberties in their manor of West Drayton,
including view of frankpledge and the assize of bread
and ale. (fn. 22) No court rolls appear to have survived from
before 1484, and only a few from the late 15th and
early 16th centuries. (fn. 23) In 1587 it was customary for
the lord to keep a court leet once a year and a court
baron once in three weeks. (fn. 24) Records of such courts
are preserved to 1760. (fn. 25) In 1464 Drayton or Colham
Garden manor was granted a court leet and other
privileges, (fn. 26) and a few court rolls of the late 16th and
early 17th centuries survive. (fn. 27) Drayton appears, however, to have been subject to the West Drayton
court, insofar as the West Drayton lands of the manor
were concerned. There were two manorial constables
at West Drayton in 1338 (fn. 28) and in 1610, (fn. 29) when the
court was also appointing an aleconner and a hogward. Their accounts for 1696 to 1699 show that the
constables were then levying a rate and administering
the poor law and the settlement Acts. They also paid
for repairing gates, possibly the pound gates. Two
rates yielded a total of £8 7s. 7d., most of which was
spent on relief, particularly, in a time of war, for seamen and soldiers and their dependants passing
through the parish. (fn. 30)
The functions of the churchwardens and constables appear to have overlapped before the 18th
century, when the constables ceased to play any important part in local administration. The churchwardens were administering a 'church house' for the poor
as early as 1549. (fn. 31) In 1587 it was described as a 'parish's
house', and stood in half an acre of ground, (fn. 32) and in
1673 one inmate paid 6d. for the rent of a room. (fn. 33)
About 1678 the churchwardens bought a new parish
house for £20, (fn. 34) and in 1708 another was acquired
for £36. (fn. 35) This parish property figures in several
18th-century churchwardens' accounts. It was not
then a workhouse, (fn. 36) but a poor-house, or parish
almshouse. In 1807 £289 was spent to build 8 poorhouses, a 'round house' and an 'end house', at the
north end of the Green, on the corner of Church
Road. (fn. 37) A part of these buildings had begun to be
used as a workhouse by 1815. (fn. 38) Another part was
used as a parish cage, or lock-up. (fn. 39) The churchwardens' accounts, beginning in 1749, show that they
were administering the poor law and settlement Acts
from that date, but that they were relatively inactive
in other spheres of parish government. In 1675 a
payment is recorded for mending the 'parish pott', (fn. 40)
possibly a dung-cart or barrow, (fn. 41) and in 1763 another
in connexion with beating the bounds. In 1775-6 the
poor-rate yielded £84 17s. 4d., of which £2 15s. 5d.
was a county rate, and £57 2s. 7d. was spent on the
poor. (fn. 42) In 1803 a 4s. rate raised £325 15s., £238 of
which was spent on the poor. During the year 11 adults
and 14 children were in receipt of permanent relief,
17 other parishioners were given occasional relief,
and payments were made to 29 non-parishioners. (fn. 43)
Poor-relief expenditure rose to a maximum of £758
in 1814, when the rate was equivalent to about 30s.
per parishioner, (fn. 44) but it had fallen to less than £200
by 1824. (fn. 45) Between 1833 and 1835 relief cost an
average of £292 a year. (fn. 46) Able-bodied men in the
workhouse were employed by the parish surveyor on
the roads, and the women and children given 'light
agricultural work'. (fn. 47) In 1836 West Drayton parish
became part of the Uxbridge poor law union, (fn. 48) and
the following year the guardians sold the West
Drayton workhouse and the adjacent parish property,
investing the proceeds to help meet the parish's
liabilities. (fn. 49)
Although a vestry order was made in 1747 to
regulate the administration of the Poor's Stock, and
in 1823 the trustees of the stock were said to have
been appointed by a vestry meeting, (fn. 50) the surviving
minutes suggest that the vestry was either revived or
began its existence as an effective administrative
body in 1839. At that date the meeting-place was the
Crown Inn; in 1851 it was the 'Swan'. In 1842 the
vestry appointed 8 constables: 2 butchers, 2 grocers,
2 shoemakers, a millwright, and a builder. (fn. 51) The
influence of wider units of local government began to
be felt in the parish about the same time. In 1840
West Drayton was added to the Metropolitan Police
District, (fn. 52) and there was a resident policeman in
1841. (fn. 53) From 1840 or 1841 the medical officer for the
Hillingdon district of the Uxbridge union resided in
the parish. (fn. 54) The Uxbridge union sanitary authority
was created in 1875, (fn. 55) and a few years later, in 1886
and 1887, came into conflict with the vestry and the
ratepayers of West Drayton, who successfully opposed a plan to create a united drainage scheme with
Yiewsley. (fn. 56) Much of the village waste was still apparently carried from a cess-pool on the Green by
an open common drain to the Colne, (fn. 57) despite complaints from the Thames Conservancy. (fn. 58) Sewerage
and a sewage disposal system were not introduced
until after the creation of the parish council and the
Uxbridge Rural District Council, which replaced the
sanitary authority, in 1894. The rural district council
began work on the main sewerage system in 1898.
This comprised a joint drainage district for Cowley,
Hillingdon East, and West Drayton, with outfall
works at Cowley, and cost more than £10,000. The
council was also responsible for the beginnings of
public housing at West Drayton; 10 'workingclass' houses had been built by 1923, under the
Government Assisted Housing Act. (fn. 59) The parish
council was active in acquiring land for recreational
and other purposes: the Green and the Old Pits
allotment site by 1900, the Avenue and the Closes
(28 a.) in 1924 and 1928 respectively, and land for a
depot by Porter's Way in 1925. (fn. 60)
In 1929 West Drayton was separated from the Uxbridge Rural District to form part of the Yiewsley
and West Drayton Urban District. The urban
district as finally constituted in 1930 comprised three
parishes: Yiewsley, West Drayton, and Harmondsworth, with a total area of 5,276 acres. (fn. 61) Yiewsley
became a civil parish in 1895, having formerly been
part of Hillingdon, and was an urban district from
1911. Harmondsworth parish, which included the
villages of Longford, Heathrow, and Sipson, was
transferred from the Staines Rural District in 1930.
In 1954 the population of the new district was estimated at 23,500. (fn. 62)
Urban District of Yiewsley and West Drayton
Per chevron enarched or and vert; in chief two cartwheels sable and in base an eagle displayed argent; a chief gules thereon on a mount vert a represntation of the gatehouse at West Drayton gold [granted 1953].
The council administered four departments in 1930:
the surveyor's department, the clerk and financial
officer's department, the
rating department, and
the sanitary inspector's
department. These employed an indoor staff
of 14, and an outside
staff of 22. There were
also four departments in
1958, employing an indoor staff of 50, and an
outside staff of 174, with
11 part-time rent-collectors. The number of
standing committees
varied over the same
period from 7 to 15;
there were 10 in 1958.
The product of a penny
rate rose from £258
10s. 8d. in 1930-1 to
£2,858 15s. 10d. in
1957-8, when the rate
income, most of which
went to the county, was
£503,147. Of this the urban district expended
£81,475, compared with £17,368 in 1930-1. (fn. 63) Between 1929 and 1954 more than 3,000 council houses
were completed, 1,000 of them in the post-war
period. There were 110 acres of public parks and
recreation grounds in 1954, and 78 acres of permanent and temporary allotments. (fn. 64) Since 1937 (fn. 65)
200 acres, mostly next to the Colne, have also been
acquired by the county council as part of the London
Green Belt. The urban district council was responsible for building open-air baths in Otterfield
Road. (fn. 66) The first county library branch was opened
at Station Road school in 1930, (fn. 67) before moving to
High Street, Yiewsley, in 1931. (fn. 68)
Party politics were first introduced into the
Yiewsley Urban District Council in 1919, when two
Labour councillors were returned. (fn. 69) Independents
controlled the Yiewsley and West Drayton council
from its inception until 1945. An election on national
party lines in 1946 resulted in a Labour majority,
which was increased in subsequent elections, and
there were 18 Labour and 4 Conservative councillors
in 1958. There were no Independent councillors
after 1947. (fn. 70)