LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
No medieval court rolls
survive for Great Stanmore. In 1294 a jury upheld
the abbot of St. Albans in his claim to exercise view
of frankpledge and the assizes of bread and ale. (fn. 35)
The abbot retained some jurisdiction after the manor
had passed to St. Bartholomew's priory: his cellarer,
who acted as an itinerant justice at six-monthly
halimotes on the abbey's estates from the early 13th
century, was still visiting Stanmore in 1399. (fn. 36) Of the
regular courts presumably held by the priors of St.
Bartholomew's only one, that of 1508, is recorded,
in a transcript. (fn. 37) A few late-16th- and early-17th-century proceedings are also recorded, (fn. 38) and surviving court books run from 1666 until 1936. (fn. 39) Until
the mid 17th-century a court baron normally met in
the spring and a view of frankpledge, occasionally
called a court leet, and further court baron were held
in the autumn; sometimes the view was held in the
spring, as became common in the late 17th-century.
For most of the 18th-century there was a view with a
court baron in the spring or early summer and
occasionally also a special court baron. General
courts baron were held annually in the early 19th
century, when views and special courts might also
be held. They met at the Abercorn Arms from 1794
until 1815, then at the Crown until 1836, and subsequently again at the Abercorn Arms, (fn. 40) where a
general court baron was held as late as 1892. (fn. 41)
In 1576, and presumably earlier, the assizes of
bread and ale were exercised and a constable, two
headboroughs, and two aleconners were appointed
for the year. Similar appointments were made at
views of frankpledge until 1681, after which aletasters, as they had come to be called, were no longer
recorded. Land transactions, which formed the bulk
of the courts' business by the 17th-century, led to
several disputes and attempts to define the customs
of the manor. In 1681 some discontented copyholders seized the court book and interrupted the
steward, who fined the constable for refusing to
intervene. Courts continued to name a constable and
headborough, for the leet until 1719 and thereafter
for the town or parish, until 1805. From 1580
attempts were made to prevent vagrants from becoming a burden by fining parishioners who harboured them. (fn. 42)
In 1508 Prior Bolton granted a close called Staples
to a group of parishioners, for the support of a parish
clerk. (fn. 43) The land comprised 8 a. of arable in 1547,
when it was worth 20s. a year. (fn. 44) It was often regranted at subsequent courts (fn. 45) and became known as
Clerks Staples, amounting to two fields totalling
14 a. in 1823. At that date the clerk, who still enjoyed
it in lieu of salary, leased it out for £30 a year. (fn. 46) There
were two churchwardens in 1580 (fn. 47) and a subconstable in 1613 (fn. 48) but the earliest records of a
vestry, the order books, date only from 1730 (fn. 49) and
the churchwardens' accounts from 1832. (fn. 50) At first
all the vestry meetings may not have been recorded:
there seem to have been none in 1741 and nine in
1742, while attendance varied from 4 to 16. (fn. 51) The
rector often took the chair, as did his successors, and
both Andrew Drummond and the first Thomas
Clutterbuck were present on occasion. The vestry
usually met 3 or 4 times a year in the 1750s, almost
monthly at the end of the century, and 3 or 4 times
a year in the 1850s, while the average attendance
rose from about 7 to 8 or 9 and eventually to 15. The
first known meeting-place was the Queen's Head, in
1742, whither the vestry sometimes adjourned even
after a special room for it had been furnished at the
church in 1750. From 1789 until 1835 meetings were
held in the workhouse, as well as at the church, the
Crown, and the Abercorn Arms; from 1844 the new
schoolroom was the usual meeting-place.
The churchwardens, one nominated by the rector,
submitted their accounts to the vestry and were
reimbursed from church-rates. For a long time they
retained wide responsibilities: in 1801 the signature
of a churchwarden, or of an overseer, was required
for every admission to the workhouse. By 1730 there
were two overseers of the poor and by 1750 two
surveyors of the highways, all of them chosen at
quarter sessions from nominees of the vestry. Overseers' accounts run from 1784 to 1804, (fn. 52) and surveyors' accounts from 1772 until 1826. (fn. 53) It was decided
that a vestry clerk was no longer needed in 1743 but
a new one was appointed by wage a few months later.
The constable's expenses for 1779 were paid three
years later, although it was not until the early 19th-century that the vestry itself appointed either
constable or headboroughs. An assistant overseer
was to be appointed by wage in 1832 and a beadle in
1834, but the only paid officers recorded in 1837
were a vestry clerk, organist, sexton, and pew-opener.
Eighteenth-century poor-rates were 6d. in the £;
at least two a year became necessary in the 1790s and
from 1806 a shilling rate was common. In 1775-6
out of £214 raised, £194 was spent on the poor, more
than three times the figure for Little Stanmore. (fn. 54)
Expenditure varied considerably in the early 19th
century, rising from £391 in 1818 to £813 in 1821,
only to fall to £602 in the two succeeding years (fn. 55) and
thereafter to rise to an average of £851 from 1831 to
1834. (fn. 56) Apart from an income from the parish
charities, whose regulation occasioned several vestry
meetings, money for the poor was often exacted at
late-18th- and early-19th-century courts in return
for licences to inclose parcels of waste; the overseers
received as much as £70 for the inclosure of 3 a. of
Stanmore Common in 1802. (fn. 57) An acre at Stanmore
marsh, given to accommodate the poor by the lord
of the manor in 1802, was sold to Sir Thomas Plumer
in 1824 and 2 a. awarded at inclosure on the common
were leased out.
Paupers were paid regular weekly allowances,
totalling 13s. 6d. in May 1730, when there were 8
recipients, and £1 16s. 6d. in 1784; many casual
expenses such as bills for clothing, nursing, medicine, or laundry, were also met. Attempts were made
in 1734 and 1748 to enforce the badging of paupers,
and out-parishioners often had to produce settlement certificates; when the magistrates refused to
order a removal in 1781, legal advice was sought.
Cheap food and coal were distributed several times
between 1799 and 1801, when it was decided to give
as much relief as possible in kind rather than in
money.
Two parish houses were repaired in 1752, when
four spinning wheels were bought for the inmates.
The garden, adjoining the churchyard, was split up
into allotments in 1783 and the site was ordered to be
sold four years later. A workhouse was built on the
east side of Stanmore Hill in 1788. In 1790 it was
fenced in and special permission was required for
inmates to go outside. The vestry supplied furnishings, carried out repairs, and always paid the medical
officer, while other expenses, including those of the
constable, were periodically assigned to a farmer or
contractor. The poor were first farmed in 1791 for
£147 a year, but the cost rose steadily, reaching
£220 by 1795 and £410 by 1807. Sometimes no
suitable tender could be secured and often an agreement had to be terminated, as in 1798 when the
contractor was gaoled or in 1818 and 1825, when the
vestry declined to pay extra despite the large numbers out of work. At such times the vestry itself
assumed responsibility for the poor, appointing a
master or superintendent of the workhouse and
arranging for the supply of provisions. Although
many felt that direct administration was cheaper,
there were repeated reversions to a farmer, who
received £570 in 1826 and £700 in 1833.
In 1752, after several robberies, the overseers were
authorized to pay two men to keep watch at night,
and in 1829 handbills were to be printed, cautioning
gangs of boys who caused annoyance in the evenings.
A cage for prisoners which was attached to the workhouse in 1791 needed repair in 1805 and at that date
was probably rebuilt in the workhouse yard, whither
the parish stocks, first mentioned in 1639, (fn. 58) were
similarly moved in 1819. In 1829 it was proposed
that the fire-engines, (fn. 59) too, should be kept next to
the workhouse.
Medicines were ordered for paupers as early as
1730 and a surgeon was paid to attend the poor in
1761. A successor received a fixed sum for all visits
and prescriptions, except attendance at childbirth,
from 1782 until 1797, when his salary was doubled,
and a grateful vestry refused to replace him in 1822.
Other measures for public health included the whitewashing of all cottage interiors and provision of
proper 'breeches' in 1801 and free vaccination
against smallpox in 1819.
Hendon instigated discussions on poor-relief with
representatives of the Stanmores, Edgware, and
Kingsbury, in 1829. In 1835 all five parishes joined
Harrow, Pinner, and Willesden to form Hendon poor
law union. (fn. 60) The new board of guardians at once
caused alarm by proposing extensive alterations to
the workhouse and demanding the removal of the
cage and engine-house, which remained the parish's
responsibility. After two years of argument the
guardians were permitted to sell the workhouse to
William Rogers, a neighbouring surgeon, whose
family lived there until its
sale by trustees in 1893. (fn. 61)
Great Stanmore paid
more than most members
of the union towards
the new workhouse at
Redhill, since the land
awarded at inclosure was
also sold. (fn. 62)
Urban District (later Borough and later London Borough) of Harrow.
Or, a fess arched vert; in chief a pile gules charged with a clarion or, on the dexter side of the pile a torch sable with flames proper, and on the sinister side a quill pen sable; and in the base of the shield a hurst of trees growing out of a grassy mount [Granted 1938]
The parish steadily
resisted the erosion of its
authority in the 19th
century. Great Stanmore,
along with its neighbours,
was included in the
Metropolitan Police District in 1840 (fn. 63) but in
1842 the vestry complained to the Home
Secretary about the consequent expense and
inadequate protection. A
proposal to adopt the Lighting and Watching Act of
1834 was defeated at meetings of ratepayers in 1836
and 1859 but unanimously accepted in 1861, whereupon six inspectors were appointed, answerable to
the vestry. In 1863 the parish vainly protested
against its inclusion in the new Edgware highway
district. (fn. 64)
Sums raised by the overseers and spent by
Edgware highway board in Great Stanmore were
much the same as those in Little Stanmore. (fn. 65) A
nuisance removal committee was set up by the vestry
under an inspector in 1857 but was superseded under
the Public Health Act of 1872 (fn. 66) by the new Hendon
rural sanitary authority, which in 1879 also took over
the functions of Edgware highway board. (fn. 67) Hendon
rural sanitary authority in 1895 became Hendon
R.D., which was dissolved in 1934 when the Stanmores joined Harrow U.D., itself created a municipal borough in 1954. Stanmore North and Stanmore
South formed two of the new urban district's 12
wards (15 from 1948); some two-thirds of Great
Stanmore was included in Stanmore North but the
southern part lay mostly in Stanmore South and
later in Belmont and Queensbury wards. (fn. 68) Since
1965 both Great and Little Stanmore have lain within Harrow L.B. The postal address for many of its
offices is Stanmore, as it was for those of the old
urban district, but all are located on the Harrow side
of the parish boundary.