Local government
In Kidlington in
1279 Hugh de Plessis had view of frankpledge,
held without the sheriff or other royal bailiff,
and gallows. (fn. 17) His 17th-century successors held
courts leet and baron at which constables and
tithingmen were elected and transfers of copyhold recorded. The courts seem to have ceased
after 1680, probably as a result of the break-up
of the manor. (fn. 18) The lords of the manor of
Thrupp in 1279 held courts for their tenants,
but in 1296-7 amercements totalling 4s. 8d.
were paid to the honor court of St. Valery at
North Osney, including 3s. 4d. from the tithing
of Thrupp for a false presentation. (fn. 19) The manor
granted to William Babington in 1555 included
court leet and view of frankpledge, and a lease of
1667 required suit to the manor court, (fn. 20) but
there is no later record of the court. Courts for
the honor of St. Valery were held in Thrupp in
the later Middle Ages, and for the honor of
Ewelme until 1847. Eighteenth-century courts
made orders for the maintenance of watercourses; all courts elected constables, tithingmen, and haywards. (fn. 21) The Hospitallers held a
court at Gosford for the tenants of their neighbouring estates. (fn. 22) William Frere held a court
with view of frankpledge for a manor which
included land in Cassington and Brize Norton as
well as Gosford; the court appointed a constable
and tithingman and amerced suitors for agricultural offences. (fn. 23)
Oseney abbey held courts, with view of frankpledge, for its manor of Water Eaton, including
its estates in Cutteslowe and Fries; the court
seems to have dealt chiefly with agricultural
matters. (fn. 24) William Frere held similar courts,
which regulated the agriculture of the township,
ordered the maintenance of watercourses and
roads, elected the constable, hayward, and tithingman, and witnessed transfers of copyhold or
leasehold land. In 1596 several men were amerced for not wearing woollen caps on Sundays.
The court was last recorded in 1622. (fn. 25)
Kidlington and its hamlets were separate
units for vestry government and poor-law
administration. In the 16th century the four
churchwardens, two for Kidlington and Thrupp
and two for Water Eaton and Gosford, presented their accounts to the whole parish in
December, but each township made its own
levies for the church. (fn. 26) Other taxes were levied
on the whole parish and divided among the
townships, Kidlington paying 53 per cent of the
total, Water Eaton 27 per cent, Thrupp 13 per
cent, and Gosford 7 per cent, except for a period
after the Civil War when Kidlington and Water
Eaton each paid 39 per cent and Gosford and
Thrupp 11 per cent each. (fn. 27)
In the 17th and 18th centuries there seem
usually to have been two churchwardens for
Kidlington, who were also responsible for
Thrupp, and one each for Water Eaton and
Gosford. Kidlington township normally had
two overseers of the poor, the other townships
one each. (fn. 28) At Kidlington in the mid 18th
century the vestry elected 2 tithingmen, a
greensman, 2 fieldsmen, 2 surveyors of the
highways, a field keeper, and a herdsman. (fn. 29) By
the early 19th century the Kidlington vestry met
monthly, in public houses except for the annual
meeting for the election of officers which was
held in the church vestry. (fn. 30)
In 1684, when the surviving accounts begin,
Kidlington township spent £23 on poor relief,
but by 1696 the total had risen to £70, largely
because of increased expenditure on items like
clothing and repairs to cottages. A reduction in
the early 18th century was followed by a steep
rise to £134 in 1728, and continued high expenditure presumably encouraged the establishment of a workhouse in 1735. For the next two
years expenditure was almost halved, but the
workhouse does not seem to have lasted long,
and expenditure rose again. (fn. 31) In 1776 the township spent c. £158 on poor relief, and between
1783 and 1785 an average of c. £205. By 1803
the total had risen to £414, but the expense per
head of population, 12s. was one of the lowest in
the area. Although the rate per head rose to c. £1
6s. in 1813, when total expenditure was £1,206,
and was still c. £1 1s. in 1818, when the total
expenditure for a larger population was £976, it
remained low for the area. Low corn prices in
the mid 1820s reduced the capitation rate to 10s.
in 1824, and in 1832, when £721 in all was
spent, it was c. 15s., a moderate rate for the
area. (fn. 32)
In the late 17th century out-relief was usually
given to about 6 people, the number rising to
over a dozen at times in the early 18th century.
In 1730 there were 15 adults, most of them
women, on regular out-relief, and the figure was
much the same in 1778. Over 20 adults were
getting regular help in the late 1790s, and the
overseers' accounts suggest a similar figure in
1803 although only 14 were officially reported
that year. The accounts for 1801-10 also show
that, unusually, only about a third of those on
regular relief were women. In 1813 as many as
90 people were officially reported to be on
regular relief although the accounts suggest a
total of only 40-50, and a further 110 received
occasional help; by 1814 the latter figure had
risen to 166. (fn. 33) In 1817 the cost of weekly pay
varied from £10 to £19, amounting in all to
£372, over half the total poor-relief expenditure.
In 1832 relief was being given to 25 aged and
widows, 6 families, and 4 bastards; 3 casual sick
and 2 labourers were also getting help. (fn. 34) There
seem to have been few problems over settlement. (fn. 35)
The overseers rented a stonepit at Hardwick
in 1712, and from the late 1770s until 1833 stone
digging and roadmaking provided work for the
unemployed, who received between 1 1/2d. and 8d.
a day from the overseers. At least 32 adults were
so employed in 1825, and road making tools
were bought in 1807 and 1832. Stone was sometimes sold to other parishes. By 1868 the stonepits were exhausted, and the vestry decided to
lease the land. Roundsmen and women were not
mentioned until the 19th century, and then only
in small numbers; from June to October 1814
the last payments 'by the yardland' amounted to
under £7. Work in 1805 included cutting
thistles on the green, and in 1806 looking after
cows on the Ham. (fn. 36)
The overseers were putting the poor to work
spinning and weaving hemp by 1701, 18 ells of
linen being produced in 1709. In 1711 they
bought a wheel, and wool as well as hemp was
spun. The purchase of equipment suggests a
workhouse of some sort, but none was recorded
until 1735, although in 1738 the vicar reported
that within the last 20 years the parish had taken
over the old schoolhouse. (fn. 37) The poor opposed
the move to the workhouse in 1735, protesting
to the justices of the peace at Woodstock about
the stopping of their weekly pay, and it was only
after being given a week's pay beforehand and
compensation for 'loss of time in fetching their
work' that they moved in. The workhouse was
still in existence in 1740, although weekly outrelief had started again in 1737, but it seems to
have closed soon afterwards. In 1754 the vestry
agreed to convert the old schoolhouse into a
workhouse and appointed a superintendant. (fn. 38)
That workhouse too had apparently closed by
1776. In 1778 the overseers bought cards for
carding wool, but those, like other wool-carding
equipment bought in 1784, may have been for
an individual pauper. In 1789 and 1790, however, repairs were made to a workhouse, and
from 1791 to 1795 regular payments were made
to it. An inventory taken in 1793 shows that it
comprised 5 rooms, a garret, and a cellar, contained 9 bedsteads, and was equipped for spinning and carding wool or flax. No payments
seem to have been made to the workhouse after
1795. In the early 19th century the overseers
several times paid for flax and worsted and for
spinning wheels, probably for paupers employed outside the workhouse, like the six girls
at Ellis's for whom flax was bought in 1812, and
in 1819 nearly £7 was earned from 'stockings
and thread'. The workhouse is said to have been
enlarged in the 1820s, but was probably then
being used to lodge the poor. (fn. 39)
In 1614 the town was renting the poor's
houses from the lord of the manor for 10d., (fn. 40)
and in 1722-3 there was some business with
John Conant of Bayley manor, or his executors,
about the 'town houses'. (fn. 41) In 1729 the overseers
repaired Louse Hall in Gosford, and in 1734
they sent a pauper there; they were still renting
the house in 1759, presumably to lodge the
poor. (fn. 42) Housing for the poor, apart from the
workhouse, is not recorded again until 1808
when the vestry borrowed money to build 10
cottages whose rents were to be used to service
or pay off the loans. In 1810 a builder was paid
for five parish houses. In 1831 land in the gravel
pits was let to poor people on building leases at
1s. a year. (fn. 43) After the establishment of the
Woodstock union, in 1836, Kidlington sold the
workhouse, 6 cottages and the coal-house known
as the Crescent, 4 houses in Moor End, 2
cottages in Black Horse Lane, and 5 cottages
adjoining the workhouse; part of the money was
used to pay off the debt incurred for building the
houses in 1810 and part was put towards the
parish quota for building the union workhouse. (fn. 44)
There are few records of vestry government in
the hamlets. Gosford spent c. £2 on poor relief
in 1776, an average of c. £12 between 1783 and
1785, and £27, c. 14s. a head of population, in
1803. In 1813 the capitation rate rose to c. £1
10s., but in 1820 it was only 13s. The figures,
like those for Kidlington, were low for the area.
In 1832 a total of £36 was spent, 16s. a head.
Only 2 people were on out-relief in 1803, but in
1811-12 there were 11 or 12, over a quarter of
the population of the hamlet. Thrupp spent c.
£32 on poor relief in 1776, nearly half of it on
rents, an average of c. £11 between 1783 and
1785, and £56, £1 2s. a head of population, in
1803. In 1813 the capitation rate was c. 18s., and
in 1819 it rose to a peak of c. £1 4s, but in 1832
when a total of £57 was spent, it was only c. 14s.,
a low rate for the area. In 1803 only 4 people, all
of them infirm, were on out-relief, and between
1813 and 1815 only occasional relief was given,
to between 16 and 26 people. At Water Eaton
average expenditure between 1783 and 1785 was
c. £49, and in 1803 £88 or c. 16s. a head of
population. In 1813 the capitation rate had risen
to c. £2 16s. and in 1819 to £3 4s.; it remained
over £2 for most of the 1820s and in 1832, when
total expenditure was £226, it was c. £2 4s.,
much the highest figure not only in the parish
but also, for the second time, in the area. In 1803
there were 3 adults on regular out-relief. Between 1813 and 1815 between 22 and 24 people
were on permanent out-relief and between 5 and
7 people received occasional relief. The sums
spent on overseers' journeys and legal costs
between 1783 and 1785 and again between 1813
and 1815 suggest that the hamlet had many
more problems with settlement than the rest of
the parish. (fn. 45)
After 1894 the vestry's remaining functions
were taken over by a parish council in Kidlington and by parish meetings in Thrupp, Gosford,
and Water Eaton. A joint parish council for
Shipton-on-Cherwell and Thrupp was established in 1946, and for Gosford and Water
Eaton in 1947. In 1960 the Kidlington parish
council was enlarged from 9 to 16 members and
the parish was divided into 4 wards, North,
Central, South and East, each of which elected 4
councillors. (fn. 46) A full-time parish clerk was appointed in 1968. (fn. 47)
Kidlington, Thrupp, Gosford, and Water
Eaton were all included in the Woodstock poor
law union in 1834, the Woodstock rural district
in 1894, Ploughley rural district in 1932, and
Cherwell district in 1974. (fn. 48)