Randwick: Local government

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

There was a court for Randwick manor in 1267 (fn. 1) but no later reference to it has been found.

There were two churchwardens from the 15th century. (fn. 2) Their accounts are extant from 1771. In the late 18th century the parish was divided for rating purposes into an upper and lower division with a churchwarden responsible for each. (fn. 3) Accounts of surveyors of the highways survive from 1824 to 1838. (fn. 4)

Records of poor law administration survive in the vestry minutes from 1770 to 1837 and in overseers' accounts from 1824 to 1838. (fn. 5) The nature of the parish with its large, mainly non-agricultural population made poor relief a chronic problem which was aggravated by the distress among the weavers in the early 19th century. In 1677 the parish was said to be unable to maintain its poor and a rate was ordered to be levied on other parishes in the hundred. (fn. 6) In the early 18th century the rates at Randwick were said to be the highest in the county. (fn. 7) The usual forms of relief were being applied in the 1770s, but in 1782 a workhouse was built on the site of the old church house, which had been used for the poor. (fn. 8) From 1785 the workhouse was managed by a general overseer; from 1802 two overseers of the poor were appointed and from 1811 one was salaried. In 1828 and 1829 the poor were farmed, and from 1832 there were two overseers and a salaried assistant overseer. In 1835 a doctor was retained for an annual payment. (fn. 9) In 1829 a select vestry was formed to supervise the management of the poor. (fn. 10)

From 1811 or earlier pin-making for a Gloucester factory was carried on in the workhouse, (fn. 11) but in 1829 most of the female poor did spinning and the men work on the roads. (fn. 12) In 1832 a local resident organized the unemployed men of the village in road-works and established a scheme of payment in tools or in clothes, some of them made by the women; a small allotment scheme was also started. (fn. 13) Several villagers are said to have emigrated in the early 19th century (fn. 14) but there is no evidence that that was part of parish policy. In 1803 54 people were receiving permanent relief outside the workhouse and 79 occasional relief, (fn. 15) and in 1815 66 people were receiving permanent relief and 70 occasional relief; (fn. 16) the numbers, and in the 1820s and 1830s the cost of relief, (fn. 17) were well above those in the other parishes of the division of the hundred. In 1815 the workhouse housed 8 paupers (fn. 18) and 15 in 1831. (fn. 19)

In 1836 Randwick became a part of the Stroud Union (fn. 20) and remained in the Stroud Rural District in 1967.