Category Archives: Local History

The Cold Hatton Association for the Prosecution of Felons

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THE Gentlemen, Freeholders, and Farmers as under mentioned, of the Neighbourhood of Cold-Hatton, in the Parish of Ercall Magna, in the County of Salop, have bound themselves in Articles of Agreement to prosecute all Felons, especially Horse-stealers; and by this Agreement any Person or Persons who shall lose a Horse, &c. shall give the earliest Notice possible to the Society, who shall set out different Roads, and ride at their own Expence 100 Miles endways: and if any of the Society shall gain Intelligence of the Horse, &c. that he is in pursuit of, shall ride England through at the Expence of the Society, exclusive of the 100 Miles above-mentioned.
– Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 11 December 1769, page 2.
Illustration of a man riding a horse, created in the late 1700s or early 1800s. The man is wearing a hat, a long-tailed coat, and boots with spurs; one arm is outstretched, the had holding a whip. The horse, facing towards the left side of the image, has both forelegs off the ground and both hind legs on the ground.
Julius Caesar Ibbetson, 1759–1817, Rider on a Galloping Horse, undated.
Public domain image from Yale Center for British Art ⇗.

The above notice was followed by a list of 33 names arranged under their places of residence, and a request for gatekeepers (at turnpikes) to provide information in return for a reward. It was the first of many such notices from this society that I have found through searches of the British Newspaper Archive. They span a period of more than 40 years, up to and including 1812 (with another, isolated example in 1834), and my transcriptions of them can be found on a new page in the Crime section of this website: The Cold Hatton Association.

As the title of this article and of that new page suggest, the Society became known as the Cold Hatton Association (for the Prosecution of Felons). Its membership included men – and at least two women – from Waters Upton. In 1769 John Wase (who remained a member until 1803) was the sole representative from the parish. Over the whole of the period from 1769 to 1812 however, at least 21 inhabitants of Waters Upton ‘bound themselves’ in the organisation’s articles of agreement. Some subscribed only for a year or two, while others became long-term members. Joseph James’s association with the, um, Association, lasted for at least 38 years!

The deterrence of felonies

The names of the 21 members of the Association who lived in Waters Upton, and the years in which I have found notices featuring those names, are shown in the chart below. The names are listed from left to right in order of when they first appeared in a published membership list – but where one family member was succeeded by another, I have grouped those family members together. There are two cases where a man was succeeded in membership by his widow. In the second of those cases, the widow remarried and her second husband, who bore the same surname, then took her place in the Association. There was also a son who succeeded his father (and possibly one brother who succeeded another – I’m still looking into that!).

A chart showing Waters Upton residents who were members of the Cold Hatton Association (names across the top of the chart) and the years when they are known to have been members (years, from 1769 to 1812, down the left side of the chart).

The grey lines across the chart indicate years – nine in all – for which I have found no published notices from the Cold Hatton Association in the period from 1769 to 1812. Three of those nine are, unfortunately, successive years: from 1805 to 1807. Otherwise, thankfully, there are one or more years on either side of the various gaps in the record, for which published notices are known. Bringing all of them together provides a useful resource for researching the area and its people, towards the end of a long period lacking the more detailed records created in later decades.

I plan to come back to the Waters Uptonians of the Cold Hatton Association – and hopefully make them more than just names – in future articles. First however, I want to look in more detail at the early history of the Cold Hatton and other Shropshire associations, and shed light on why folk from Waters Upton were joining forces with their neighbours to prosecute felons. I am grateful to past me for carrying out research that has given me a head start on this.

Back in 2017, for my Atcherley one-name study, I wrote about John Atcherley and the deterrence of felonies ⇗. John was a member of another Shropshire society for prosecuting felons in the late 1700s, one centred on Kinnersley (or Kynnersley). The settlements from which its members were drawn included some of those covered by the Cold Hatton Association, including two in the parish of Ercall Magna: Rowton and Moortown. The latter place was where John Atcherley lived and farmed. His sons Samuel and John later joined the Cold Hatton Association.

For want of immediate pursuit

In my article, I noted that when a similar society was announced for Oswestry and nearby parishes in Shropshire in 1775, it was stated that offenders had “too often escaped Justice for want of immediate Pursuit, and effectual Prosecution”. To explain further why these local societies were formed, I also quoted from an online article ⇗ by Matthew White:

18th-century law enforcement was very different from modern-day policing. The prosecution of criminals remained largely in the hands of victims themselves, who were left to organise their own criminal investigations. Every parish was obliged to have one or two constables, who were selected every year from local communities, and were unpaid volunteers. These constables were required to perform policing duties only in their spare time, and many simply paid for substitutes to stand in for them.

I continued as follows (this is copied, with minor modifications, directly from my Atcherley article):

The failure of the parish (or township) constables to adequately protect people’s property was also highlighted by historian Jim Sutton in his well-researched paper of 2004, Protecting Privilege and Property: Associations for the Prosecutions of Felons (in: The Local Historian, volume 34, number 2 ⇗; see page 25 of the PDF download).
Jim traced the history of these associations from their origins in resolutions adopted at parish vestry meetings (which set out terms for using parish funds to prosecute felons), to the ‘mutual subscription societies’ which then arose and came to prominence in the late 1700s and early 1800s […]

Gentlemen, Freeholders, and Farmers

Another author writing on this subject, barrister Gregory J Durston (in Fields, Fens and Felonies, published 2016, page 220 ⇗), has noted that the history of prosecution associations can be traced back to the late seventeenth century. One was formed in Stoke-on-Trent in 1693 – and even that was probably not the first such society. The great majority however were formed after 1760.

1760, coincidentally, may well have been the year when the first association in Shropshire was started. The Chester Courant of 25 March 1760 included a notice naming 24 inhabitants of Hodnet and two adjacent parishes. Sir Rowland Hill of Hawkstone, Baronet, and nearly two dozen of his neighbours, had “come to an agreement to prosecute (at their joint Expence) all Kinds of Felony, Petty Larceny, &c. and more especially Horse-Stealing.”

A painting, from around 1790, of Hawkstone Hall in Shropshire. The main hall, a four-storey building constructed largely from reddish-coloured brick or stone, is on slightly higher ground to the right. Other buildings, of one- and two-storeys, extend towards the left from the far end of the main hall. On lower ground to the left is a further building, long and of two storeys. On a wide drive on the lower ground in the centre of the picture, at the foot of a flight of steps, is a coach and horses.
Unknown artist, Hawkstone Hall, Shropshire, ca. 1790.
Public domain image from Yale Center for British Art ⇗.

By 1765 the aforementioned Kinnersley association had also been launched (with members including Richard Belliss and Thomas Wood, who would later live at Waters Upton). The initial focus of this group, according to their notice in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette of 9 December 1765, was solely the prosecution of horse thieves.

In the same newspaper over the following few years, several other Salopian associations began to advertise. In 1768, two dozen “Inhabitants of the Parish of Shiffnall” announced that they had raised a subscription to fund the prosecution of “Horse-stealers, House-breakers, and other Felons”. In addition, 30+ “Gentlemen, Freeholders, and Farmers” in and around Edgmond parish had come together to prosecute people pinching their property. The following year saw the publication of notices on behalf of 38 gents, freeholders and farmers “of the Neighbourhood of Childs-Ercall” and, as we have seen, by the Society formed for the Cold Hatton area.

Through the 1770s and in the decades immediately thereafter, many more associations came into existence, in Shropshire and elsewhere in England and Wales. We will likely never know for sure exactly how many there were. John H Langbein, in The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial, published 2005 (page 132), cites research ⇗ suggesting that the number was at least a thousand, but might have been four times that figure.

Horse, Mare, or Gelding

Thomas Barker, 1769–1847, Man Leading a Horse, undated.
Public domain image from Yale Center for British Art ⇗.

“Horse-stealers” were clearly the main target of the prosecution associations set up for the neighbourhoods of Cold Hatton and other Shropshire settlements. Horses were, in the words of Gregory J Durston, “valuable and relatively easy to transport long distances.”

Depending on the breed and the owner, a horse might be used for personal transportation (in the saddle, or in a trap or carriage); for pulling ploughs, drills, harrows, carts or waggons; or for following the chase when hunting with fox or otter hounds. (There were race horses too of course, but probably not many in the stables in and around Cold Hatton and Waters Upton.) The new prosecution societies were clearly a tempting proposition for some of the horse owners living in the areas where those organisations were set up.

As the Cold Hatton and other associations evolved however, there was an increased emphasis on theft, injury or damage to other livestock and property, and a greater range of rewards for information leading to convictions. I will look at these changes and other developments in the second part of this article.

To be continued.

Finding Folklore in and around Waters Upton

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“The history of no people can be said to have been written so long as its superstitions and beliefs in past times have not been studied.” These words were written by Professor John Rhys, M.A., back in 1881 ⇗, and quoted on the title pages of a publication I have been perusing in search of folklore connected with Waters Upton and its neighbouring parishes.

Shropshire Folk-lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings was published in three volumes from 1883 to 1886. The book was based on the collections of Georgina Frederica Jackson, and edited by Charlotte Sophia Burne. Collected within its pages were legends and traditions (concerning giants, devils, fairies, meres and more), followed by a shedload of superstitions, customs and beliefs including ghosts, witchcraft, cures, well worship, wakes and games, and concerning animals, plants, days of the week, and seasons from the new year to Christmastide.

From Waters Upton itself just one superstition is recorded in this Sheaf of Gleanings, but it concerns one of my favourite animals:

The Hare, like the cat, is associated with witchcraft, and therefore ominous. It is lucky to meet a hare (Waters’ Upton and Cold Hatton, in North Shropshire), but unlucky to see it run across the path.
Photo showing part of a brick structure in which there is an old well. An iron gate, with wire mesh, gives access (but it is padlocked shut). Added to the gate are two black silhouettes of boxing Brown Hares.
The silhouettes of two Hares on the gate to the well at the Western end of Catsbritch Lane, Waters Upton
Photo showing the head and shoulders of a Brown Hare, with his or her long ears held erect. The Hare's body is facing away from us, but the head is turned to the right. The fur is mostly a white-grizzled brown, with more white on the ears, which have black tips. The eye is a golden brown colour, with a large black pupil and a thick black rim.

What then of the area around Waters Upton – parishes which some Waters Uptonians would have come from, and which many will have visited or had other connections with? Some of the customs, superstitions and beliefs documented in relation to those parishes may well have been practiced or held by – or at least known to – people over a wider area. And the fame (or infamy) attached to any individual believed to possess ‘special powers’ would certainly not have been confined to that person’s own parish. In this article, I’m going to look at a custom, and an individual, both very likely to have been familiar to Waters Upton residents in the 1800s.

The custom is one related to harvest-time, an important season in any rural parish. Before examining that custom however, I want to share a snippet from Shropshire Folk-lore which shows how the practice of harvesting underwent a revolution in the mid-19th century as a result of mechanisation.

PERHAPS nothing in all the range of country life has undergone a more complete and more recent change than has the ingathering of the harvest since the introduction of reaping-machines some twenty years ago. Even before that time, dissatisfaction with the old slow methods of reaping and ‘badging,’ or ‘swiving,’ was widely felt; and the sickle was already giving place to the ‘broad hook,’ and that to the scythe, when all alike made way for the machine. And the agricultural labourers of the present generation often do not even know the correct names, much less the uses, of the time-honoured tools with which their fathers toiled so patiently day after day from dawn to dark.

On then to “Crying, calling, or shouting the mare, […] a ceremony performed by the men of that farm which is the first in any parish or district to finish the harvest.” Miss Burne goes on to tell us (having noted in the preface to her book that “no true Salopian ever sounds the letter h”) that:

The object of it is to make known their own prowess, and to taunt the laggards by a pretended offer of the ‘owd mar’ to help out their ‘chem’ [team]. All the men assemble in the stackyard, or—better—on the highest ground on the farm, and there shout the following dialogue, preceding it by a grand “Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!”
“I ‘ave ‘er, I ‘ave ‘er, I ‘ave ‘er!”
“Whad ‘ast thee, whad ‘ast thee, whad ‘ast thee?”
“A mar’! a mar’! a mar’!”
“Whose is ‘er, whose is ‘er, whose is ‘er?”
“Maister A.’s, Maister A.’s, Maister A.’s!” (naming the farmer whose harvest is finished).
“W’eer sha’t the’ send ‘er? w’eer sha’t the’ send ‘er? w’eer sha’t the’ send ‘er?”
“To Maister B.’s, to Maister B.’s, to Maister B.’s” (naming one whose harvest is not finished).
“’Uth a hip, hip, hip, hurrah!” (in chorus). […]
[S]ometimes the mocking offer of the mare was responded to by a mocking acceptance of her help, as when an old man told Mr. Hartshorne, “while we wun at supper, a mon cumm’d wi’ a autar [halter] to fatch her away.” There were of course variations in the details of the braggadocio in different places, but it was universally practised, and though dying out, is by no means extinct. Mr. Gill dates its disuse at Hodnet about 1850-60 […].
In 1868 the unusually early harvest of that hot summer incited a party of men at Edgmond, whose employer had finished on the 31st of July, to celebrate the event by crying the mare. “Wheer shan we send ‘er?” asked one party.” T’owd Johnny Bleakmur,” came the reply. Any unusual excitement or rivalry would naturally revive the old custom in this way, even when it had been disused as a general thing. […]

From Crying the Mare and ‘owd Johnny Bleakmur (John Blakemore of Edgmond, I believe), to ‘owd (old) Thomas Light of Walton in Ercall Magna parish. He would certainly have been a character familiar to people living in nearby Waters Upton – and was very likely related to some of them. The following, contributed to Shropshire Notes and Queries of 13 February 1885 by a correspondent identified only as ‘A’, was included in Shropshire Folk-lore under Conjurors:

Between sixty and seventy years ago a man named Thomas Light had a high local reputation as a conjuror, fortune-teller, and “wise man.” He lived in the half-timbered cottage nearly opposite Mr. Webster’s house in the village of Walton (near High Ercall), and I have heard an old inhabitant of Walton say that he had seen as many as six vehicles driven up to the cottage in a morning. This conjurer carried on a roaring trade for many years, and people sought his advice and assistance from places as remote as the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders, and even out of Wales.
Cock-fighters brought him their birds to charm, and paid him for putting spells upon their opponents’ feathered representatives; farmers sought his power to remove cattle disease; wives and maidens came to him for their fortunes to be told, and the losers of stolen goods made him their detective. There were two “reception” rooms in the cottage, into one of which Light always retired to consult the stars or hold intercourse with his familiar spirits. Sometimes he could be heard by his customers wrestling with some supernatural presence, and the rattling of chains of course suggested that the conjurer was wrestling with the Evil One himself. […]
Extract from a large-scale Ordnance Survey map showing some of the houses and other buildings (all shaded in pink) of Walton village. The road running through the village is also shown, along with field and garden boundaries, three ponds, and many trees along field boundaries, in some of the gardens, and in some of the fields.
Extract from an Ordnance Survey map (25 inches to the mile, Shropshire XXIX.10) published 1881, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland ⇗ under a Creative Commons licence ⇗. This does not show things exactly as they were when the tithe apportionment map for Ercall Magna parish was drawn up in 1838, but that earlier map tells us that John Webster lived at the property in parcel number 943 here, while Thomas Light (who “lived in the half-timbered cottage nearly opposite”) occupied the house in parcel 994.

Thomas’ obituary, published in the Shrewsbury Chronicle of Friday September 10th, 1841 (page 3), very much suggests that he put the ‘con’ into ‘conjuror’! It makes for an entertaining read, and I reproduce it here as published, save for splitting the text into more than the original two paragraphs:

Death of an Eccentric Character.—On Sunday last, at Walton, near High Ercall, at the age of 94, Thomas Light, better known by the sobriquet of “Tommy Light the Conjuror.” This eccentric individual had from an early period of his life been a professor of the “Mysterious Art of Conjuring,” which he continued to practice with considerable pecuniary advantage to the close of his days.
His personal appearance was of no common order, as he always strictly adhered to the peculiar character of dress in fashion about the middle of the last century: a stranger on meeting “Old Tommy” was instantly struck with the excessive originality of his manner and costume; clad in a light sky blue “coat of other days” with an extravagantly lengthened linsey vest with large flaps descending over scanty “continuations.”
This antiquated oracle usually attended the markets to render his prophetic advice and assistance to all whom he could find possessed of the two great requisites for the successful development of his mystic craft, viz. Faith and Money; and it speaks but little for the intellectuality of the age, when it is considered what numbers of persons were sufficiently ignorant and superstitious to consult him, in all the various matters which have generally been subjects for the divinations and prophecies of this now (thanks be to the schoolmaster) almost extinct race of conjurers and fortune-tellers. His professional career was not merely confined to his own locality, but he was frequently applied to by the credulous rustics of the neighbouring counties.
His conjuring propensities were at one time the means of giving him rather an awkward introduction to the magisterial bench at Wellington; a lad at Ketley having robbed his employer both parties secretly applied to the sage, the one for the means of safety from detection, the other to have the property returned and the offender punished. Having instructed the lad to replace part of the stolen treasure, he informed the other that part of the missing property would be by his powers replaced.
The trick however having been detected by the parties, and it being suspected that he had received a large fee out of the missing cash, “Tommy” was pulled up before the magistrates and was committed to take his trial at the sessions, but was afterwards bailed out by a relative, to whom it is said he took a hundred sovereigns as security; he was however finally acquitted, but this had evidently the effect of making him more cautious in his future proceedings.
Among the many eccentric incidents of his life was that of purchasing a wife, who afterwards resided with him until death dissolved the unhallowed bargain. From this time her daughter by a legitimate husband superintended his domestic affairs, until at an advanced age she was accidentally burned to death.
Some time before his death, he gave several considerable sums of money, and has since willed further sums to different parties; a few days ago, several sovereigns and guineas were found among some old iron in a chest, in his dwelling, and many are of the conjectures that a horde yet remains to be discovered on the premises he occupied, which consisted of a cottage, orchard and garden, the property of the Duke of Cleveland.
“Old Tommy” was the oldest tenant on his Grace’s Ercall Estates. This extraordinary character possessed considerable originality of mind, and an exceedingly retentive memory, and remained in full possession of his mental faculties until the period of his death.

Searching the records for ‘Young Tommy’ (as I find myself thinking of the boy who grew up to become Tommy the Conjuror) I found that “Tho Son of Tho Light of Walton was baptized September ye twenty third” in 1748 at High Ercall. Depending on how soon after his birth he was baptised, Thomas would have been 92 or 93 years old when he died, not 94 as reported in the press. 92 was the age entered in the High Ercall burial register when Thomas was buried on 8 September 1841.

Just three months before his demise, Thomas was enumerated at Walton on the 1841 census. His age was recorded as 90 (rounded down to the nearest five years as was generally the case for adults on that year’s census) and he was of independent means (a status recorded as “Ind”). Living with him was a female servant, Jane Dabbs, age 55. His near neighbour Mr John Webster, mentioned above, was a 70-tear-old farmer. All were said to be natives of Shropshire.

Did any residents of Waters Upton avail themselves of Old Tommy’s mystical (or more likely, mythical) ‘services’ during his long life? I don’t think we will ever know for certain. At the very least, I’m sure he was the subject of many a conversation in the village’s hostelries, during his lifetime and for many years after!

Extract from an old Ordnance Survey map showing the settlements of (from West to East) Walton, High Ercall, Osbaston, Rowton, Moortown, Sleap, Crudgington, and Waters Upton.
Extract from an Ordnance Survey map (1 inch to the mile, Sheet 138 – Wem) published 1889, showing Walton to the West and Waters Upton to the East. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland ⇗ under a Creative Commons licence ⇗.

By the numbers: How Waters Upton’s doors got their digits (Part 2)

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< Back to Part 1.

An important development in the history of house numbering outside London was the enactment of the Towns Improvement Clauses Act of 1847. This legislation “comprised in one Act, sundry provisions for paving, draining, cleansing, lighting and improving towns and populous districts.” Sections 64 and 65 of the Act gave greater control over house numbers and street names to certain commissioners.

The commissioners in question were those of the towns and districts to which this legislation applied, typically those appointed under Town Improvement Acts. They could have other titles, such as trustees. Section 64 allowed them to “cause the houses and buildings in all or any of the streets to be marked up with numbers as they think fit, and […] cause to be put up or painted on a conspicuous part of some house, building, or place at or near each end, corner, or entrance of every such street the name by which such street is to be known”. Section 65 then stated that the “occupiers of houses and other buildings in the streets shall mark their houses with such numbers as the commissioners shall approve of”.

Eleven years later, many of the provisions of the above Act were incorporated into the Local Government Act 1858, which was deemed to form part of the Public Health Act 1848. The powers granted under this combined legislation were adopted by a number of Shropshire’s towns. The county’s newspapers, copies of which I have perused at the British Newspaper Archive, show that eventually, discussions about street naming and house numbering in those towns took place. (In the following paragraphs, ESJ means Eddowes’s Shrewsbury Journal; SC, Shrewsbury Chronicle; and WJ, the Wellington Journal.)

On Monday 18 June 1866 at a meeting of the Local Board for Oswestry, “Mr Bayley called attention to the desirability of putting up the names of the streets and numbering the houses. (Hear, hear.)” Six months later, on Monday 10 December, “The Chairman proposed that all the houses of the town should be numbered.” This was approved, but the work was not carried out. It was not until 1880 that new proposals were put to the Town Council and adopted. In supporting them, councillors referred to the large volumes of mail – including election addresses – that went undelivered because addressees could not be found. (Oswestry Advertiser, 20 Jun 1866, p5, and 12 Dec 1866, p7; WJ, 8 May 1880, p7.)

At the beginning of 1871, Shrewsbury Town Council discussed “the plates of the names of the streets” which were being put up. In addition, “The numbering of the houses, for the purpose of aiding the Registrar General in the taking of the census” was to be considered by a committee. Confirmation that this work was about to begin was given at a meeting of the Shrewsbury Improvement Committee in October that year. (ESJ, 15 Feb 1871, p8, and 18 Oct 1871, p6.)

Also in 1871, at the annual meeting of Wellington’s Improvement Commissioners in June, “An application was considered from Mr. Boyd, postmaster, praying that the Board would consider the question of numbering the houses, on the ground that it would facilitate the delivery of letters.” The matter came up again at later meetings, but each time was deferred. A decade passed before it was agreed that the town’s houses should be numbered; plans were finalised in December 1881. (ESJ, 28 Jun 1871, p6; SC, 20 Oct 1871, p8; ESJ, 26 Oct 1881, p9, and 28 Dec 1881, p6.)

By the time some of Shropshire’s urban representatives had gotten their collective acts together over street naming and house numbering, provisions enabling these improvements in country districts were in place. The Public Health Act of 1875 (according to volume 16 of The Laws of England) conferred the provisions of the Towns Improvement Clauses Act on all urban districts. Crucially for this story, it also allowed Local Government Boards to use the Act’s powers in rural districts. As we have seen however, having those powers granted and having them applied were two very different things.

To say that it took a while for house numbering to become widespread in rural areas would be an understatement. I think that the benefits were accepted, but there was a reluctance on the part of parish officials to make and carry through the necessary plans, or spend the money that was required, or compel local residents to play their part.

In the end it was neither concerns over census-taking nor issues with mail delivery that swayed the smaller settlements of Shropshire. The threat of names being struck off voters’ lists was what finally got numbers and names displayed in reluctant rural parishes.

On 7 July 1905, the Shrewsbury Chronicle reported that Mr J W St Lawrence Leslie had been appointed a revising barrister on the Oxford circuit. Prior to this his name had appeared in the Shropshire papers as Deputy Recorder (from 1899) and then ‘full’ Recorder (from 1904) of Shrewsbury. (WJ, 1 Jul 1899 and 27 Feb 1904.) Much greater prominence in the county’s press lay ahead for John William St Lawrence Leslie.

Mr Leslie’s duty as revising barrister was to hold ‘courts’ for revising and signing off the lists of those entitled to vote in parliamentary and local elections. He had to consider applications made by people who wanted their names added to these lists, and objections made against the inclusion of these names or of any of those already on the list. After weighing up the legal pros and cons he would confirm additions, and strike off those not eligible to vote. (A short guide to Electoral registration and the registers before 1918, in PDF format, is available from the Surrey History Centre; the full legislation – the Parliamentary Registration Act 1843, as it stood, with amendments, in Mr Leslie’s day – can be read in The Statutes of Practical Utility.)

A revising barrister could also bring their judgement to bear on the lists before them without being prompted by objectors. After he had settled into his new role, Mr Leslie did just that. On 25 September 1908, the Shrewsbury Chronicle reported as follows:

THE revision of voting lists in Shropshire has proceeded this week […]. The Revising Barrister has repeatedly commented upon the vital necessity of having houses numbered or identified in some way in the now famous column 4, but has been content for the most part to pass lists imperfect in this particular with the intimation that they must be made perfect next year. The remarks Mr. Leslie made on the subject last year rather led one to expect some drastic measures, but doubtless the fact that in many parishes an earnest effort has been made to carry out his wishes had some influence in inducing him to give a further period of grace in those cases where the task of numbering or naming houses – by no means an easy matter in rural parishes – has not yet been carried out.

The difficulties experienced in one of those rural parishes, Lydbury North, were raised at a revising court held that same month (Ludlow Advertiser, 26 Sep 1908, p7). The assistant overseer said he had done his best, but the scattered nature of the houses across the 9½ mile width of the parish made numbering impractical. Neither the parish council nor the owners could see how to start the work asked of them. Mr Leslie’s solution for this issue was to give the houses distinctive names, adding: “If the owners and residents would not carry out the idea then the Parish Council could apply to the Local Government Board for powers to do it themselves and charge the owners.” If a scheme was not implemented, Mr Leslie said, he would “strike off the people not properly described” from the voters’ list.

On 5 October 1909 it was the turn of the seemingly immovable Waters Upton to meet the unstoppable force of John William St Lawrence Leslie. The Shrewsbury Chronicle of 8 October (page 9) reported:

Mr. Leslie held a court for the revision of the local voters’ lists on Tuesday at Newport. […] Each parish with the exception of Waters Upton had complied with the request that the houses should be numbered or named. Mr. Leslie said the landlords in Shropshire had mostly fallen in line with his suggestion. […] With the exception of Wem and Shifnal, which places he had not yet visited, he could say Shropshire was in perfect order. Only in about half-a-dozen cases was the numbering not done, but it would eventually be carried out as required.
When dealing with the Waters Upton list, the Assistant Overseer stated that at the Parish Meeting they declined to have the houses numbered. Several questions were asked by Mr. Leslie who asked why the Parish meeting was ruled by the Rev L. Vernon Yonge, who had first made himself secure by giving a name to the house he occupied. He then encouraged the parishioners not to number the houses. […].

Numbers, and more house names, came to Waters Upton soon after Mr Leslie’s court concluded. Evidence for this can be seen on the household schedules of the 1911 census (and probably on the electoral rolls of course, but I have not yet viewed the registers for that timeframe). Only a small proportion of the householders gave specific addresses, but it is clear that a house numbering scheme was in place. In addition to 39 Harebutts, 43 Waters Upton, and No 45 Terrill Farm, there was “27 High Street”. This, the address given for the Rectory, is the only time I have seen the village’s main street named (albeit unofficially).

The ‘new’ house names given were The Beeches, The White House, and Clematis Cottage. The first two of these also appeared on household schedules when the 1921 census was taken. Almost every home had a name or a number given on that year’s census, and as Clematis Cottage was described as number 31 it appears some or all of the properties with names, also had numbers assigned to them.

Although this is the end of the story of how house numbers came to Waters Upton, it is just the beginning of my research relating to the properties they identify. For one thing, I need to identify exactly where each of those numbered and named houses stand (or, for those which are no more, where they stood). If my research generates results, there will be lots more stories (perhaps that should be house histories) to come…

Picture credits. 5, © Eva the Weaver (Flickr), adapted and used under a Creative Commons licence. Six, public domain image from HippoPx. 7, © Duncan Cumming (Flickr), used under a Creative Commons licence. Nummer 8 by Liza, public domain image from pixabay. Number 9, a mashup of a public domain image from PeakPX and a photo © Kirsty Hall (Flickr), used under a Creative Commons licence.

By the numbers: How Waters Upton’s doors got their digits (Part 1)

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House numbers are something we take for granted these days, but it hasn’t always been that way. They didn’t exist in England before the beginning of the 1700s, and they did not appear in Waters Upton until another two centuries had passed. Here are some edited highlights from the 200-year story of the spread of house numbering, from London to other urban areas, and from Shropshire’s towns to its rural parishes, including Waters Upton.

My interest in house numbering, particularly in the parish of Waters Upton, stems from my desire to research the histories of individual houses there as part of my wider one-place study. For me to be able to do this, I need to be able to distinguish one house from another in records relating to the place and its people. The absence of house numbers before the early 1900s makes this a tricky task.

There were a few houses with names of course (The Hall, the Swan, the Lion Inn), and a couple which can be identified from the occupation of the ‘head of the household’ (the rectory, the smithy). There are also a couple of hamlets in Waters Upton parish (the Terrill, the Harebutts) each consisting of just a few houses (and each with a variety of variant spellings in days gone by!). If house histories are not possible for those places then ‘hamlet histories’ – smaller one-place studies within a larger OPS – might be feasible.

What about street names, which were around long before house numbers (my favourite being Shall-I-go-naked Street in Whitechapel St Mary)? In common with many other small settlements, the road along which most of the village’s houses are situated does not have a name. There is the Market Drayton or Hodnet road of course, on the west side of the village, but few of Waters Upton’s homes faced onto this (two of those that did were the inns, which can be identified from their names). And back in the days before Waters Upton expanded, the one road with a name – River Lane – was not a residential street.

The absence of a named street and of numbered houses would not have been a great problem in a small village like Waters Upton. Those seeking a particular house or its occupants would no doubt have been pointed in the right direction soon enough by one of the villagers. In larger settlements however, and particularly in cities like London, a plethora of properties made things more complicated. How did people find the building they were looking for?

“Before house numbers,” says The Postal Museum, “businesses used illustrated signs to show people where they were”. In times of less than universal literacy, such signs, using images rather than words, were an important part of the ‘visual culture’ of towns and cities. As Kathryn Kane states in her blog post On the Numbering of Houses they would have “served as landmarks by which a person could give directions to their residence.”

Those who could wield a quill had to write out such directions, rather than addresses as we know them today, when sending letters. I suspect the shortcomings of this way of doing things became more and more apparent as the population, and built-up areas, expanded.

The earliest reference to houses in England being numbered appears in the first volume of Edward Hatton’s A New View of London, published in 1708. Describing “Prescot street, a spacious and regular Built str. on the S. side of the Tenter Ground in Goodmans fields,” Hatton said that “Instead of Signs, the Houses here are distinguished by Numbers”.

It does not appear that this early experiment sparked immediate imitation elsewhere. The notion of numbers being used to identify properties did eventually catch on though, and in the latter part of the 18th century received ‘official’ approval. This came about as part of much broader efforts to tackle the state of the streets in and around the city of London.

Writing about these times in his Modern History of the City of London (1896), Philip Norman stated: “The condition of the paving in the roads and foot-paths of the City [had] long given rise to complaints”. He also observed that “The want of proper tablets to distinguish the names of streets and courts, and of regularity in numbering the houses, occasioned great difficulty, especially to strangers.”

These issues led to laws designed to bring cleanliness, safety and order to the capital’s thoroughfares, through the appointment of commissioners with powers to put improvements in place. The city of Westminster was the first to secure such legislation, in 1762 (2 Geo III c21), although further statutes were needed to make this workable. The first of those updates (3 Geo III c23) to the original “act for paving, cleansing, and lighting, the squares, streets, and lanes” in Westminster (and other parishes and liberties in Middlesex) is of particular interest. It gave commissioners the power to order “the names of the streets or squares to be affixed on the corner houses”.

By 1766, according to John Noorthouck (in A New History of London, published 1773), “The paving of Westminster under the new regulations was […] far advanced, and the great disparity in elegance and convenience between the Westminster side of Temple bar, and the London side, was […] observable to every one who passed through”.

Westminster’s example was quickly copied. Acts for Southwark (6 Geo III c24) and the city of London (6 Geo III c26) were soon secured. Southwark’s act empowered commissioners to order the names of streets, lanes, courts etc to be displayed, and to “order and direct the houses within the said streets and lanes, and within the said courts, yards, alleys, passages, and places, or any of them, to be numbered with figures placed or painted on the doors thereof, or in such other part of the said houses respectively as [the commissioners] shall think proper”.

London’s legislation included very similar provisions. Other districts followed. Evidence for claims made elsewhere online that house numbering resulted from provisions in the Postage Act of 1765 has been sought but not found.

“Across London,” wrote Jerry White in London In The Eighteenth Century: A Great and Monstrous Thing (2012), “these were momentous changes. They were not comprehensive, because some place like the ancient Liberty of Norton Folgate in Shoreditch, for instance, opted out of parish statutes through the poverty of their residents. And doubtless the commissioners were not always and everywhere as vigilant as they should have been. But the reorganisation of paving and lighting, the naming of streets and numbering of houses, all made London tangibly more manageable. And more modern too.”

London’s streets certainly saw improvements, but there were still problems with regard to the house numbers and street names on display. The names to be used were those by which streets were usually or ‘properly’ known, and the commissioners had no say in exactly which numbers were used.

The consequences, as described by the Postal Museum, were that “numbering systems varied even in the same street”. As for street names: “There were irregularities everywhere, and the naming of streets and parts of streets was left to the idiosyncrasy or whim of the owner.” The Illustrated London News of 16 May 1846 complained:

Scores of streets in different and widely-separated parts of this vast City bear the same name, and the numbering of houses is sometimes past all comprehension. The slightest imperfection in the address of a letter sends it on a voyage of discovery to all the squares and terraces of the same name, till it finds the right one. This must add much to the labour of the [Post Office], while the defect is out of its power to remove.

The same concerns were expressed in 1854 by the Inspector of Letter Carriers in a report to Rowland Hill, which gave several examples of horrendous house numbering and street naming nightmares. The very next year however, the enactment of the Metropolis Local Management Act (18 & 19 Vict c120) offered hope of a solution. It created a Metropolitan Board of Works with wide-ranging powers including the regulation of the numbering of houses and the naming of streets.

The slow progress in the early years of this body were noted in the annual reports of the Postmaster General in 1856 (“No improvement has yet been made in the street nomenclature of London”), 1857 (“some little has been done”), and 1858 (“further progress has been made in improving the nomenclature of the streets in London and the numbering of the houses; but the main work has still to be accomplished”).

Despite this slow start, and some resistance from the public to altered addresses, by 1871 4,800 street names had been changed and 100,000 houses renumbered in London (Postal Museum figures). The work of letter carriers was made a little easier. The work of future house historians, not so much!

In the meantime, while this progress was being made in London, legislation allowing similar improvements to be made beyond the capital had been introduced. It’s time for this story to move away from the Metropolis.

On to Part 2 >

Picture credits. Number 1, © Leo Reynolds (Flickr), used under a Creative Commons licence. Colorful house number, 2, © Martin LaBar (Flickr), used under a Creative Commons licence. Door Number 3 by George Hodan, public domain image from PublicDomainPictures.net. “34”, © Brian (Flickr), adapted, used, and made available for reuse under a Creative Commons licence.