Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/664

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��clerk to be appointed senior and acting coroner, the junior bailiff being junior coroner, a sinecure post.

A court of record appears to have been held here as early as 1234-5, wnen Ralf de How questioned an essoin under a writ de recto ; *" it was formally granted in 1481, and was to be held every Saturday before the bailiffs and steward of the town, with cognizance of all pleas of debt, covenant, trespass, and personal matters within the demesne of the town and the hundreds of Kingston and Emley bridge.*" This privilege was extended in 1628 *" to the hundreds of Copthorne and Effingham, and the court continued to be held until the end of the i8th century. 50 * The court leet was part of the old manorial organization, and in the early igth century was still held before the recorder on Tuesday in Whitsun week, when the Fifteens were the jury.*" Its jurisdiction at one time extended throughout the hundred, 304 but the corpora- tion surrendered their powers in Richmond, Petersham, Kew, Ham, and Effingham to Charles I in i628. 805 The court baron, at which presentment of the death of free tenants and the alienation of free tenements was made, was held before the bailiffs on Tuesday in Whitsun week ; the gownsmen and peers formed the homage, and also signed the presentment of the leet jury.* 06 In 1556 a court of pie-powder was granted with the fair, but does not appear ever to have been much exercised, and had fallen into disuse by 1835.*" The petty and quarter sessions were, in 1835, held concurrently with the court leet, the bailiffs being ex officio justices of the peace.

There were also Trades Companies, which were certainly established in the town by 1579, when certain constitutions were enacted which practically remained in force until the igth century. 308 The freemen of the town were divided into the four companies of mercers, woollen drapers, shoemakers or cordwainers, and butchers, later victuallers, whose ' arms ' may still be seen in the painted glass of the town hall. Each company was constituted in the same way, and consisted of a body of freemen governed by two wardens, with a clerk and a beadle. 309 The freemen of the companies were distinct from the freemen of the corporation, and were either ' appren- tices bound to and serving a freeman in the town, or the eldest son living of a freeman upon the death of his father,' or freemen of the corporation, who could claim the freedom of one of the companies either on or after election. 310 In 1835 a member of either of these classes paid 6s. 8d. on admission to his freedom, but in 1635-7 the normal fee paid by apprentices was 3/. 4<j'. s " The names of the freemen were entered in roll books, 3 " now no longer extant ; the number of admissions yearly was considerable in the early 1 7th century, but diminished after the Restora- tion, the membership being sixty in 1835. The two wardens were elected every year by the freemen of the Company ; it was their duty to keep the accounts,

��to act as treasurers generally, and to be present at the signing of indentures of apprenticeship in the trades under their control. 313 They had power to impose fines and distrain for breaches of their orders."' The town clerk acted as clerk of each company, receiving a fee of 5/.* 16 Each company generally met but once a year by special summons, though sometimes as many as six meetings were held, 816 and an item would appear in the accounts such as ' expended at 2 several times in wyne at the Sarazen's Head.' 3I7 The greatest expense of the year was generally the money 'spent on the Company at the Dinner' on Easter Monday, the ' feast-day ' on which the outgoing wardens presented the accounts of each company to the bailiff at the Gildhall before the newly-elected wardens and divers other freemen of the company.

None of the companies possessed property, and their revenues were derived solely from the fees paid by newly-elected freemen, from fines for breach of the orders, postponement of the swearing-in of apprentices, and from quarterages due from each freeman. 3 " According to the by-law the quarterage of a house- holder was 8J., that of a journeyman %d., but by 1835 8</. was paid by married and \d. by single men ; 3 " in 1 609 the quarterage paid to the Mercers' Company was i$s. Afd. for the past year, while the woollen drapers received 2O/. 8</. But though the expenses usually nearly balanced the receipts, as in the case of the woollen drapers, whose receipts in 1655 were 2 lt)s. -md expenditure 2 ijs, "jd., in 1688 the Court of Assembly was able to borrow 1 6 i o;. from the victuallers, 17 of the mercers, and 26 lot. of the cordwainers, 2O/. of which was repaid in ' brass money.' M0

The companies were very dependent on the Court of Assembly, which kept their money stored in ' a chest with four boxes and six locks and keys for the four companies' bought in 1609-10."' The regula- tion of the trade of the town was really in the hands of the Court of Assembly, which in 1638 re-enacted orders of 1579 prohibiting any but freemen of the companies from exercising any trade, science or mystery, or keeping open shop or selling by retail within the town under penalty of 6s. SJ. for each offence and the like sum for every market-day he continued to transgress. 3 " This seems to indicate that market-days were not like fair days, free, and in 1 609 the Company of Mercers twice distrained Henry Woodfall for trading in the town contrary to orders, and spent \d. in twice carrying his stall into the court-hall. 3 ' 3 The Court of Assembly, moreover, reserved to itself the right of granting life-tolerations to those who were not freemen on payment of sums varying in 1835 between 5 and /3O."* These tolerations became increasingly common after the Restoration, and brought the corporation into conflict more than once with the wardens of the companies, as in 1682, when the wardens of the Company of

��499 Maitland, Bracton's Note Bk,, no. 1122.

800 Roots, Charters, 50.

801 Ibid. 174.

808 Manic. Corf. Com. Ref. iv, 2900. Information kindly given by the town- clerk, Mr. H. C. Winser.

808 Munic. Corf, Com. Rep. iv, 2900.

Doc. of Corp. Ch. Bks.

<**Cal. S.P. Dam. 1628-9, P- 4 i Roots, Charters, 210.

306 Munic. Corf. Com. Rtf. iv, 2900.

��"W Roots, Charters, 77.

808 Munic. Corf. Com. Rep. iv, 2898.

809 Bk. of Trades Companies.
 * w Mur.ic. Corf. Com. Rep. iv, 2898.

811 Bk. of Trades Companies, Shoe- makers, 1635-7.

812 Ibid. Woollen Drapers, 1640. 818 Ibid. Mercers, 1670.

814 Ibid. Woollen Drapers, 1609; Ct. of Assembly Bk. 6, 29 July 1682. 814 Bk. of Trades Companies, passim. 816 Ibid. Woollen Drapers, 1630-40.

500

��81 "Ibid. Mercers, 1631.

818 Bk. of Trades Companies, Woollen Drapers, 16 n.

819 Munic. Corp. Com, Ref. iv, 2898.

820 Ct. of Assembly Bk. 28 Oct. 1685. "Bk. of Trade Companies, Shoe- makers, 1 6 10.

8M Munic. Corf. Com. Ref. iv, 2898. 888 Bk. of Trades Companies, Mercers, 1609.

8M Munic. Corf. Com. Rep. iv, 2898.

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