|
Preface
Somewhere in the past of almost any modern town lies the tiny hamlet
out of which it has grown. . . Such was the place called "Harrogate"
that, it is known, existed over six hundred years ago. Some two
hundred years later, when the hamlet had become an Elizabethan
village, there appeared in it the first faint promise of its modern
development. From then onwards its medicinal springs began to become
more and more widely known; and, from the time of Charles it
received;; an ever increasing number of visitors, for whom
accommodation came to be provided on the spot. Finally, by the
beginning of the nineteenth century, it started to become a
residential area where knowledgeable men of property decided to live
permanently.
The adventure of going backwards in time to study the making of a
town may be not only interesting lout instructive. It may lead to
the discovery, by its present citizens, that the outstanding
characteristics of the town were given to it a great while ago by
predecessors of energy and imagination. It has been well said that
the beginning of political wisdom is to realise, and acknowledge,
our debt to the past.
But the most critical period in. a town's history is that which
corresponds to adolescence in a human being—the stage when the
village acquires the attributes of a town. In Harrogate, the central
part of this period was from 1810 to 1841, during which its
population grew from under two thousand to approximately four
thousand. In the former year, it built its Workhouse. and the
Workhouse Committee took upon itself the direction of township
affairs generally: while in 1841 a still closer approximation to a
Town Council appeared in the Town Improvement Commissioners.
This period of adolescence might be broadened—in the one direction
to 1770, when by Act of Parliament the whole Forest of Knaresborough
was "awarded" to private enterprise. to be enclosed " (i.e. fenced)
and drained and made fertile, and when the townsmen were able to
secure for permanent public resort the two-hundred-acre Stray: and
in the other direction to 1884, when the Borough of Harrogate was
established and the town might be considered completely adult.
William Grainge, that local eminent Victorian whose portrait hangs
in the Library, published in 1871 what he rightly claimed to be the
first attempt at a history of Harrogate and of the Forest. His book
sketched the story of the neighbourhood, from the early Middle Ages
to the seventeenth century, in a careful and comprehensive way. As
he came to live in the town in 1860, he was able to give a good
account, too, of the later years. But for the eighteenth century,
and down to 1840, his sources of information were limited. The
careful week-by-week chronicling of Palliser - founder of the
Harrogate Advertiser in 1836 - covered only, of course, the very end
of this period. There were a number of earlier Directories, giving
trustworthy but rather scanty facts, and Hand-Books, produced for
the use of visitors, which were fuller but less reliable. Certainly
Grainge knew, and justly praised, the attractively written books of
Ely Hargrove, the Harrogate book-seller of the later eighteenth and
earlier nineteenth century; but Hargrove's interest lay rather in
the romantic past than in the equally exciting present. In addition,
there were books written by doctors about the wells. Unfortunately,
these writers, interested chiefly in the medical aspect, often
accepted without scrutiny information that they read, or were told,
both about the history of the wells and about local conditions.
When Grainge wrote it is clear that the' township records, except a
very few that he had obviously seen, were not accessible. Only some
five years since, Mr Alexander Wilson was able to have them "taken
from a loft in the old Town Hall" and placed in the Public Library.
There, during the last year or more, a detailed study of them has
been made through the courtesy of the Librarian, Mr. John Stuffins.
These documents are found to cover pretty adequately the critical
period. Some even go back to Queen Anne and the first Georges; they
are extremely numerous between 1770 and 1840. As they are largely
the accounts drawn up by the township officers - Constables,
Overseers of the Poor, and Surveyors of the Highways - who were
dealing with each of their immediate, day-to-day problems, they were
not written as history. Consequently, they are excellent historical
material.
Besides the officers' "Accounts” - their yearly or half-yearly
statements - there are Rate Books (both for the Poor and the
Highways), township Valuations, and notes of the collection of
taxes, including such as the notorious Windows' Tax and an early
Income Tax, and details of contributions to York Castle, the early
form of the County Rate. Many documents deal with paupers: their
Removal Orders, Protection Certificates. Examinations, and notes of
their "pay", as well as legal "Cases" dealing with the complicated
business of their "settlement". The minutes of the meetings of the
Workhouse Committee come in the nineteenth century, with Workhouse
registers and account books. There are very many poor apprentices'
indentures, covering the whole period. And, of course, innumerable
bills. From these may be built up a clear picture, not only of the
administration of poor relief, then the most important of local
government activities, but also of such things as travel at that
time, and local labour conditions. There is also information about
St. John's 'Chapel: its Chapel-wardens' "Accounts," its Church Rate,
its tithes and Charity distributions. Amongst other records of
interest are very many letters, some of which throw further light on
the life of the time.
In the chapters that follow, an attempt has been made to give the
story of Harrogate, but to deal in. the greater detail with the
formative period between 1770 and 1884. First, however, to make the
Harrogate of the eighteenth century perhaps a little less puzzling,
some brief reference to its still earlier history seems to be
desirable, for the causes of some of the abnormalities date from
quite a long time ago.
|
