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HARROGATE AS PROPERTY OWNER
The "Towns Houses " (c. 1700-1809)
The first mention of a "Cottage and Intack belonging ye township of
Bilton-with-Harrogate" is found in a very pleasing document of 1730,
which bears the names of Richard Wood. Overseer, and Thomas Boddy,
Churchwarden. It records the gift of £6 10s. to the daughter of the
late tenant of the cottage, William Marsden, the reasons given being
that he "did very much Improve" it and that his daughter "Assisted
him and his wife in their sickness and took care to bury them
without troubling the township." "Ye Inhabitants taking ye same in
good part" had thought fit to make this generous gesture. As it was
for those days such a large sum, she was to have thirty shillings at
once, the remainder in single pounds at yearly intervals. The Intack
was an enclosure, or close, that had been taken in from Forest land.
This cottage may very well have been in township hands for many
years before this, and it is possible that there were others. During
the next forty years, however, there is only one document concerning
them, a contract of 1762 by which William Roberts, Overseer, lets a
house belonging to the poor to a certain William Winterburn, who is
apparently not a pauper.
In 1774, when the whole Forest of Knaresborough was enclosed, two
Incroachments were acknowledged to be the property of the "Harrogate
poor." One was near the inn called World's End, in Worlds' End Lane,
which has been replaced by Grove House, in Skipton Road. For this a
fine (copyhold charge) of 4d had to be paid yearly. The other was in
the present Park Parade, the fine in this case being ls. 1d. These
fines were to be paid "at the door of Harrogate Chapel on the 25th
day of March, for ever." Half of the 1s 5d, and of similar fines,
was granted by the Crown to Alexander Wedderburn, "in lieu and
discharging of the Tithes of Corn and Grain." The Chapel mentioned
was St. John's, where Christ Church now stands. The Overseers'
Accounts show that this money was paid for a number of years: for
example, in 1783 we find that the ls. 5d. was shared between the
Vicar of Knaresborough (who, as patron of the living, owned the
other half of the tithes) and Lord Loughborough (as Alexander
Wedderburn had then become). Both the "Incroachments" appear to have
been sold in 1809; which would explain why there is no record of any
payment of the fines after that date.
Bills paid by Overseers between 1780 and 1808 show that there were
then at least three township houses. Like much other local cottage
property, these were thatched.
1780 Paid John Pearson for Wartring Thack, Theaking the Pour Houses
and Spelks 10s.; 24 Threave of Strow El 4s.
1788 4 lights New Glass to a Towns House 5s. 9d.
1792 theaking three pore houses, strove leading and watering is.
6d.; spelks and theaking tow day and a half 5s. 5d. In 1805, over £15's worth of materials and: labour for
the towns houses "included quantities of stone, of lime (from the
Union Kilns, owned by the Pullans), of timber, and of bricks;
joiner's work, "Glaizing" and thatching. In 1808, Christopher
Reynard supplied glass and lead for a "pour haus."
As early as 1803, the township was seriously considering the
building of a Workhouse, with the obvious intention of saving the
rent of £5 a year that it paid to Pannal for the privilege of
sending its paupers there. In that year, William Williamson made a
strong protest against. a proposed site. He was a large landowner in
Harrogate, but his only possession anywhere near the site was a
barn. "It will be a very unpleasant thing." he wrote from his home
at Ripon, "to have a Building of that sort so near my Barn," and he
declared that the "most proper place" for a Workhouse was the Stray.
It seems that the township had recently acquired another house, with
a garden, probably with building in view. The 1803 Rate Book shows a
house belonging to the poor and let to John Hardaker, but the
township had not yet paid for it in 1805. The 1809 Rate Book shows
this house and two others, under the heading of Harrogate Poor. As
these three were rated, they must have been let to other than pauper
tenants, and it is quite possible that the township had other houses
let to paupers and so exempt from Rates.
From 1811 (the 1810 Rate Book is missing), there is no mention of
any township houses. The inference is that they had all been sold,
presumably to raise funds for the building scheme. Certainly
Hardaker's house is shown in 1811 as then the property of Peter
Earnshaw. Esq., who, like several others, was busy acquiring an
estate in Harrogate. The date of the sale can reasonably be fixed as
August 1809 by a bill presented to the Overseer by Francis Haw,
landlord of the Queen's Head (Queen). It bears the explanatory note:
"At the sale of the Towns property"; and. its items suggest a rather
generous encouragement to the bidding: "Wine £l 5s., Punch £2 10s."
The Workhouse (1810-1858)
Two facts stand out as we watch the township's officers busy about
their plans for a Workhouse in the summer of 1809. One is that they
were very business-like; the other, that they found it necessary to
spend an unconscionable amount of the township's money on what they
called liquor. The Overseers were William. Barker and John Stott,
but there seems to have been an. influential group at that time that
had much say in township affairs, whether in office or not. This
included several inn-keepers: John Greeves, of the Granby; John
Dearlove, of the Salutation (County); Jonathan Shutt, of the Swan;
Joseph Goodlad, of the. Dragon. Barker, who was the active Overseer
for the first half-year, from April to September. 1809, made the
following quick-fire entries :
June 1st: Paid for liquor at the meeting choosing a Committee for
the Workhouse-13s. 6d.
June 6th: first Committee meeting-18s. 6d.
June 13th: another Committee meeting-8s. 6d.
June 28th: Expences attending the Inspection of Workhouses and
Presents to Masters-11.s.
The special Workhouse Committee, thus inaugurated, was to manage
Workhouse affairs and a good deal else as long as Poor Relief
remained in the hands of the township - that is, until 1854. The
twelve or so members were elected annually by the Vestry Meeting;
but membership was obviously limited to leading townsmen. They held
their business meetings each month, and the liquor consumption, so
energetically begun, even increased as time went on. At first a set
allowance of 10s a meeting was made but even this limit, generous
indeed for those days, was ignored later. In 1829, the bill
presented by Joseph Waite, of the Black Swan, for the January
meeting reads: Wine and water, ls 4d; Liquer, 12s.; Tobacco:, 6d.;
cheese and bread, 3s. 6d.; Rum, 6d. The Committee made a point of
going the round of the inns. At the March meeting in the same year,
£1 3s. 8d. was spent with Mrs. Kendall, of the Bay Horse (Empress),
on "Ale, Spirits and Tobacco." In the township report made to the
Poor Law Commissioners in. 1834, when they were enquiring into the
administration throughout the country, there is this illuminating
comment: "It will be perceived that there is an entry of £8 3s. 9d.
for refreshments and Drinkings at the meetings, that has been long
established by custom and has on some occasions been a heavy charge.
Some of the members of the Committee have been desirous to
discontinue the charge. It has continued still although the
Magistrates have objected, to it."
The site that was eventually chosen for the Workhouse was obviously
not Hardaker's house, but it was one that already had some building
on it. William Voackes' estimate submitted in October 1809 includes
the item: "Pouling Down the Old Buildings at Star Beck and takeing
the Slate's and Tile's off and leing them carefully by." To judge by
his solid and impressive Workhouse this stonemason was an. excellent
builder, but his knowledge of the construction of the. English
language was not quite so expert. He ignores punctuation, inserts
capitals merely for the sake of variety and uses his own system of
phonetic spelling. If these points are borne in mind, his bill for
erecting a pig-sty at the Workhouse in 1811 may yield useful facts
about the then cost of materials. and labour. It is also a reminder
that free ale was then a perquisite of most manual labourers, a fact
that masters had to allow for in submitting estimates.
July 13, 1811, Mr. Lentfort to wm. voackes for worck Doun at
harrogate whorck house Bilding peg coate whalen gate Stad up
whorcken peg trouff paven helpen to put up Sla ten ponten puting
Rode on.
Self and 2 Men 1 Day - 11s 6d
Self 2 Days man 3 Days - 18s 6d
Self 2 Days Backer 3 Days half - £1 6s
hogg 4 Days half - 15s 9d
Lats nales for Slaten - 6d
Stone for peg trouff Stone to Cover
peg Spute to BlackBurn - 5s
19 Days 3 per Day for Drenkens - 4s 9d
Total - £4 2s
Recvd the A Buy By me wm voackes
"Gate-stead" is still used locally for gate-way. "Mr. Lentfort " was
the Overseer, Thomas Linforth; hogg was, of course, a workman. The "
peg Spute " was a stone culvert for drainage.
The Workhouse site was bought from Francis Pullan, a Bilton
bleacher, and was a little more than an acre. Bordering it to the
south was a field of about the same size, later called "Workhouse
Close." The two are shown as one unit in the "Award" of 1774; and it
is possible that both were bought by the township and used for the
first few years. There is still visible a walled-up doorway in the
boundary wall between the sites, and "plowing" was done at the
Workhouse in 1811, which would hardly be necessary on the smaller
site. But Pullan was again in possession of Workhouse Close in 1815.
Though no complete financial statement has been found, it is
probable that the township was never deeply in debt through the
Workhouse. The sale of the "Towns Houses," judging by their rateable
value, would realise several hundred pounds, and from 1813 the rents
began to come in from the "out-townships" that sent paupers.
The information (such as it is) is as follows : In 1815, Overseer
Thomas Emmatt paid £120 to Mr Terry, of the Knaresbro Bank,
apparently as repayment of a loan; in 1817, £7 11s. 6d. was paid to
Mr. Terry as interest, which suggests a loan still outstanding of
about £150. In 1822, the township borrowed £100 from John Eteson;
and a further loan of £200 from George Abbey appears in the records
from 1825 to 1831. These last may not have been really new
borrowings: the Abbey loan may have gone back to 1810, and the
Eteson loan may have paid off the debt at the bank, for the
Workhouse is the only known liability at that time which might cause
the township to run into debt.
The report to the Poor Law Commissioners, referred to previously,
states that the capacity of the Workhouse was 100, that it had cost
about £2,000, and that it had been built "about 18 years." The last
is a bad error - for in 1834 the building was 24 years old. Perhaps
the other two statements are no more reliable. Most of the
twenty-odd rooms were quite small, and the given capacity would
assign four to a room. In view of building costs then current, the
estimate of £2,000 is probably excessive.
There is a pathetic side-light on the building of the Workhouse
given by a letter from. John Stott, the Overseer whose term of duty
was from October 1809 to March 1810. For many Years he was a
well-to-do grocer in Harrogate, but when he wrote to the Overseers
in 1838, he was living at Halifax in distressed circumstances. "When
I was Overseer," he wrote, "I built the Workhouse and when I made up
my accounts at the end of the year, the Vestry wished me to stand
another year to see the Building finished, and I was to have some
compensation for my trouble., to which I agreed on condition that I
should have no trouble in collecting rates or paying the poor. It
took a great deal of my time and called me often from home to the
neglect of my business. But the compensation was never offered me,
and I never applied for it." John Stott deserved well of the
township: besides his service as Overseer, he had been Constable in
1820 and one of the Surveyors in 1815 and 1823. His Accounts in
these offices are model documents, well written, detailed, and
extremely well arranged. It is pleasant to record that the township
did send him relief in his necessitous old age.
The postscript to this letter of Stott's is of some interest. "When
do you form the Union at Harrogate? Can you not give me a situation
as relieving officer? I could discharge the duties of the office as
well as any person you could appoint, and you will have to appoint
someone." Clearly he takes it for granted that Harrogate- would be
chosen as the centre of a local Poor Law Union, such as had been
authorised by the Act of 1834, seeing that for forty years it had
been the head of an unofficial one.
At long last, however, the Knaresborough Poor Law Union was set up
in 1854, and into this Union the township of Bilton-with-Harrogate
was merged. Yet the Knaresborough Workhouse was quite inadequate for
its new task and a fresh Union building had to be started. Till this
was ready - from 1854 to 1858 - the Knaresborough Union rented the
Harrogate Workhouse at £40 a year net, the Guardians being
responsible for repairs.
The last stage was recorded by the Harrogate Advertiser of May 1st,
1858: "Since the erection of the new Union House at Knaresboro', to
which the paupers have been removed from the Old Workhouse at
Starbeck, that building, which belongs to the township, has become
useless for purposes of that kind, and consequently application has
been made to the Poor Law Board. . . . for permission to sell the
property." Later that same year, the Workhouse was sold to Mr. John
Turner and became, as it still remains, Old Starbeck Hall - a not
unsightly reminder of a township achievement.
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