• Held At: West Sussex Record Office
• Reference Number: Par19/12/1
• Document Order #: Par 19/12/1
• Ref No: Par19/12/1
• Date: 1826-1837
• Level: Item
• Extent: 1 vol.; ff.134; parchment binding
• Description: The minutes contain the regular transactions of parish business, covering the nomination of churchwardens, overseers, surveyors of the highway and waywardens, assessors and collectors; examining and passing the accounts for each of these and making the various rates. Assessments on individual properties are reported, together with occasional settlement decisions and apprenticeship records. Names of those excused rates are listed.
  The bulk of the minutes records the relief accorded to paupers, in money, clothes, bread, employment, housing, nursing care, and orders for admittance to the poorhouse at Sutton. South Bersted belonged to the Sutton Union, which was formed under Gilbert's Act in 1791 and continued to function until 1869; and the minutes record annual appointments of salaried guardians throughout.
  The vestry met, with scarcely any exceptions, in the church.
  The format of the book is a volume specially printed for vestries in 1820, by Sussex Press, Lewes (printed and published by the proprietor, J. Baxter, No. 37, High Street) and is entitled Baxter's Parish Vestry Book. The title page is followed by an alphabetical index (which has not been used); each page thereafter is headed "Vestry Meeting" with spaces for the name of the parish, the place and date.
  The minutes also include the following items:
  f.2. a pauper's inventory, n.d.;
  ff.6-19. index pages (see above);
  ff.24-116. [discontinuous] these minutes cover the annual appointment of the medical attendant and his salary, 1827-1837. At the last three meetings, two doctors were nominated by different supporters; on the first occasion, one was appointed on a straight vote; and at the two subsequence vestries, a compromise was reached by which each one served alternately during the year;
  f.25v. decisions to pay the poor "after the rate of two half gallon loaves for each child"; and to apply to neighbouring parishes in order to buy a set of standard weights and measures, 14 May 1827;
  f.27v. decision to give potatoes grown at the Parish Cottages to the poor without gardens, 8 October 1827;
  f.28v. decision to subscribe 4 guineas annually to Chichester Infirmary, 10 December 1827;
  ff.29, 30v. measures required, e.g. purchase of land, opening of ditches etc. - for the necessary widening or the road at Shripney, 10 December 1827, 11 February 1828;
  f.29v. agreement to sell 6 loads of boulders, 14 January 1828;
  f.30v. decision that the Guardian should inspect all clothes and shoes ordered for the poor, 11 February 1828;
  f.31. decision to build a more convenient vestry room, 10 March 1828.
  f.32v. agreement to allow a proportion of the rate on land liable to be flooded, 2 April 1828;
  f.33. labourers' hours of work in summer and winter, 7 April 1828;
  f.33v. appointment of a schoolmaster as paid assistant overseer, 7 April 1828;
  f.34. decision to postpone the building of a new vestry room till the cost of repairing the steeple is known, 14 April 1828;
  f.36. decision on allowances to paupers belonging to Friendly Societies, 9 June 1828;
  f.44. decision to erect a new iron gate in front of the church, 20 April 1829;
  f.46v. decision to convey the lease of a parish cottage to the Rev. Edward Eadle, at a peppercorn rent, for 14 years, in compensation for his expenditure in buying the new almshouses and pulling down the old ones, 29 October 1829;
  f.47v. decisions concerning buying stone for the road, and re-thatching the cart house, 6 December 1829;
  ff.48v, 49v. decision concerning the obstruction of Reed Pond and its watercourse, 25 March 1830;
  f.49. agreement that Richard Hasler Esq of Bognor be recommended as deputy Visitor of the parish, 12 April 1830;
  ff.49r, v v 50r, v. decisions to obtain specifications, estimates, builders, for the building of a new brick bridge over the Rife and to dispose of the materials of the existing wooden bridge, 19 April, 29 April, 10 May 1830;
  f.50. agreement not to employ women on weeding as long as there are any unemployed men, 29 April 1830;
  f.53v. agreement to "discharge all out Parishioners", 20 November 1830;
  f.54v. decision to distribute labour among farmers according to a scale to be decided, 2 December 1830;
  f.55. decision that all liable to road duty shall pay composition; and that manure collected by the waywardens shall be sold by tender, 2 December 1830;
  f.55v - 56v. implementation of the resolution reached regarding the distribution of labourers (f.54v), with lists covering Bognor and Shripney, 9 December 1830;
  ff.58, 67v, 69. discussions concerning which firm or solicitors should be appointed to transact the parish's legal business, 25 March 1831, 26 March, 23 April, 1832;
  f.60v. decision to allow, 1 to all single men who engage in the Merchant Service, 5 May 1831;
  62v. decision to notify the mothers of bastard children that pay will be discontinued when the children reach seven years, 1 September 1831;
  f.63r, v 64v. minutes concerning the state of a public road in Bognor, related rights of drainage and the making of a drain from the High Road to the sea, 29, 30 September 1831;
  ff.64v, 68, 69v, 76. minutes concerning a new road from Bognor to Aldwick, 24 November 1831, 26 March, 23 November 1832; dedication of a piece of land to the public for ever for a promenade, 23 April 1832;
  ff.64v-99v. [discontinuous] minutes concerning road scrapings, diggings, and rights thereto, 24 November 1831 - November and n.d. 1832;
  ff.65, 76. minutes concerning the widening of a highway in consultation with the parish of Oving, 16 February, 23 November 1832;
  ff.66v-103v. [discontinuous] minutes concerning emigration: application from James and Henry Goldring, and J. Joyce and their families to emigrate to America; raising of funds and formation of a committee to make all arrangements; agreement to pay, 78 into a bank in Montreal as an initial fund for the emigrants on their arrival; dismissal of requests from parishioners to emigrate etc., 16 March 1832 - 5 March 1835;
  ff.71, 75v. minutes relating to apprentices, 24 May, 9 November 1832;
  f.73. agreement to pay an organist, 3 p.a., 17 August 1832;
  f.74v. nomination of a tithing man, 5 October 1832;
  f.75. decisions concerning the recasting of a bell, and a Table of Prohibited Degrees, following the Archbishop of Canterbury's [William Howley] visitation, 12 October 1832;
  f.76r, v. order to the waywardens to purchase 2000 bricks. 23 November 1832; order to make five new wheelbarrows, 7 December 1832; decision to acquire a new bell and to dispose of the old one, 31 January 1833;
  ff.78v-82v. [discontinuous] discussions concerning the poor rate in relation to the measurements of the parish, 15 February - 4 April 1833;
  f.80. decision to fix grates in certain Poor House Cottages, 8 March 1833;
  f.81v. directive concerning coals for the church, 25 March 1833;
  f.82. agreement to stop parochial relief to anyone found drinking in a beer house after 9 p.m. or during the divine service, 28 March 1833;
  f.83v. calling of a vestry "to put out girls" [for service work]; decision to disallow relief to paupers who keep dogs, 10 May 1833;
  ff.84v-94. [discontinuous] matters concerning paupers in lunatic asylums, 7 June 1833 - 9 April 1834;
  f.86v. allowance to the rector [E. Eadle] for repairs to a parish cottages' outhouse, etc., 23 September 1833;
  f.87r, v. decision concerning the building of a new bridge between North Bersted and Shripney in place of an existing one in a bad state or repair, 3, 7 October 1833;
  f.88. questions concerning the County rate, and vagrants, 11 October 1833;
  f.88v. formation of a committee to consider church sittings, 29 October 1833;
  f.89. allowances to Mr Eadle for repairs to parish property, 8 November 1833;
  f.89v, 99v. agreement to allow compounding for statute duty on roads, 11 November 1833 and n.d.;
  ff.91, 92. consultations with solicitors and counsel concerning repairs to a road, and concerning plans showing past and present line of coast, 6, 20 February 1834;
  f.91r, v. decision concerning the lock-up house at Bognor and rewards for apprehending robbers, 6 February 1834;
  f.95. plans to apprentice a deaf and dumb boy, 8 May 1834;
  f.96. matters concerning applications by girls to enter into service, 16 May 1834;
  f.96v. decision concerning apprentices; gift of sacramental plate to the church, 5 June 1834;
  ff.98v-130. [discontinuous] matters concerning the baking, cost, contracts etc. for bread for paupers, 23 October 1834 - 29 June 1837;
  f.100v. decision to pay arrears on the subscription to the [Chichester] Infirmary and then to discontinue it, 4 December 1834;
  ff.103v, 104. minutes concerning the promotion of emigration, 5, 13 March 1835; decision not to vote for the dissolution of the Sutton Union, 13 March 1835;
  f.104v. first reference to the Poor Law Commissioners, 25 March 1835;
  f.105r, v. vestry called under the new Poor Law Act to consider emigration to Canada, 25 March 1835; decision to drop the question for the time being owing to refusal by property owners to contribute, 2 April 1835;
  f.105v, 106r, v. reports of a clash of opinions on the election of a medical officer, 3, 9 April 1835;
  f.106. list of illnesses etc. for which extra charges were to be made, 3 April 1835;
  f.106v. correspondence with the Poor Law Commissioners concerning a deputation from the parish, 9 April 1835;
  f.107. re-election of a former Guardian, W.W. Phillips, at the same salary [as before the new Poor Law], 20 April 1835;
  f.111. minute concerning Bognor tithing and rack rent, 15 October 1835;
  f.111v. minute concerning an apprenticeship, 5 November 1835;
  f.112, 114v. directions to the Guardian attending meetings for the dissolution of the Sutton Union to oppose the dissolution, 3 December 1835, 3 March 1836;
  f.112v. decision to conduct a settlement examination in connection with a parishioner's liability to the poor rate, 10 December 1835;
  f.117v. consideration of the new Highway Act in relation to rating, 31 March 1836;
  f.119v. report of the gift of a pulpit cloth, 19 May 1836;
  f.123. decision to reduce old people's allowance to the level of maintenance in the Poor House, 13 October 1836;
  f.123v. decision to repair vestry chimney and install a new stove, 10 November 1836;
  f.124. unsigned draft agreement to supply "good wheaten household bread in four pound loaves" to the poor, [10 November 1836];
  f.125v. agreement to carry "Sea Beach" from Bognor Lows for highway repairs, 5 January 1837;
  ff.127, 128v. the vestry having voted, 20 to the churchwardens, this was rescinded when the magistrates refused to pass the church accounts and a vestry had to be called to make a church rate, 9 March, 6 April 1837;
  f.130v. question concerning liability for maintaining a road, 7 September 1837;
  ff.132-134. blank
• Terms:South Bersted
• Terms:Transatlantic Ties
• 

• Access Status: Open
• Access Conditions: Please note that a part of this record has been digitised for the Transatlantic Ties project and can be viewed here: http://www.transatlantic-ties.org/
• Digital Copy:Online digital surrogate available
• Contact: West Sussex Record Office,

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