LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
In the later 14th and
early 15th centuries courts for Bisley manor,
recorded on the same series of rolls, were held
sometimes in the name of the Bisley family and
sometimes in the name of the earls of March;
presumably one court was being held for both
parts of the manor, the respective lords making a
division of the profits. Apart from the occasional
plea, the court was concerned wholly with estate
matters, in particular with the management and
conservation of the extensive woodland. By the
1350s the court appointed and heard presentments
from 3 woodwards, who were responsible for
different areas of woodland. They were the woodwards for Bussage, Oakridge, and 'Wygesty', the
latter sometimes known alternatively as the woodward of Timbercombe or Catswood; (fn. 43) in 1536 the
3 woodwards were being paid an annual fee by the
manor. (fn. 44) The office was served by the occupants of
particular tenements, for in 1600 John Gardner,
who held Frampton Place freely from the manor, was
said to be by his tenure one of the three 'foresters'
who kept the woodland. (fn. 45) Officers called the riders of
the woods recorded in the mid 16th century were
apparently additional to the woodwards. (fn. 46) From
1435 a separate court of woods was held to supervise
the management of the woodland but by 1676 it was
being held in conjunction with the court baron. (fn. 47)
From the late 16th century the manor court was
largely concerned with stocking and preventing
encroachments and quarrying on the commons
which replaced much of the woodland. Later with the
disappearance of customary tenures, the court came
to deal almost exclusively with the management of
the commons. From the end of the 17th century it
appointed sheep-tellers and in 1736 2 tellers and 2
haywards were appointed; from 1783 those officers
were joined by a parish shepherd. A reeve, whose
office was anciently filled on a rota system, was also
appointed by the court until the early 19th century, (fn. 48)
although by the beginning of the 18th his whole
duty was the collection and payment of the fee-farm
rent owed to the Crown from the manor. (fn. 49) The
manor court may have met at the building called
the court-house which adjoined Over Court in
1608 (fn. 50) but in the later 17th century that building
was reserved for the Bisley hundred court; (fn. 51) in
1766 and later the manor court met at the Bear inn. (fn. 52)
The earliest surviving court roll for Bisley manor
is for 1335 and there is an almost complete series
for the period 1350-1445. (fn. 53) Records of a few courts
survive for the 1540s; (fn. 54) there is a complete run for
1584-1602; (fn. 55) and rolls, court papers, and a court
book cover the period 1675-1838. (fn. 56)
The abbots of Cirencester held a court for
Througham manor and its members in the early
16th century, (fn. 57) and profits of court, amounting to
only 12d. annually, were included in a survey of
Bidfield manor in 1370. (fn. 58) A court was held for the
rectory estate in the late 16th century, (fn. 59) and the
Bisley feoffees also claimed to hold one at Sturmyes
Court for their tenants. (fn. 60)
Frankpledge jurisdiction over the parish was
exercised by Bisley hundred, which was for many
years in the same ownership as Bisley manor. In the
1540s the hundred court heard presentments from
tithingmen for Bisley, Bidfield, Througham, and
Tunley. (fn. 61)
The heavy burden of poor-relief in a parish with
so numerous a population of cottage weavers led to a
succession of expedients. In 1677 the parish officers
were given permission to build poorhouses (fn. 62) and
in 1726 the parish hired a house called Joiners for
use as a workhouse. In the 1730s and 1740s the
workhouse housed 30-60 paupers. In the year 1728-
9 the expenses of running it, including the salary of
£26 paid to the governor of the house, were £115,
offset only to the extent of £30 earned by the
inmates, and in 1748-9 the expenses had risen to
£291 and the earnings were £24. (fn. 63) In 1782 the
keeper of the house made an agreement to farm the
poor there. (fn. 64) Between 1722 and 1724 14 people were
required to convey their cottages to the parish
officers in consideration of having been in receipt
of relief for periods which varied between 1 and 7
years; the deeds empowered the officers to use the
cottages for housing paupers or to sell them for the
benefit of the poor but possibly the original owners
were allowed to remain, the cottages being merely
pledged as security against their requiring further
relief. (fn. 65) The cottages were probably later taken into
possession by the parish, which owned 20 cottages
in 1837. (fn. 66) In 1722 the overseers were also paying the
rent for numerous other paupers. (fn. 67)
Bad years for the cloth trade required special
measures. In 1785 the vestry decided to hire an
additional house at Eastcombe and put the unemployed to work carding and spinning wool, which
the clothiers of the parish agreed to supply.
Prevalent distress in 1795 was alleviated by temporarily adding half as much again to the pay of
paupers on constant or casual relief and by the
purchase of provisions to be sold to the poor at
reduced prices. (fn. 68) A programme of road-works was
carried out in 1826 but only gave employment to
c. 30 out of the numerous paupers. (fn. 69) A parish house
was built at Custom Scrubs in 1823, (fn. 70) and in 1828
when the increase in paupers was overcrowding the
workhouse and parish houses the officers bought
two cottages at Oakridge. (fn. 71) Emigration was assisted
out of the rates in 1837. (fn. 72)
In 1779 the parish built a pest-house for smallpox
cases in the middle of Oakridge common (fn. 73) and a
parish surgeon was employed from 1741. (fn. 74) Apprenticeships were made regularly during the 17th
and 18th centuries. (fn. 75) In 1821 a select vestry was
formed and in the same year a perpetual overseer
was employed at a salary of 50 guineas. (fn. 76)
A total of £887 was expended on relief in 1776
and the cost had risen to £1,869 by 1803 and to
£2,769, including £77 spent on litigation, in 1813.
There was subsequently some falling off but
figures well above £2,000 were again recorded in the
depressed years of the late 1820s; the cost of relief
usually considerably exceeded that in Stroud
despite the greater population of the neighbouring
parish. (fn. 77) In 1803 200 people were receiving
permanent relief, 210 received occasional relief,
and there were 50 paupers in the workhouse; the
comparable figures in 1813 were 310, 180, and 51. (fn. 78)
The surviving parish records include churchwardens' accounts for the periods 1637-66 and
1737-1807 and from 1846, vestry minutes from
1774, select vestry minutes for 1821-9, (fn. 79) and
overseers' and workhouse accounts for 1722-62 (fn. 80)
and 1794-1836. (fn. 81)
Bisley became part of the Stroud union in 1836 (fn. 82)
and has remained in the Stroud rural district. A
board of health functioned between 1849 and 1860 (fn. 83)
and was reconstituted in 1864 (fn. 84) but the parish,
being dismembered, was not given an urban district
council under the Act of 1894.