ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY.
Domesday Book mentions 46 persons in connexion with
Stanwell and fourteen with West Bedfont. (fn. 49) In
1547 the parish was said to contain 240 'houseling'
people (fn. 50) and about 1723 there were 109 families. (fn. 51)
The population rose at an increasing rate from 893
in 1801 to 2,306 in 1921, and then to 3,275 in 1931
and 8,148 in 1951. (fn. 52)
Apart from two knights at Stanwell and two sokemen at West Bedfont most of the persons mentioned
in Domesday Book were described as villeins, and
their holdings ranged from ½ virgate to 2 hides.
There were also a few bordars and cottars, mostly
holding a few acres each, and eight slaves. (fn. 53) By the
13th century the manor of Stanwell received rents
of assize from free tenants, as well as customary
works from the others. (fn. 54) In 1299 Poyle manor had
12 free tenants, holding altogether 72 acres. (fn. 55) In the
14th century West Bedfont manor had 4 free tenants,
owing money rents and suit of court, and 13 customary tenants doing labour services in addition for
their virgate or half-virgate holdings. (fn. 56) After the 14th
century no references to labour services in the parish
have been found. (fn. 57) A considerable amount of copyhold survived until the late 19th century. (fn. 58) By the
18th century many of the villagers held nothing but
their cottages and orchards, and at the inclosure in
1792 66 of them received allotments in respect of
common rights only. (fn. 59) In addition to the ordinary
village population and the owners of Stanwell Place, (fn. 60)
a number of families of the gentry and aristocracy
lived in Stanwell from the 17th century onwards. Sir
John Bankes, attorney general, lived at Stanwell in
the 1630's (fn. 61) and Lord Saye and Sele is said to have
had a house there in 1647. (fn. 62) In 1716 Lord Grandison
leased a house which had formerly been occupied
by the Duke of Cleveland, (fn. 63) and in the late 18th
century and early 19th a branch of the Stanhope
family lived in a house near the present Stanhope
Farm. (fn. 64) The radical change in the character of the
population since the 19th century is discussed
below. (fn. 65)
In 1086 there were 10 plough-lands at Stanwell,
with 13 ploughs working, and 4 plough-lands at
West Bedfont, with 4 ploughs working. (fn. 66) By 1220
there were 6 ploughs in Stanwell, possibly including
those in the various hamlets. (fn. 67) The demesne arable
alone of the manors of Stanwell, Poyle, and West
Bedfont must have covered over 500 acres in the 14th
century. (fn. 68) In 1367 it was said that half the demesne
arable of Stanwell manor could be sown each year if
it were well cultivated. In that year only 104 acres
out of 269 were sown, all the remainder lying fallow. (fn. 69)
It is clear that virtually all the arable lay in open fields
in the Middle Ages. (fn. 70) In 1086 there was meadow
for 12 plough-teams in Stanwell and for 2 oxen in
West Bedfont. (fn. 71) In 1340 there were said to be 100
acres of tithable meadow in the parish, (fn. 72) but to judge
from the demesne meadows of the manors at about
the same time this must have been a low estimate. (fn. 73)
In 1367 the Stanwell demesne meadow (50 a.) was
common after mowing, (fn. 74) but by the 16th century
some at least were in severalty. (fn. 75) There continued
to be lammas lands to the east of West Bedfont
hamlet until the inclosure. (fn. 76) There was pasture in
severalty by the 14th century (fn. 77) as well as on the
extensive commons.
In the 17th century the use of open fields, pastures,
and meadows was regulated by the manor court in
the usual way, and bounds between arable holdings
were staked four times a year. (fn. 78) In the 18th century
cattle were said to be kept on the commons without
stint; (fn. 79) sheep appear to have been stinted in the 17th
century and pasturing of sheep for outsiders was forbidden. (fn. 80) The moors were also opened to sheep for
part of the year only. (fn. 81)
Between 1488 and 1517 Edward Bulstrode
inclosed and converted to pasture a farm of 140
acres, probably lying in the west of the parish, (fn. 82) so
that 3 ploughs were put out of use, and Andrew
Windsor inclosed a smaller area. (fn. 83) More inclosures
were made in the next two centuries so that even
those fields which remained open were surrounded
by closes. (fn. 84) Despite this, Stanwell was cited in 1744
as an example of the evil effects of open fields and
commons on the character of the villagers. Those
with only 'a poor house and little orchard (which for
the most part are their own, copyhold or freehold),
by keeping mares and foals, cows and calves, hogs and
geese without stint. . . make shift just to live, some
of them doing without any work at all, and those
that go to day labour are very lazy and care not
whether they are employed or not.' The fact that
the lord of the manor owned few houses was taken
as a reason why he had not brought about an inclosure. (fn. 85) Efforts to inclose the parish in 1767 were
defeated with much jubilation, (fn. 86) but the lord of the
manor inclosed one field into his park in 1771, (fn. 87)
giving the parish a poor-house and £100 in compensation, (fn. 88) and an Act to inclose the rest was passed
in 1789. The award was made in 1792, (fn. 89) when the
open fields comprised some 1,621 acres and the
commons 505 acres. Sir William Gibbons, the lord
of the manor, received 522 acres, Edmund Hill, who
also bought most of the land sold for expenses, 400
acres, and three other persons received over 40 acres.
Only 24 smaller allotments were made in respect of
open-field arable, while 66 were made for common
rights. Thirty acres were set aside to be let for the
benefit of those holding less than £5 worth of property and not receiving any other allotments. J. L.
and B. Hammond used Stanwell as an example of
the way in which inclosure injured the poor. (fn. 90)
Though the example was probably a just one, this
cannot be directly proved, for the sharp rise in the
poor rates and the hard condition of the agricultural
labourers, which undoubtedly obtained in the early
19th century, were part of a national trend. (fn. 91) From
an improver's point of view the inclosure was a great
success, and rents rose quickly. The open-field land
did well with the artificial grasses and turnips sown
there for the first time, and the heathland belonging
to those proprietors who could afford to pare and
burn it was soon well cultivated. (fn. 92)
By 1844 there were about ten farms of between
100 and 300 acres, and a few smaller ones. There were
then 2,466 acres of arable in the parish and 1,148 of
meadow and pasture. (fn. 93) In 1865 the grassland in this
neighbourhood was said to be used largely for hay for
the London market. (fn. 94) A number of the farms remained more or less intact until the 20th century, (fn. 95)
but mixed farming ceased to predominate. The
orchards of the early and mid-19th century (44 a. in
1844), including that in which the first Cox's Orange
Pippin was grown, (fn. 96) did not survive into the 20th
century, but during the later 19th century there was
a striking increase in market- and nursery-gardening. (fn. 97) This has continued in the 20th century, though
the construction of the great reservoirs south of the
village removed some of the land hitherto used for
the purpose. (fn. 98) Most of the county council smallholdings are used for market-garden crops, but in
general the horticultural holdings in the parish are
large ones. In 1947 there were 734 acres of horticultural land, divided between seventeen holdings. (fn. 99)
Some of this has since been taken for housing, for
which the grassland in the west of the parish is less
suitable, but there was still a good deal of marketgardening in 1956.
Until the late 19th century, agriculture employed
nearly all the working population except the ordinary village craftsmen and the mill-workers. In 1636
the two paper-mills alone employed thirteen journeymen, (fn. 1) and in 1798 Poyle Mill employed 'a considerable number'. (fn. 2) In 1849 Taylor & Co. established
their mineral-water works in the London Road: this
was the first factory to appear in Stanwell. (fn. 3) It was
followed by an iron foundry near by and, in the early
20th century, by an explosives factory at Poyle. (fn. 4)
This had stopped work by 1935, but a few other
factories were established between 1929 and 1939,
and over 70 were added between 1949 and 1956 to
what had by then become the Poyle Industrial
Estate. (fn. 5) They make a wide variety of goods. (fn. 6) In the
twenties tallow-melting began in West Bedfont, (fn. 7) and
by 1956 there were several factories there of which
the largest was the animal products factory. In
addition the four gravel-working firms in Stanwell
in 1956 employed nearly 100 persons, and many
people from the parish worked at London Airport. (fn. 8)
The first bicycle-maker appeared in Colnbrook in c.
1902, and there was a garage on the London Road
by 1908. (fn. 9)
Among the social institutions existing in modern
times were a temperance hall (the former British
school) and a workmen's institute, both in the
1890's. (fn. 10) The cricket club was said in 1953 to have
existed with intermissions for over a century, and a
bowls club was formed in 1924. (fn. 11) The village hall in
Park Road was opened in 1935. (fn. 12) For some years
before 1902 and again more recently, annual
pleasure fairs have been held on the green. (fn. 13)