LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
Manorial government. In 1294 a jury upheld the bishop of London's
claim to view of frankpledge, assizes of bread and ale,
infangthief, outfangthief, felons' goods, and gallows
over his men in Finchley as members of his manor
of Fulham. (fn. 72) Freeholders owed suit of court every
three weeks at Fulham although it is improbable that
courts met so frequently. (fn. 73) By 1384 a view of frankpledge and court leet was held for the bishop's
Finchley tenants annually at Fulham on the Sunday
after Hokeday. In 1491 it was moved to Highgate,
where it was held on Monday in the fifth week after
Easter. (fn. 74) Occasionally a second court was held, as on
9 Oct. 1396, (fn. 75) and from the 18th century extra
courts authorized land transfers. (fn. 76) The common fine
of 6s. 8d. was paid at the main court each year until
1840. (fn. 77) From 1792 the parish made an additional
payment of £1 a year, raised in 1828 to £3 3s. (fn. 78)
Only freeholders, who numbered 10 in 1406 and
at least 21 in 1612, owed suit of court. Most paid
fines rather than attend and many more inhabitants,
63 in 1612, were amerced for not being in tithing. (fn. 79)
Perquisites of court, which included the common
fine, varied between 12s. 8d. in 1404-5 and
£9 13s. 4d. in 1606. (fn. 80)
Early courts were mostly concerned with enforcing
the assizes of bread and ale and with ditches, encroachments on the waste, strays, and occasionally
with affrays. There were stocks by 1577. (fn. 81) From the
17th century abuse of the common became a major
concern and land transactions, including the granting
of waste as copyhold, became increasingly important.
Enfranchisements took place from 1843 to 1938. (fn. 82)
Officers elected at the Finchley court included two
ale-tasters (until 1681), two headboroughs, and two
constables (from 1423). (fn. 83) A constable existed by
1377. (fn. 84) The court elected a beadle during the 14th
and early 15th centuries. In 1396 it named three,
possibly for the bishop to make a final choice. (fn. 85)
From the mid 15th century the beadle's function,
which was mainly to collect rents and fines, was
exercised by the bailiff, an appointed official, or one
of the demesne lessees. (fn. 86) Officers were sometimes
reprimanded, presentments of ale-tasters being very
common in early court rolls. The beadle was presented in 1396 for not having a rod in his hand, a
constable was fined in 1654 for non-attendance, (fn. 87)
and the surveyors of the highways were presented
in 1659 for not rendering their accounts. (fn. 88) No
officers were elected at the court after 1840; the last
view of frankpledge was held in 1848 and the last
court in 1938. (fn. 89) With occasional gaps, the court rolls
and books are extant from 1384 except for the period
1492-1602, which is represented by a single roll for
1577. (fn. 90) Some of the rolls may have been lost during
the stewardship of Hugh Stewdley in the mid
16th century. (fn. 91)
For Bibbesworth manor, whose tenants were subject to the Finchley leet, a single court roll, listing
tenants and their rents and services, survives for
1364-5. There is also a record of a court held in 1597
which was concerned with breaking hedges and
cutting wood. (fn. 92) Court books exist for the years 1716
to 1830 and 1847 to 1936 and mostly record encroachments and admissions. (fn. 93) Courts baron were
held usually once a year but often less frequently,
with occasional special courts, at the Queen's Head
in Church End and in 1869 at the Railway tavern.
Parish government to 1837.
The parish emerged
early as the unit of government. The churchwardens
already had charge of property on behalf of the
parish in 1488 (fn. 94) and the clerk, mentioned in 1379 as
the rector's clerk, was in 1536 associated with the
rector in the administration of money. (fn. 95) The church
house was said in 1547 to have been built by the
parishioners and to be used for their common
assembly 'for matters of the king as for the church
and parish'. (fn. 96) By 1561 the church and clerk's houses
had become part of the charity estates, which in turn
were closely associated with the parish government
and officers. (fn. 97) The parish may have been divided
about that time into two wards, called Finchley and
Whetstone in 1577, East and North later. (fn. 98)
Overseers, mentioned in 1586, assisted the churchwardens in dealing with the poor by 1614 and four
surveyors of the highways existed by 1659. (fn. 99)
Parishioners, acting in concert, appointed two of
their own number as attorneys in a dispute over the
quartering of Parliamentary troops in 1644. (fn. 1) A
general vestry mentioned in 1648 apparently consisted only of the charity estates' feoffees, headed by
Sir Thomas Allen. The parishioners gained more
financial powers during the Interregnum: in 1656
they were invited to see the charity accounts and in
1659 they were supposed to inspect the surveyors'
accounts at the church house. (fn. 2)
The first extant vestry minute book begins in 1768
and is marked 'no. 6', (fn. 3) earlier records probably
having been lost in a fire of 1836 which destroyed
the Queen's Head. (fn. 4) Meetings in theory were held
once a month, from 1796 on the last Wednesday in
the morning and from 1798 on the last Sunday after
evening service, but were usually more frequent,
varying from 8 a year in 1838 to 63 in 1835. They
took place in the vestry room at the church, at the
church house, which from 1718 was the Queen's
Head, or, if business concerned East End, at the
Five Bells. A new room was built at the church in
1841 but could not accommodate the large meetings
of the 1850s, which often adjourned to the National
school.
In addition to nominating and supervising the
parish officers, and dealing with church-, highway-,
and poor-rates, repairs to the church, drainage, and
policing, the vestry was also concerned with the
common and grants of waste. In 1803 it provided
eight militia men. In 1818 it set up a savings bank
and in 1819 it began to enforce temperance, ensuring
that public houses did not open during Sunday
services. During the 18th century the vestry was
dominated by the lessee farmers but by c. 1819 the
rector usually took the chair. In 1832 a committee of
fifteen was set up to make by-laws, although the
rector denied that the parish had a select vestry. (fn. 5)
The vestry usually chose the churchwardens and
overseers in March or April and the surveyors of
the highways in September. From 1794 the rector
appointed one of the churchwardens. From 1804
anyone refusing to serve in those offices had to pay
£10 to the parish. Although constables and headboroughs continued to be elected at the manor court
until 1840, control gradually passed to the vestry,
which paid them. When there was a dispute or an
unsuitable appointment, the vestry had to settle it
or make a new appointment, as it did in 1773, 1774,
1794, and 1818. In 1811 a constable refused to serve
and was prosecuted by the vestry. There was one
constable for each of the two wards, and a special
constable was named in 1803 in anticipation of a
French invasion. Other officers appointed by the vestry included a common driver, (fn. 6) vestry clerk, beadle,
sexton, parish doctor (1782), organist (1801), apothecary (1804), church clerk (1812), and collector of the
poor-rates (1813), who were all salaried, and a pew
opener, who in 1796 was to wear a greatcoat and hat.
The issues of property left to the parish in the 15th
and 16th centuries were administered by the churchwardens before they became vested in the feoffees of
the charity estates. (fn. 7) Another source of income was
the rent roll, half the rent from grants of waste from
1588, (fn. 8) which by 1776 brought in £16 17s. a year. (fn. 9)
Quarterly contributions for the poor were levied in
1614 (fn. 10) and 67 people were indicated for not fulfilling
their statutory obligations to mend the highways in
1616. (fn. 11) In 1690 justices returning from meetings of
the charity feoffees became stuck in the mud, (fn. 12) and
in 1694 the surveyors petitioned for an assessment
to be made because statute labour was insufficient to
keep the main road in repair. (fn. 13) A highway-rate was
levied by 1703 (fn. 14) and a composition in lieu of statute
labour was levied in the late 18th century, with an
occasional highway-rate, usually of 4d. or 6d. in
the £. (fn. 15) Poor-rates were levied between one and
three times a year, varying between 6d. and 5s. for
the period 1768 to 1836 (fn. 16) and raising usually under
£500 a year before the 1790s, between £1,000 and
£2,000 from 1800 to 1830, and over £2,000 by
1836. (fn. 17) In 1684 the overseers applied to the justices
for an inquiry, alleging that a considerable sum
assessed for poor-relief had been mis-spent by a
previous overseer, (fn. 18) and in 1705 another overseer
took the money for his own use. (fn. 19) Seven leading
farmers appealed against the poor-rates in 1753, (fn. 20)
and in 1831 the assessment was reduced because of
the great depreciation of property. By that date
many officers had business interests in London and
in 1832 a salaried assistant overseer, John Tattam,
was appointed. The parish was c. £600 in debt in
1833 and solvent by 1838 but again in trouble in
1840, when Tattam was dismissed for misapplying
funds.
In 1614 £31 18s. 6d. was spent on monthly
contributions to sixteen poor people and quarterly
contributions to another four. (fn. 21) Pensions continued
to be paid to paupers: 14 in 1768, 27 in 1785, 36 in
1796, and 28 in 1819. By 1834 the parish supported
15 bastards and relieved 36 labourers. (fn. 22) The vestry
also made ad hoc payments, for clothing girls in
service in 1768, to send a man to the East Indies in
1820, and for clothes, medical expenses, food, or
fuel. In 1796 recipients of parish relief were to be
badged. Pauper children were apprenticed, in 1793
in London, in 1796 to cotton-and calico-printing
factories in Lancashire, and in 1804 in Derbyshire.
In the 16th century many paupers who had used
the Great North Road were buried in Finchley and
in the early 17th century strangers often had to be
removed. (fn. 23) In 1656 the headborough complained
that he had spent 50s. in conveying vagrants and
cripples along the road from London to the north of
England (fn. 24) and in 1681 the magistrates answered a
complaint from Finchley by ordering the Highgate
constable to pass his vagrants northward directly to
Whetstone and not through Finchley town. (fn. 25) There
were similar disputes with Friern Barnet at the end
of the 17th century, (fn. 26) when the Finchley constables
were paying between £8 and £14 a year in conveying
vagrants through the parish. (fn. 27) Numbers rose during
the Napoleonic wars: in two days in March 1798
134 soldiers' wives and 447 children were relieved
and given passes.
In 1614 Finchley paid 30s. a year to keep a man
and his wife in Friern Barnet's alms-houses. (fn. 28) From
1684 Finchley's alms-houses accommodated some
paupers (fn. 29) and the parish bought or leased poorhouses for others. One such in Blackhorse Lane,
Whetstone, was leased by the parish at least from
1773 to 1803. (fn. 30) Another was a wooden cowhouse on
the common, which was bought by the vestry in
1797. (fn. 31) There were two parish cottages by 1817, for
which rent was charged in 1822.
A workhouse existed in 1768, when four adults and
four children occupied a leased building near Fallow
Corner. Said in 1777 to accommodate eighteen
people, (fn. 32) it was two-storeyed in 1782 and presumably
had a garden, since vegetable seeds were bought in
1796. The workhouse held 25 inmates in 1785 and
was so full in 1788 that consideration was given to
'putting out' some of them. When the lease expired
the vestry took a 21 years' lease of the Five Bells in
East End Road from the feoffees of the charity
estates. Two rooms for the sick were added in 1805
but in 1808 the vestry, which had suggested that the
inmates could receive weekly out-relief or be moved
into the small poorhouse purchased in 1797, leased
a house in Green Lane as a new workhouse. In 1813
regulations forbade 'spiritous liquor', except for
medicinal purposes, and substituted coffee for beer.
Further regulations in 1825 enjoined sobriety and
attendance at Sunday service and required that inmates be in the house by 7.0 in winter and 8.0 in
summer. The workhouse usually held between 10
and 12. (fn. 33) Despite proposals to build a larger one in
1833, it remained until it was superseded by the
Barnet union workhouse.
The poor were farmed from 1768 to 1816. Initially
£160 a year, the cost rose to £280 a year in 1788,
3s. 9d. (a week) a head in 1798, and 5s. a head in
1806. In 1774 the farmer was to live in the workhouse and keep the poor employed. Care was transferred from the farmer to the overseers in 1816 and
salaried managers or matrons attended the workhouse from 1822.
The two decades following the Napoleonic wars
saw a rising number of unemployed and a tightening
of regulations on poor-relief in an attempt to control
expenditure. In 1818 the able-bodied poor were set
to work by the overseers on the 17 a. allotted to the
parish at inclosure. (fn. 34) During 1831 27 a. were leased
out as allotments and the large number of unemployed were paid a daily wage to cultivate them, the
crops being sold. In 1832 Finchley set up a rudimentary employment exchange, urging parishioners
to employ the poor of their own parish. The vestry,
led by John Verrall, tried to curb drunkenness. In
1819 a list of those receiving out-relief was sent to all
the public houses with instructions to refuse to serve
them, in 1820 a pauper was committed to the cage
for applying for relief while drunk and 'grossly
insulting' the vestry, and in 1826 a drunkard was
ejected from the vestry. Relief was refused to anyone
who kept a dog in 1825.
Local government after 1837.
Under the Poor
Law Amendment Act of 1834 Finchley became part
of Barnet union. A meeting of the ratepayers in 1836
condemned the Act as 'an atrocious Whig measure' (fn. 35)
and the parish, considering its representation inadequate, refused until 1837 to nominate its guardian
of the poor, to the astonishment of the Poor Law
Commissioners. A second guardian was appointed
in 1839 and a third in 1855. The parish continued to
resist the union, refusing proposals to sell the two
cottages leased to paupers in 1827 and to set up a
fund to aid emigration in 1849.
The parish and vestry clerks and the sexton
received their salaries from the churchwardens until
1857, and a parish constable was still being elected
in 1863. (fn. 36) A salaried collector of the highway-rate
was appointed in 1840 and a salaried surveyor in
1856. Elected surveyors were increased from two to
four in 1865 and six in 1870, reflecting the importance of highways in the work of the vestry. Churchrates were abolished in 1863. (fn. 37)
As general meetings became larger during the
1850s, the vestry began to appoint committees: on
roads, charities and bequests, nuisances, closing the
churchyard, assessment for rates, and audit. A committee was appointed in 1866 to undertake the
duties of the Sewage and Sanitary Acts of 1865 and
1866 but it was dissolved in the same year, as the
vestry waited to see what neighbouring parishes
were doing, and again formed in 1868. The six surveyors of the highway were described as a highway
board in 1871, although a regular highway board
was not appointed until 1874. In 1872, fearful that
it would completely lose control of its affairs to
Barnet, the vestry decided to adopt the Local
Government Act of 1858 which it had hitherto
opposed on the grounds of expense. From 1873
until under the Act a local board of health was
formed in 1878, Barnet rural sanitary authority
exercised powers in Finchley.
Finchley local board (fn. 38) consisted of twelve members and first met in 1878, when it elected Edward
Sayer (d. 1897), a local landowner, as chairman and
appointed a salaried clerk. (fn. 39) The board set up highways, sanitary, and finance and general purposes
committees and appointed a medical officer of health.
A works committee had been added by 1881 and
legal and fire committees by 1890. Other salaried
officers by 1884 included a surveyor and an inspector.
Sewerage proved controversial and featured in a conflict between Fredrick Goodyear of North Finchley
and H. C. Stephens of Church End. Stephens,
described by Goodyear as 'the uncrowned king of
Finchley', was never chairman of the board but
enjoyed considerable influence. He was elected
Conservative M.P. for Hornsey in 1887 and advocated ratepayers' control, seeking in 1893 to introduce a Bill to restore 18th-century parish government
and citing Finchley vestry minutes as evidence. (fn. 40)
Stephens was probably behind the resistance to
union with Friern Barnet in 1881. (fn. 41) His opponents
objected that government was in the hands of the
ratepayers of Church End, who could command
more property and voting power than those in
northern and eastern Finchley.
After the local board became an urban district
council in 1895, with Goodyear as chairman, the
opposition began to gain strength. (fn. 42) Finchley ratepayers' association, which had been formed in 1882,
had pressed unsuccessfully in 1890 and 1894 for a
division into wards, in an attempt to break the
control of Church End. There were similar applications by five ratepayers' associations in 1896 and by
the Whetstone ratepayers and the U.D.C. itself in
1897, when an inquiry led to the division of the
district in 1898 into approximately equal East, North,
and West wards, each with four councillors. (fn. 43)
The U.D.C. met every third Monday at offices in
Bibbesworth House, Church End, (fn. 44) until in 1902 it
moved to Finchley Hall, built after 1836 on the site
of the church house. (fn. 45) At first the committees of the
local board were retained and expenditure was
mainly on highways and sanitation. After acquiring
responsibilities in other fields, the council and its
committees held 206 meetings during 1902. (fn. 46) In
1921 control of finance passed from the clerk to a
new department and by the end of the 1920s
housing had become the chief expense, followed by
electric lighting.
In 1909 the council decided to set up a distress
committee for the unemployed and offered work on
the sewage farm and private roads. (fn. 47) In 1914, when
the road employees were dismissed, there was uproar
in the council chamber and the police were called. (fn. 48)
Controversy was also caused in 1914 by a townplanning scheme for Finchley and part of Totteridge
and by the proposed building of council houses at
Woodhouse. Finchley continued to oppose outside
bodies, clashing with Finchley Electric Light Co.
over cables and with Barnet District Gas & Water
Co. over the water-rate in 1901 and with the Post
Office over the installation of telephones in 1913. (fn. 49)
H. C. Stephens provoked further controversy by
his bequest of Avenue House, whose grounds were
opened to the public in 1918; no endowment was
left for the house itself, (fn. 50) which Church End ratepayers' association resolved to retain in 1923 and
which was opened to the public and used for the
housing department in 1928. (fn. 51)
Although a charter of incorporation was sought in
1926, when the council feared threats to its identity
from Middlesex C.C. and the L.C.C., (fn. 52) it was not
until 1933 that Finchley became a municipal
borough. (fn. 53) The borough was divided into the three
wards of the old U.D., each with six councillors. (fn. 54)
By 1951 there were eight wards (Glebe, Manor,
Moss Hall, St. Mary's, St. Paul's, the Bishop's,
Tudor, and Whetstone), each with three councillors, (fn. 55) who elected eight aldermen and a mayor.
Administration was by the departments of the town
clerk, treasurer, surveyor, medical officer of health,
education officer, housing officer, and librarian. (fn. 56)
Borough Of Finchley
Vert, on a chevron raguly, between in chief two bugle horns stringed or and in base a mitre argent garnished or, a rose gules surmounted by another argent. [Granted 1933]
In 1965, under the London Government Act of
1963, Finchley became part of Barnet L.B. Four of
Barent's 20 wards (Finchley, East Finchley, St.
Paul's, and Woodhouse) lay within the old parish,
the eleven departments being housed in the former
council offices of the constituent authorities. (fn. 57)
London Borough of Barnet
Azure, a paschal lamb proper standing upon a grassy mount; on a chief per pale argent and gules a Saxon crown or between two roses counterchanged barbed and seeded proper. [Granted 1965]
The offices at Finchley Hall were extended in the
1930s. (fn. 58) Avenue House became the chief municipal
office after Finchley was bombed in 1940 but by the
1950s there were also departments in Hertford
Lodge, next to Avenue House in East End Road,
and Regent's Park Road. (fn. 59) New council offices were
built at Gateway House in Regent's Park Road in
1974. (fn. 60)
The borough council was predominantly Conservative before the Second World War and again,
after a period of control by Independents, from
1949. (fn. 61) Finchley became a separate parliamentary
constituency in 1919 and has usually returned
Conservative members, (fn. 62) including, since 1959,
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher.