LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
During the Middle
Ages the abbot of Waltham, as lord of the manor,
held courts for Woodford. He took the profits of
justice (fn. 1) and, from the 13th century at least, held a
view of frankpledge there. (fn. 2) In 1465 the abbot
rebutted the demand of the abbess of Barking that
the farmer of Woodford manor should make suit
at her hundred court. He claimed that, because of
the annual payment of 4s. to the exchequer, and
references in the great roll of 1287 and 1344, Woodford manor was quit of that service. He maintained
also that the manor was provided with the necessary
instruments for correction and punishment, such as
tumbrel and gallows, while such offenders as could
not be dealt with at Woodford could be carried to
Waltham gaol. (fn. 3)
Court rolls exist for 1270–1, 1581, 1606, 1615–68,
and 1727–32, (fn. 4) and court books for 1670–1732 and
1735–1848. (fn. 5) A court leet was held most years after
Easter, but occasionally in October and for a few
years at both times. A jury of between 12 and 18
made presentments for the usual petty offences,
including encroachments on the waste, the unlicensed sale of ale, sheltering strangers, and the
failure to scour ditches or repair roads. The court
also regulated grazing on the common. As well as
constables one or two bread- and ale-tasters were
usually elected. The number of presentments increased during the Interregnum but tended to lessen
afterwards, and no court leet was held after 1718.
Monkhams was not included in the jurisdiction of
Woodford Hall manor court. (fn. 6) A court baron was
always combined with the court leet but as many as
three more courts baron might be held during the year.
The surviving parish records of Woodford are
very numerous. (fn. 7) They include a parish book 1641–79, vestry minutes 1679–1851, churchwardens'
accounts from 1737, and overseers' accounts from
1765. They have been fully analysed in a book, upon
which the following paragraphs are based. (fn. 8)
The monthly vestry meetings, held usually in
church, sometimes in a public house, were attended
by 10 or more residents of the parish who paid scot
and lot. From at least 1657 the more wealthy
residents carried out an annual audit. In 1776 the
vestry clerk, who had previously served unpaid, was
granted £10 10s. a year.
Two overseers were appointed each year. Each
overseer served for 2 consecutive years; the first
year the appointment was nominal, as the duties
were carried out by the overseer in his second year.
Two or three years later he would expect to be
appointed junior churchwarden and, the next year,
'upper' warden. Occasionally, in the early 18th
century, the rector appointed his own warden. From
1786 a salaried assistant to the overseers was appointed. Two constables were usually elected in the
court leet, having been nominated at the preceding
Easter vestry. In the absence of courts leet the
appointment of constables was confirmed by justices.
Substantial inhabitants were often elected constables. After 1746 paid beadles were infrequently
appointed. In 1788 the parish was divided and one
constable was appointed for the 'town' and one for
Woodford Bridge.
Fining to avoid parish office was allowed from at
least 1641. (fn. 9) In 1781 service by deputy was prohibited
and during 1782–6 and from 1809 onwards a scale of
fines was established for those who did not wish to
serve.
The money raised by churchwardens' rates was
not always used for church repairs; payments for
poor-relief, vestry dinners, or killing vermin are
found in their accounts. (fn. 10) Until 1700 overseers and
constables levied separate rates; thereafter the
former reimbursed the latter for their expenses. The
rate was 4d. an acre in 1647 but after 1659 rates
were assessed on property values: 1s. in the pound
in 1707, rising in the late 18th century to 9s. in 1801,
and the equivalent of 16s. in 1817 and 1834. (fn. 11)
From the 17th century there was a parish poorhouse (often called the alms-house) comprising
3 cottages by the turnpike at Woodford Bridge. (fn. 12)
Because it was too small to accommodate all in need
of relief paupers were boarded out, often with other
paupers, or were paid pensions, until 1724, when
the millhouse at Woodford Row was leased for 21
years as a workhouse (fn. 13) and all pensioners were
ordered into it. But most of the inmates were
incapable of heavy work, and outdoor relief had to
be continued. On the expiration of the lease in 1745
Woodford paupers were farmed out to a succession
of London contractors. Outdoor relief continued
only for those who could be supported on less than
the cost of sending them to the contractor.
In 1783 the vestry again opened a workhouse
within the parish, leasing a building in Monkhams
Lane. This was replaced in 1792 by Hereford House
in Snakes Lane, (fn. 14) also leased. Oakum picking was
the chief occupation, but it became increasingly
difficult to find materials for the poor to work on.
Outdoor relief largely ceased between 1786 and
1794, but under the pressures of war and bad
harvests it became necessary to subsidize food and
fuel for the poor, in 1796 by means of voluntary
subscriptions and in 1801 by a special rate; and
justices of the peace were occasionally persuaded to
grant orders for the payment of pensions. In 1818
between 6 and 7 per cent of the population of
Woodford were receiving some relief.
In 1820 a new workhouse was built on waste land
in the north of the parish leased from the lord of the
manor. Brice Pearse of Monkhams gave £1,000
towards this. At first there was little work for the
inmates, but by 1827 land around the house was
being cultivated, and in 1829 adjoining land was
inclosed and made copyhold after the parish had
agreed to surrender to the lord of the manor the
lease of the poorhouse at Woodford Bridge. In 1836
the workhouse was taken over by West Ham union. (fn. 15)
It was sold a few years before 1848 and converted
into a residence called Manor House. (fn. 16) The site is
now (1965) occupied by Bancroft's school.
The overseers sometimes paid for nurses to attend
the sick or assisted the latter to enter one of the
London hospitals. Grants were also made for the
maintenance of lunatics, the more violent ones being
sent to private asylums. In 1775, following outbreaks
of smallpox, a doctor was appointed to attend poor
parishioners at an annual salary. In 1778 a pesthouse
was built on a site adjoining that on which the
workhouse of 1820 was built. (fn. 17) When not required
for the sick this was used to house the ordinary poor.
Quarter sessions records indicate that crime was
less prevalent in Woodford than in most Essex
parishes, though the forest provided cover for
thieves. In 1771 an association of inhabitants was
formed to provide rewards for the capture of felons.
A police horse patrol, who received an allowance
from quarter sessions, was stationed in the parish by
1826. In 1839 Woodford was brought into the area
of the Metropolitan police. (fn. 18)
The lord of the manor was presented in 1584 and
1653 for failing to maintain the stocks. (fn. 19) A cage is
mentioned in 1694 and in the early 19th century one
was standing, together with stocks, on the green
by the High Road opposite the White Hart. This
cage, a small brick building, was demolished in
1930. (fn. 20)
Responsibility for the repair of Woodford and
Winn bridges was frequently debated in quarter
sessions, and individual landowners were occasionally presented in courts leet for failing to repair
sections of highway, but the main responsibility
for the upkeep of roads rested with the vestry.
Highway rates rarely seem to have been levied until
the later 18th century. Six days each year were set
aside for the performance of statute labour but in
1733 labourers paid 5s. as composition. In 1721 the
Middlesex and Essex turnpike trust became responsible for the upper road and in 1736 for the lower
road. The vestry compounded with the trustees for
repairs to sections of the roads within the parish,
the money being paid from the overseers' or churchwardens' accounts, not the surveyors'. Road work
was sometimes found for unemployed labourers in
the early 19th century.
No select vestry was introduced under the
Sturges Bourne Act (1818), probably because the
vestry was already appointing committees to deal
with particular problems, such as the workhouse.
The Local Government Act (1858) was adopted in
1873 when a local board of 9 members was set up.
From 1894 Woodford was governed by an urban
district council of 12 members. Four wards were
created in 1914. (fn. 21) The urban district was united
with that of Wanstead in 1934 and in 1937 the
combined urban district was incorporated as a
municipal borough. (fn. 22) In 1965 Wanstead and Woodford was amalgamated with Ilford and parts of
Chigwell and Dagenham as the London borough of
Redbridge. (fn. 23)