LOWER
HEYFORD PARISH COUNCIL:
Volume
1 of the Minutes is prefaced by a portrait photograph, dated July
1916, and captioned 'George James Dew, Registrar of Births and Deaths
of the Bletchingdon District from 1870-1923. Clerk to Lower Heyford
Parish Council' - these were the days when Clerk to the Parish Council
was an honourable calling!
4th
December 1894 - Annual Parish Meetings were instituted by the
Local Government Act 1894 and the first was held on this date in the
Schoolroom in order to elect the first Council, at that time for a
term of one year only.
The
Rector, the Rev. J. A. Dodd chaired the meeting and opened the sealed
orders from Oxfordshire County Council (county councils had come into
being in 1888), which stipulated that six Councillors were to be elected.
(The minimum number of councillors to constitute a parish council
was five, as it is now, and Lower Heyford maintained the original
figure of six until 1991, when an invitation from Cherwell District
Council [responsible for electoral matters since the reform of local
government in 1974], came to increase the number to the present seven.)
According to the rules for the election of councillors, which have
not survived, it was apparently possible for the results of the show
of hands voting by those present to be set aside in favour of a poll
to be held thereafter.
Of
the 13 candidates, only John Eli Faggetter received no votes and it
was he who demanded a poll vote. This would seem to have been an entitlement
subject only to confirmation after a ten-minute cooling-off period,
and so a poll was held.
The
poll resulted in the election of five Councillors -Andrew Castle,
James Stroud Cheesman, John Henry Hearn, Frederick Manger and William
Padbury King. The sixth place had been tied between George James Dew
and George Auger.
31st
December 1894 The first meeting of the Council took place, and
after the five Councillors had signed their Declarations of Acceptance
of Office (still the first business of the Annual Parish Council Meeting
in an election year), the Rev. James Arthur Dodd was elected Chairman
(it was not then necessary, as it is now, for the Chairman to be an
elected Councillor). There was no reference to the office of Clerk,
though it is evident that George Dew was undertaking this duty from
the very beginning.
2nd
January 1895 A further Parish Meeting was held to settle the question
of the vacant seat resulting from the sixth place tie. George James
Dew was the only candidate and was declared to have been elected.
R
Bowen, Clerk to Lower Heyford Parish Council
July 2000
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12th
January 1895
Mr Henry Tubb, banker, of Bicester, was appointed Treasurer to the
Parish Council. (It was common practice for treasurers to be appointed
from outside the council, but they could not be paid - nowadays, the
Clerk is invariably the treasurer as well, or responsible financial
officer, as the Local Government Act 1972 would have it.)
The
appointment of George Dew as Clerk was officially resolved and it
is recorded that this was to be without remuneration. (Then, as today,
councillors acting as clerks could not be paid.) It was resolved that
half a crown (2/6 or 12 and a half p) would be paid to the Managers
of the School for use of the Schoolroom for meetings to cover lighting,
warming and cleaning and this was carried nomine contradicente (no
objections).
The
Clerk was directed to procure a suitable lamp for use of the Parish
Council and Parish Meetings. (This was the Council's first expenditure
and its cost was £1.7s.7d [or £1.38].) 28th March 1895 A letter had
been received from Henry Tubb, agreeing to be Treasurer to the Parish
Council provided that he was not called upon to attend Council meetings
and that the account was never overdrawn. (Quite right on both counts!)
It
was resolved that permission to use the lamp belonging to the Council
be left to the discretion of the Chairman.(!)
17th
April 1895 The Parish Council duly appointed George Auger and
Richard Gold (neither was a Councillor) to be Overseers of the Poor
(Parish councils were empowered to appoint the overseers of the poor
for the parish, who valued properties and collected the rates). The
Council's first precept was raised (this is the money raised annually,
these days through the Council Tax by the district council), on the
Overseers and the amount agreed was twelve pounds. Unfortunately,
this sum proved to represent something of an underestimate, and in
February 1896, a supplementary precept for a further five pounds had
to be raised.
Roger
Bowen, Clerk to Lower Heyford Parish Council
September 2000
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The
Walker's Field (or Ground) Allotments 1896-1919
When
the Parish Council came into existence in 1894, Lower Heyford already
had allotments occupying the same site as at present on the corner
of Caulcott Hill and Station Road west of the crossroads. As now,
these allotments were leased directly from Corpus Christi College
with the rents being paid to a local agent.
At
the very first Annual Parish Meeting on 1st April 1895, a proposal
that the Parish Council should take steps to procure additional land
for allotments was carried unanimously.
After
some time spent assessing requirements, in June 1895 Corpus Christi
College was asked to provide a further 20 acres of land.
At
first the College said it had no available land, but on 5th February
1896 it wrote to offer the field known as Walker's Ground. This adjoins
the original allotment field with an access to Station Road on the
bend opposite Tollgate Cottage, and was shown by the Ordnance Survey
to be 18.172 acres.
The
Council got into trouble with the College for measuring and staking
out this land before it had signified its acceptance of the offer
or signed a legal agreement, and the College maintained that by taking
possession of the land it had accepted the conditions.
The
legal agreement was finally signed on 2nd March 1896. The Council
was the tenant, not the individual allotment holders, and therefore
was responsible for organising the sub-tenancies, imposing its own
regulations, setting and collecting rents, and paying the annual rental
of £30 to the College in quarterly installments.
The
field was divided into 7 allotments: 1 of 5 acres, 5 of 2 acres and
1 of 2 acres 1 rood and 12 poles (to be reckoned as 2 acres). Presumably,
as now, the narrow neck of land connecting with Station Road was not
in cultivation, which might account for 3 roods 12 poles or 0.85 acre
missing.
The
Council's oldest surviving document, apart from the Minutes, is a
copy of a return made to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries by
Clerk George Dew on 13th February 1915 of the Council's owned and
rented allotment land, in regard to the provisions of the Small Holdings
and Allotments Act 1908. It is explained in the instructions that
the information should relate only to allotments, and not to small
holdings, but the Poor's Land, the Council's land holding in charitable
trust, has been included as an allotment with one tenant.
During
the years from 1914, keeping the allotments fully tenanted proved
to be a problem, and in September 1914 the Council was near to giving
the College the one year's notice required for vacation. In October
1915, the College agreed to reduce the rent to £22 for one year
to alleviate the financial situation, but in October 1918, notice
of termination was finally given to the College effective from 29th
September 1919.
Roger
Bowen, Clerk to Lower Heyford Parish Council
November 2000
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PARISH
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