Miserden: Local government

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

There is a court roll of 1547 (fn. 1) for the manor of Miserden and profits of court are recorded during the 13th and 14th centuries. (fn. 2) View of frankpledge was claimed for the manor in the early 17th century (fn. 3) but evidently not exercised in the mid 16th when a tithingman for Miserden owed suit at the view for the hundred. (fn. 4) For Wishanger there are court papers for the period 1790-1823 and a court book for 1802-54. The court, which met once a year, also claimed leet jurisdiction in the late 18th and 19th centuries but its activities were merely formal, electing a constable and a tithingman, who was occasionally described as the tithingman for Througham in Bisley. (fn. 5) Througham was apparently considered a tithing of Wishanger at that time but the origin of the connection has not been discovered. (fn. 6)

The parish was served by two churchwardens from the 16th century (fn. 7) but no early records are known to have survived for them or for the overseers of the poor. In 1776 Lydia Selwyn conveyed a cottage near the Dillay to the churchwardens for the use of the parish (fn. 8) and it was used as a poorhouse until it was sold in 1840. (fn. 9) In 1803 £152 was spent on 25 people in regular receipt of poor-relief; by 1813 the number on permanent relief had increased to 31 to which were added 10 people receiving occasional relief, bringing the total expenditure for that year to £210. Two years later the expenditure on poor-relief returned almost to the figure of 1803. (fn. 10) In 1836 Miserden became part of Stroud poor-law union (fn. 11) and in 1970 belonged to Stroud rural district.