Harlington: Local government

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

In 1274 it was said that the village of Harlington did not 'participate' in the hundred of Elthorne. (fn. 1) This probably means that the inhabitants owed suit to the view of frankpledge of the honor of Wallingford, instead of to the hundred court. (fn. 2) The same situation is likely to have obtained in Dawley, for the two manors both owed suit to the honor in 1300, (fn. 3) and are known to have attended its frankpledge or leet courts at Uxbridge between the 15th and early 19th centuries. (fn. 4) In the early 17th century some presentments at the court concerned the regulation of open fields and cleaning of ditches in Harlington, (fn. 5) and similar business was transacted at the court of Harlington or Hardington manor at about the same time, (fn. 6) though Harlington with Shepiston manor controlled the wastes. (fn. 7) Dawley manor may have dealt with the fields and roads in the north of the parish, but its records have not survived to show how far its jurisdiction overlapped that of the other courts. (fn. 8) None of the three manors in the parish had view of frankpledge, since that belonged to the honor court, and by the 18th century their courts seem to have been solely concerned with copyhold transfers, though the appointment of two haywards is recorded at Dawley in 1756. (fn. 9) Courts were still being held on behalf of the Earl of Berkeley for the two Harlington manors in 1914: Harlington with Shepiston court was summoned to the 'White Hart', and Harlington or Hardington to a private house in the village half an hour later. (fn. 10)

Which of the courts appointed the parish constable has not been discovered. By 1793 both constable and headborough were appointed by the vestry. (fn. 11) In 1593 Harlington or Hardington manor court recalled that there had once been a pound on Berry Green. (fn. 12) Later the pound stood with the lock-up in the village street farther south. (fn. 13) In 1615 the parishioners were indicted for not having a pair of stocks: it is not known whether they had any later. (fn. 14)

The first evidence of any administrative activity by the parishioners as such comes from the last two decades of the 17th century, when the rector made a number of entries in the register about the management of parish charities. (fn. 15) In 1692 the parishioners used some charity money to buy a little house on the common near the Bath Road for the use of the poor. (fn. 16) This house was though, in 1834 to be identifiable with a ruinous building then in existence: it stood on the west side of the High Street at Harlington Corner and had once provided five rooms for poor people appointed by the parish officers. The parish had denied responsibility for its repair some time before, and only one room was then serviceable. The poorhouse was no doubt given up when the parish became part of Staines union in 1836, and the land on which it stood was thereafter used as a charity endowment. (fn. 17)

Nothing is known of the parish administration during the 18th century until 1793, when the first vestry book begins. (fn. 18) The vestry seems to have been very inactive, and the only time when more is recorded than the election of parish officers or, very occasionally, the appointment of charity trustees or the making of a rate, was in 1820, when a surgeon was appointed to attend the sick poor. The rates had nevertheless risen by 1814-15 to £632 from £156 in 1775-6. Expenditure on the poor amounted to £395 and £155 in the two respective years. (fn. 19) A select vestry of thirteen members was formed under the Sturges Bourne Act in 1821 and generally met at the 'White Hart'. (fn. 20) It does not seem to have been much more active than the old open vestry, but in 1834 was said to have been very beneficial. Certainly the poor-rates, which were £362 in 1831, shared in the general fall which took place elsewhere in the 20's, although sixteen people were receiving regular relief in Harlington in 1834, which was slightly more than had done so in 1813-15. By 1834 the select vestry employed a paid assistant overseer. (fn. 21) In 1824 it had joined with Cranford to appoint a surgeon for the poor of both parishes. (fn. 22) Later examples of similar co-operation were the establishment of the National school (fn. 23) jointly with Cranford in 1848, and of the cottage hospital jointly with Cranford and Harmondsworth in 1884. (fn. 24)

Another gap in the parish records occurs between the 1820's and 1860's. By 1862 the vestry, although no longer responsible for the poor, seems to have been more lively than it had been in the early years of the century. It met generally at the National school and any occasional moves to the 'White Hart' were censured. (fn. 25) From 1871 the rectors occasionally presided, but generally only at meetings concerned with church affairs: a tradition of clerical indifference had perhaps been established in the earlier years of absentee incumbents. No rector ever served on the later parish council. A burial board was formed in 1870 in face of some opposition from the clergy, and opened small grounds in Victoria Lane and next to the churchyard. The opening of more new grounds in 1899 and 1915 revived the same disagreement, and the 1899 ground was in fact an Anglican one under the control of trustees and not of the board. (fn. 26)

The parish council formed under the Local Government Act, 1894, consisted of nine members. There were sixteen nominations for the first council, but by 1897 enthusiasm had so far waned that nine nominations could be secured only with difficulty and then did not include either of the 'working-men' who had sat on the old council. No substitutes for these two could be found. (fn. 27) The council started its first allotments in 1895 but rejected proposals to acquire a recreation ground or parish hall. (fn. 28) In 1924 it asked Staines Rural District Council to light the village street, and this was done a year later. (fn. 29) The chief task for local government was the making of sewers. Sewerage had been discussed in the vestry as long ago as 1864, (fn. 30) and the increase of population in the 20th century made the need for proper sanitation more urgent. In 1912, for instance, there were said to have been eleven cases of typhoid near the 'White Hart', (fn. 31) and there was an outbreak of diphtheria in 1916. (fn. 32) During the 1920's the rural district council made plans for constructing sewers, and the relative cost of their scheme and of schemes proposed by Hayes Urban District Council largely influenced the parish council's views on local government reorganization. In the end the council seem to have acquiesced peacefully in the amalgamation with Hayes that took place in 1930, only on the grounds that this seemed to provide the best and cheapest chance of sewers being constructed soon. (fn. 33) A sewerage scheme for the parish was in fact completed by Hayes and Harlington Urban District Council in 1934, (fn. 34) but the history of local administration after 1930 is reserved for discussion with the local government of Hayes.