Dugdale Society Occasional Papers The administration of an eighteenth-century Warwickshire parish: Butlers Marston

Type

Publication

Authors

Lane, Joan

ISBN 10

0852200455

ISBN 13

9780852200452

Tags

Warwickshire, 18th century, Butlers Marston, Administration, Church wardens, Constables, Overseers of the Poor, Primary sources, Poor Laws, Village life, Rural life

Series Name

Dugdale Society Occasional Papers

Abstract

The subject of the papers, the parish of Butlers Marston, is even today relatively isolated and some distance from the main cross-country traffic routes. In the eighteenth century it was even more remote, almost an enclave, and entirely agricultural in its economy. The administation of most rural parishes in the eighteenth century was a tripartite affair, with authority in the hands of three types of parochial officials who attended to the day-to-day running of parish affairs: the church wardens, the constable, and the Overseers of the Poor. The record sources for the study of Butlers Marston in the eighteenth century are almost entirely complete: accounts, registers of baptism, marriage and burial, as well as a considerable amount of important additional material. It is the Overseers of the Poor and their role in parish administration with which this paper is mainly concerned.

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