St MARTIN OF TOURS, EPSOM
A selection from its Parish Registers & Vestry Minutes

(Click here for our main page about St Martin’s)

St. Martin’s is fortunate in possessing a fine collection of both parish registers and vestry minutes. The former date from the late seventeenth century, whilst the latter date from about a hundred years later, although there is an inconvenient gap covering the years 1883 to 1911.

From Tudor times until the great administrative reforms of the Victorian age, culminating in the local government acts of 1888 and 1894, which set up in turn first county councils, and then urban and rural district councils, as well as parish councils, the parishes were responsible, under the supervision of the justices of the peace, for local administration at grass roots level. This included such matters as the care of bridges and highways, and the smooth functioning of the Elizabethan Poor Law, as well as sorting out all the varied problems which arose in village life over the course of the year.

The parish vestry was the only popular assembly, other than the House of Commons, which had the right to impose compulsory taxation, in the form of rates. It was also at the meetings of the vestry that the various parish officers, including Constable, Churchwarden, Overseer of the Poor, and Surveyor of the Highways, were appointed. [Church of England parishes are still required to hold Vestry meetings, but their sole purpose nowadays is the election of the local Churchwardens.]

The earliest recorded Vestry meetings in Epsom seemed to have taken place in Mr. Morriss’ Coffee House, but during the late 1770s, meetings at the Spread Eagle, the King’s Head, the Hare and Hounds (subsequently the Amato), and the Castle Inn, also took place. The Marquis of Granby was added to the list of possible meeting places in 1783, although the Spread Eagle, the King’s Head, and the Coffee House seem to have been the favourites. Usually notice of a vestry meeting was published in St. Martin’s Church on two preceding Sundays.

A common item on the agenda was the perpetual need “to make a rate for the necessary maintenance and relief of the Poor,” as was the case on the 14th January, 1841, when Mr. E. R. Northey, the local magistrate, was in the chair. However, other items from this particular year include a meeting “for the purpose of considering a letter addressed to the Owners and Occupiers of lands in the parish of Epsom from the Tithe Commissioners,” on the 13th February, and a meeting on the 14th August “for the purpose of taking into consideration an application made by E. R. Northey Esq. for permission to divert and turn a public footpath now passing through a portion of his Lands and Premises.”

In June, 1772, we read that the Churchwardens had to put the Watch House of the parish in order, so that it might be “capable safely to detain in custody the offenders sent there,” and in 1795 a rate was levied in order to cover the expenses for raising naval Volunteers for service in the French Revolutionary Wars.

In 1825, following the opening of the church as rebuilt by Charles Hatchard, the vexed question of the appropriation of pews was uppermost, although one particular gentleman’s “claim to a Pew in the new Church of the same dimensions as that which he occupied in the old Church” was deemed to have been “repeatedly discussed by the inhabitants in Vestry” and it was felt that further discussions would “only have a tendency to excite angry feelings and increase that Spirit of Discord which at present prevails in the Parish and which the Vestry deeply deplores.”

The running of the parish workhouse was one of the most vital questions with which the vestry was concerned, and the appointment – and indeed dismissal – of Overseers of the Poor was always a contentious matter. In September, 1777, the vestry appointed a Mr. John Evans to be “the Contractor of the Poor of this Parish for the Term of Six Years.” However, less than two years later, a committee reporting into the conditions at the workhouse “found the Children nearly in a State of Nakedness, most part of them without Stockings or Shoes, dirty, lousey (sic), and in a very wretched Condition.” Older residents were in a similar state, and the committee “found the House so very Offensive above Stairs, that we could not go to inspect the Rooms and Bedding.” The members also discovered “a Lunatick, partly naked, & chained, with the door open, & Hogs in the room, w’ch might have destroyed him.” Added to this: “We tasted the Beer, and the old people declar’d that, instead of the Beer being bitter’d with Hops, it was Bitter’d with Fetherfew, And We think the same.” The result of this inquiry led to the services of Mr. Evans being terminated, but the fact that the latter’s son was an attorney meant that it was to be two years before the vestry was able to rid itself of Mr. Evans and the problems arising from his dismissal. [See also Epsom Vestry Records relating to the Workhouse.]

On a more cheerful note, it is worth recording the fact that in April, 1826, a Mr. Chandler was appointed organist for St. Martin’s Church, at £25 per annum. The terms of employment – as laid down by the Vestry in August 1825 – were, however, stringent. Firstly, it was decided that: “he always perform in person & not by Deputy except by permission of the Minister & Churchwardens and that he be required to attend twice in the Lords day and in all Festivals when the Church is open.” Secondly: “that he be required to teach and instruct the children of the National School in Psalmody at least once in every week.” Finally: “that he be required to play such Tunes as shall be approved by the Minister & Churchwardens and no other.” It is unlikely that Mr. Chandler’s many successors would have agreed to be bound by such conditions!

Stephen Turner
July 1977

Note: The text above is [other than the square-bracketed notes] is, with thanks, taken from the booklet written by Stephen Turner in 1977 and reissued by St Martin’s in 2004.

Roger Morgan 2019