Thomas Dangerfield 8 men and 10 horses 4 days £2 8s. 0d.
Edmund Whittington “and lost more by some of the Parliamentary forces in taking commodities out of my house and two horses from me”.
William Briane By Capt. Badger’s men, in taking commodities out of my houses and breaking my glass window.
Edmund Poole Losses by the Scots, 22 lambes and 2 wethers valued (at the least) at £4
Thomas Godfrey Plundering of apparell
Richard Willmoore Apparell and other commodities
William Thomas 1 horse valued at £4
James James Bacon, beef, and other commodities. A gun valued at 12s.
William Hall Beef, bacon, cheese apparell and all kind of household stuff £30
Signed by all the above, (some made their marks) and also by Thomas Adams, Richard Taylor, John Falkes, John Rosse, Richard Hodges, Peter Hartland, Edward Harbert, William Collins, John Green, Willian Vobe. Whether these men ever succeeded in their claim, the parish records do not reveal. Thomas Dangerfield seems to have supported the Parliamentary side, for he ends his claim with “besides what satisfaction I had in it.”
The Worcester Quarter Sessions Rolls for 1591 - 1643 suggest that Mathon was on the whole a law-abiding community. There are not a great many entries but some of them give some idea of the village people of that time.
1637 Roger Robinson, shoemaker, was indicted for selling 230 pairs of boots made of horse hides, instead of the customary cow hides.
1620 Permission was given to the Vicar and inhabitants of Mathon to collect alms for a poor man, Nicholas Taylor, who lost his house and goods by fire.
Permission had to be sought for a cash collection of any kind. In this case, Nicholas seems to have suffered a misfortune which was probably not uncommon in the timber-framed houses of the 17th Century, with their open fires.
1634 Roland Hope, gentleman, of Mathon, for not working in the repair of the highways on the appointed days, and making default with one small cart with oxen, horses or other beasts.
Since a ‘gentleman’ was not normally expected to work with his hands, perhaps Roland’s omission was in not sending the small cart. It is also interesting to notice the reference to oxen as draught animals.
1608 Two persons sell ale without licence in Mathon.
1609 Richard Sadler, the younger, of Mathon, tanner, to keep the peace towards Thomas Sadler, of Leigh. Was this a family quarrel?
1610 Indictment of Henry Whooper, of Mathon, clerk, for breaking and entering the close (field) of Richard Case of Mathon.
1615 William Vobe, yeoman, indicated for grazing horses, cows and sheep on the close of Anthony Sydnall and Anthony Halle. (The Grove)
Both these charges suggest that the land may have been enclosed quite recently. Perhaps there was some resentment by Whooper and Vobe.
1619 14 men and one woman indicted for riotously assembling and assaulting three bailiffs of William Berkeley. Was this an eviction which was resisted by the villagers?
1619 3 Mathon men indicted for riotously assembling and assaulting Richard Turner. (Not a true bill)
1627 Another riotous assembly and assault.
1629 John Harbert - a theft from Richard Unet.
1633 Indictment of William Thomas of Mathon, yeoman, for disseizing Celia James of the possession of her dwelling house at Mathon.
1634 Luke Staunton, victualler, drinking at unlawful hours, and for inordinate terms on festival days. By standards of English country life in those times, Luke must have been on a considerable celebration to have been taken to court.
1634 John Gregg, Constable of Mathon, reported that watch and ward had been kept, that the highways and bridges were in good repair till the last sudden rain, that none harboured rogues, and that there were no (unlicensed) taverners, vintners, butchers or bakers.
This was all part of the routine report that the Constable was required to make as part of his yearly duty.
1634 Roger Robinson, Constable of Mathon, that Luke Staunton keeps an alehouse without licence.
The Constable was chosen yearly. It was an onerous duty, and one that everyone seems to have tried hard to avoid, though a refusal to officiate meant a considerable fine. Roger himself was charged three years later with making boots from horse hides.
1636 Presentment of Luke Staunton, vitualler of Mathon, for suffering the parishioners of the same town to be continually drinking at all seasons whole nights and days together.
1636 Edward Harbert of Mathon, husbandman, for his appearance at Sessions to answer for not appearing at monthly meetings, he being Constable of Mathon.
At the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, Mathon must have been a green land, the primitive roads lined with fruit trees, and oaks still plentiful.
In the Civil War, a London militiaman gave “testimony of the high reputation of the county, (Worcs.) for fruit, and spoke enthusiastically of the loaded apple and pear trees overhanging even the public highways.”2 Cider, which had already been enjoyed for hundreds of years was made, and the surplus which was not consumed on the farm, usually as part of the men’s wages, was sold. The red-streaked apple discovered by Lord Scudamore growing wild in a field near Holme Lacey, was a favourite cider apple, and the Barland pear, named after a field in the neighbouring parish of Bosbury was the choice for perry, made since the 14th Century. Both varieties of fruit gave their names to fields in Mathon.
At the end of the 17th Century, Celia Fiennes3 wrote “On the other side (of the Malverns) is Herefordshire, which appears to be a county of gardens and orchards, the whole county being full of fruit trees. It looks like nothing else, the apple and pear trees are so thick, even in their corn fields and hedge rows”. It was also famous for its oaks, which stretched for miles, and for the Herefordshire school of woodworkers, who were responsible for such craftwork as the Mathon church roof. It was probably at about this time that hops, imported from the Low Countries in the 15th Century, began to be grown in the parish. They were increasingly used for beer, which was replacing in popularity the old English ale, and farmers were tempted to grow them by the high price which they fetched in the market. Mathon Whites were the hops which perhaps made the parish name more widely known than anything else in its history. Hops were planted 5-8 feet apart, allowing a plough to be used between rows. Poles 13-16 feet long, probably grown on the farm’s ash bed, were used to support them, and the bines were tied with rushes or grass. At harvest time, hop-picking provided the women with the chance to supplement the family income, which must have been welcome, because even allowing for the low prices of those days, wages seem incredibly low. These are the average wages for the district4.
1663 Bailiff £4 per annum
Labourer 3d. to 6d. per day (with food and drink)
Women 4d. per day
Thatcher or Carpenter 6d. per day
Maidservant £1 10s. per annum
Fortunately, the whole country was becoming aware of the need for legislation to provide care for the poor and elderly, and various well-meaning efforts were made to ensure that the necessary help was given, and that paupers did not have to live on charity alone. In 1662, an Act of Parliament had provided for the appointment by the men holding the two ancient offices, the Constable and Churchwardens, of Overseers for the Poor, who were empowered to levy a parish rate for that purpose. The parish books commencing in the 17th Century, contain accounts of these parish officers or paymasters as they sometimes called themselves. The Act of Parochial Settlement laid down that anyone residing 40 days in a parish should be regarded as belonging to it, and therefore became a charge upon the parish if he fell out of work. Parish officials were charged with ensuring that “no vagrants were harbouring” and because of this anxiety to incur no extra expense, mobility of labour was almost non-existent for almost 200 years. Under the 1691 Act, a man could claim a settlement in a parish by birth, by living in a tenement with a yearly value of £10, by paying parish rates, by serving a year in a public office, by completing an apprenticeship, or by obtaining a hiring. In practice, employers hired for a few days short of a year to avoid a claim for settlement. A woman could claim settlement by marriage.
The Overseer’s Account for 1681 gives an idea of the number of people in the parish who were being given assistance, and how much they received.
John Corbett 48 weeks @ 6d. per week
Thomas Mason 48 weeks @ 9d. per week
Widow Bayliss £2
Widow Balding 26 weeks @ 1s. 6d. per week
Widow Falks 44 weeks @ 9d. per week
Widow Onions £1 4s. 6d.
Widow Harbert 48 weeks @ 1s. per week
Thomas Mason 4s. 4d.
An old man at Widow Bayliss’s house 6d.
John Farmer 1s.6d.
In 1691, charges for building a house for John Farmer amounted to £6 4s. 4d.
The parish registers suggest that Mathon fared reasonably well in the plague-ridden Tudor and Stuart times. Yearly deaths never rose higher than 14, and the average age was 7. It was a time when there were many cases of poverty and hardship which defied well-meaning charitable efforts, and sometimes resulted from the tendency to hurry paupers, unemployed or sick people on to their own parishes, in order to avoid a mounting parish rate for people who themselves could not afford to pay more. Some of the Vicar’s comments, in the Register of Deaths shows his kindly feeling for these poor folk.
‘A poor parentless lad’ ‘A poor traveller’
‘A poor strange wandering boy’
1. G. M. Trevelyan, English Social History
2. Quoted in R. C. Gaut, History of Worcs. Agriculture & Rural Evolution 1939.
3. Celia Fiennes, The Journeys of Celia Fiennes , ed. Trevelyan 1947.
4. Gaut, as above.