Improvement Commissioners

Constitution and Functions

Many local government functions were performed by the Improvement Commissioners constituted by the passing of “An Act for the Paving, Watching, Cleansing, Regulating, and otherwise improving the Town and Parish of Louth in the County of Lincoln” (Royal Assent June 10 1825). There was no official short title; but it was commonly referred to as the Local Act. Many other towns had similar improvement acts, often earlier than 1825. Indeed in Louth the Corporation agreed in 1792 to promote a bill for a local act¹1. Corporation minutes 27.8.1792. but nothing effective appears to have been done to implement the decision; possibly the cost of promoting a private parliamentary bill was found to be too high. In 1825 the expenses were partly raised by public subscription.

The Local Act authorised improvements including the paving of streets,²2. Within limits: the main roads to Louth had been taken over by commercial turnpike trusts (for which see Gurnham 2007 pp 110 -111). the provision of gas street lights, new drains, street cleaning, the watering of streets (to settle the dust), the naming of streets and numbering of buildings, the enforcement of limited building standards (eg the prohibition of new thatched roofs) and the suppression of nuisances. The provisions of the Local Act were to be implemented by a long list of people named in the act: 42 individuals plus others (eg the Warden of the Corporation) ex officio. Not all of the persons named took the required oath of acceptance of office and few were really active. The Commissioners’ official title was “The Commissioners for the Improvement of the Town and Parish of Louth” (section 23). In press reports the titles used varied; they were sometimes referred to as the “paving commissioners”.

Vacancies were filled by co-option rather than election. It is surprising that there seem to be no reports of opposition to Louth’s Commissioners on that ground in the 1830s, when both national and local politics centred on reform. In some towns the ratepayers elected the improvement commissioners. Frederick H Spencer in Municipal Origins… (1911) showed that there was no standard form for an improvement act and they varied greatly. Unless they contained unusually contentious provisions (which Louth’s did not) they received little Parliamentary scrutiny, except by Lord Shaftesbury, the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords from 1814 to 1851.³3. See also Derek Fraser Urban Politics in Victorian England (1976) Chapter 4.

The minutes of the Improvement Commissioners are in Lincolnshire Archives (treated as part of the Borough Council records) and constitute a useful source of information about the town, particularly in their first few years of operation, when the Commissioners were most interested in improvement, rather than just maintaining existing facilities.

Improvements

In their first five years the Commissioners provided over 100 street gas lamps (with gas supplied by a newly established gas company), “tunnels” for the drainage of streets in the town centre, the surfacing of those streets by pebbles brought by ship from Spurn Point, foot pavements for some streets and granite crossings to link the pavements. The tunnels led to the River Lud. They were designed as surface water drains, but also took domestic sewage from the small number of houses with water closets. In the late 1820s Louth must have seemed to be a rapidly improving town. However the momentum of improvement was not maintained. In 1831 it was resolved to restrict expenditure to “works of pressing necessity” and in the following year a petition from residents of Chequergate for a “tunnel or common sewer” was rejected on financial grounds.⁴4. IC minutes 30.5.1831, 18.2.1832. The matter was still under debate in 1839: Chronicle 19.7.1839

Subsequent progress was slow. A good general account of the condition of the town’s streets and of some improvements is given in the review of William Brown’s press reports quoted in chapter 4 of Robinson and Sturman 2001, where on some points there is more detail than can be traced in the IC minutes. The Commissioners were responsible for water supply in that they took over existing public water pumps and had the power to provide new ones. However I have found references only to three: in Market Place, Fish Shambles and James Street respectively. The provision of a piped water supply for Louth was regarded as a matter for private enterprise. The Louth Waterworks Company began to supply piped water in 1873; but even then the connection of houses to the water supply was slow, as is described on a separate page.

There is no doubt that in terms of their effect on improving the health and amenities of Louth’s residents the Commissioners had the potential to be much more important than either the pre-1835 Old Corporation or the Borough Council created in 1835; but this potential was not fully realised. Conspicuous failures included a 25 year delay in providing street name plates (The name plate saga is described in amusing detail in Robinson and Sturman 2001 p 49.) and the failure until 1859 to use their power to number houses, even though the cost was trifling: they sent a contractor round with a paintbrush and paid him seven shillings per 100 doors.⁵5.IC minutes 3.11.1859.

The progress made by the Commissioners was probably mainly limited by a simple reluctance to spend money. However there were also institutional failings. Excessively large local government bodies were common in the nineteenth century and the normal response to the problems created was to appoint standing committees to enable members to specialise in matters that most interested them. This was done by Louth Borough Council from its inception in 1835; but not by the Commissioners. By their constitution the Commissioners had no elected chairman and in their first two years of operation there were 30 meetings chaired by 14 different commissioners. Attendance was usually poor: even for the most important meetings, at which rates were fixed, the quorum was only five and was usually not greatly exceeded; in the five years following the inaugural meeting on 30 June 1825 only one meeting was attended by more than ten commissioners (20.8.1828, when there was the post of rate collector to be filled).

Enforcing Standards

Neither in their minutes nor in press reports is there much evidence of enforcement activity by the Commissioners. In 1841, in the course of what appears to have been their first prosecution for failure to comply with building standards, their surveyor said “there is scarcely one house in twenty built in accordance with the provisions of the act”. In 1857 Chronicle reported that a mud building had collapsed into Upgate and a meeting of the Commissioners had been called to consider the matter; but the meeting did not take place (or at least was not minuted) and six months later nothing had been done in spite of the obvious public danger.⁶6. Mercury 26.3.1841; Chronicle 20.2.1857; Mercury 21.8.1857.

The most controversial enforcement action attempted by the Commissioners may have been in 1865, when they tried to prohibit the use of footways by prams. Probably this was on the basis that a pram was a vehicle, although there may have been mixed motives, since it emerged at a public meeting that “great complaints had been made by the commercial gentlemen frequenting the Masons’ Arms Hotel that the noise and confusion caused by these perambulators was so intolerable that they could not transact their business.”⁷7. Advertiser 7.10.1865.

Finance

The original accounts of the Commissioners have not survived. There is a summary for the financial year 1831/2⁸8. Report of the Commissioners on Municipal Corporations in England and Wales Extract reprinted as a pamphlet (Louth 1835 pp 14-15. and at least from 1832 the Commissioners made available to the ratepayers annual statements of income and expenditure; in the 1850s some of these were further summarised in Mercury and Chronicle. My impression, based on the minutes, is that the Commissioners borrowed money unnecessarily to meet ordinary expenditure and, after the first year or two, could have met all expenditure from the rates. The Local Act set limits on the power of the Commissioners to levy the two rates (3s in the £ and 2s in the £, respectively) but the two rates actually fixed never totalled as much as 2s in the £.

Rates under the Local Act comprised a “paving and highway rate” (section 120) and a “lighting, watching and improvement rate”. These rates differed from the normal rating pattern in the following respects.
(a) For houses with rateable values below £4 the rates had to be paid by the owners.
(b) For houses where the tenants had been excused (by the magistrates) the payment of rates on the ground of poverty, the rates had to be paid by the landlords.
(c) Agricultural land exceeding one acre was not subject to the lighting rate.
(d) Tenants paying the lighting rate could deduct from their rent one third of what they had paid.⁹9. Sections 122–4, 126.

The table in appendix 1 below gives a simplified version of the calculation figures contained in the minutes of the Improvement Commissioners. The last column of the table shows the percentage represented by land excluded from the lighting rate, which was large, but steadily declining. Much of this land was doubtless used for the working horses of tradesmen. Some legal difficulties in the valuations are noted in appendix 2.

Police

In the first ten years of their operation the Commissioners had some involvement with the policing of the town. Policing was normally a parish function. The Vestry each year elected one or more constables, who were then sworn as such by justices of the peace. In the small parishes (the great majority) the constables were unpaid but were reimbursed expenses and sometimes received fees; in the larger parishes being a constable was sometimes equivalent to having a part time job with regular payment.¹⁰10. But the law was (and still is) that a constable was not employed by anyone but was the holder of a statutory office.

In Louth the position before 1836 is somewhat obscure. The Vestry must have elected constables, but how many, and on what terms, is unknown. As the Old Corporation provided the town’s magistrates, they paid for constables to attend court hearings; but they had no responsibility for general policing. However they could assist the Vestry with money. In 1823 they resolved that it was desirable to have “four or five active constables” to patrol the streets and offered to meet half the cost. In the financial year 1823/4 the Corporation made payments totalling nearly £40 to three constables for night watching, plus an extra 15 shillings for duties on 5 November and £4 for apprehending persons gambling on Sundays; but similar payments were not made in the following years.¹¹11. Corporation minutes 19.5.1823. Warden’s accounts: payments in period 23.6.1823 to 15.5.1824. In 1829 the Corporation resolved to pay for six additional constables, but for the severely limited function of enforcing their byelaws on the conduct of markets.¹²12. Corporation minutes 6.5.1829

Under the Local Act the Improvement Commissioners were authorised to employ “such and as many watchmen and night patroles [sic] as they shall judge expedient” (s 88). The persons employed were to be sworn as constables and were “required and empowered to apprehend all nightwalkers, felons, malefactors, vagrants and disturbers of the peace” (s 89). This provision overlapped with, but did not replace, the responsibilities of the Vestry. How it operated in practice is unclear. The Commissioners initially appointed an uncertain number of watchmen. In November 1825 the Commissioners resolved to appoint ten watchmen to patrol the streets during the hours of darkness but they appear to have appointed only four, two labourers and two military pensioners. Their pay was to be 12s a week in the Winter months and 8s a week during the Summer months. In addition two supernumeraries were appointed to act when required.¹³13. IC minutes 15.11.1825, 20.12.1825

The minutes did not say whether any of the appointees were also parish constables. In 1830 the Commissioners agreed to employ four of the parish constables to act as watchmen on Saturday nights in return for a payment of 2s 6d each for each night’s duty.¹⁴14. IC minutes 27.11.1830.

The report of the Commissioners on Municipal Corporations (1835)¹⁵ 15. Appendix Part IV p 2376; there was a local reprint by J & J Jackson. stated that in 1834 there were six ordinary constables and three more chosen by the Commissioners; but “owing to the expense of employing these persons, this part of the Act was not carried into execution until 1831”. This statement was misleading. What happened in 1831 was that for the first time it was decided to employ a superintendent constable, William Heath, at a wage of 21s a week, half being paid by the Corporation.¹⁶16. IC minutes 11.11.1831; Corporation minutes 9.11.1831. However this appears to have been the same person as the William Heath who was also the Corporation bailiff, a small farmer and licensee of the Royal Oak.¹⁷17. The evidence given by Heath in the Lucas lease case ( Mercury 1.7.1836) shows his varied activities. When the Municipal Corporation Act 1835 (see Corporations) took effect the Commissioners lost their power to appoint watchmen.

End of the Commissioners

In 1867 The Commissioners agreed to disband and transfer their functions to Louth Borough Council. The Council appointed a committee to exercise the remaining Local Act powers.¹⁸18. Advertiser 12.10.1867.

Appendix 1

Appendix 2  Valuations used by the Commissioners

Sections 120 and 121 of the Local Act required the Commissioners to levy rates on the “full annual rent or value” of properties. When the Commissioners were established in 1825 there was no difficulty in their using the existing rating list compiled for poor law purposes: R1823 gave half values; so the Commissioners merely doubled them. From R1838 this conflicted with the requirement in the Parochial Assessments Act 1836 to make a reduction for landlords’ expenses. This legal difficulty was ignored and the rating list prepared for Poor Law purposes continued to be used; the statutory deduction probably made a negligible difference. However the legal position became technically unsatisfactory after the Small Tenements Rating Act 1850 made landlords liable for rates but allowed them a 25% discount.

In 1854 James Parker, who evidently saw himself as a village Hampden, refused to pay the rates on the ground that they were unlawful. The case against him was heard by three magistrates, two of whom were themselves improvement commissioners. One, J B Sharpley, accused Parker of “unsettling the minds of the people”. Parker suggested that Sharpley had personally profited from the irregular way in which the rates had been levied. Eventually the magistrates issued a distress warrant leading to the seizure and sale of a chair belonging to Parker.

The real issue, which did not emerge from the press reports, related to the lighting rate levied at 7d in the £. The 1850 act applied to “rates for the repair of the highways” as well as to poor rates and so it could be regarded as overriding the Local Act and allowing the discount for the paving and highway rate, but not for the lighting rate.¹⁹19. Chronicle 13.10.1854, 20.10.1854, 27.10.1854. If all of the 47 small tenements recorded in R1851 as belonging to “Sharpley” did belong to J B Sharpley, his annual gain from the unjustified discount on the lighting rate would have totalled a little over £1.

For the lighting, watching and improvement rate the Commissioners must have produced their own, reduced, rating list by excluding the agricultural land. In some cases it would have been difficult to avoid this, since the rating lists lumped land and buildings together. For example in R1851 only one new RV, £273, is given for Susannah Bowling’s 217 acre farm, which Dewhirst & Nichols 1839 showed had substantial buildings (record 512692). The figures for the excluded land cannot be wholly reconciled with the rating lists; they are generally higher. It seems that the Commissioners excluded from the lighting rate not merely agricultural land but the buildings held with that land. The figures for 1852/3 to 1855/6 look slightly odd and may reflect disputes about the extent of the exemption.