| Administration and local government
The first
evidence of authority and organisation in the area is Berry Mound, that great
earthen hill-fort in Solihull Lodge, whose construction must have required
generations of arduous labour. It indicates a strong controlling power, perhaps
a family of chiefs who could command the energies of many men in this northern
part of
Arden
during the century before the Roman conquest. But whether they were akin to
their subjects or as alien as were the Romans and Normans
we cannot say. Before and after the Claudian invasion (44 AD) this region was a
No Man's Land between major tribes who retained their identity as states within
the Empire. Of provincial power thereabout during the Roman peace little is
known, though it lasted for more than three centuries.
In Anglo-Saxon
times the folk-moot was the instrument of local authority, it was a democratic
gathering which elected the chief and settled disputes. Frank-pledge was the
system of justice: in this the tithing or decenary was collectively responsible
for the conduct of ten men and their families which comprised it. Ten tithings
formed a hundred and they met at the Hundred Moot, every four weeks. The name
stayed the same while the numbers belonging to it grew. Yardley was the
northernmost part of the Hwiccan (West Saxon) kingdom whose capital was
Worcester. Owned by Pershore Abbey from the 10th to the 13th
centuries, it was included in Pershore Hundred and its representatives were
required to travel the long and hard way to the Avon for the Moot.
When shires
were established, about A.D.1000 in the Midlands, supportive areas were allotted
to fortress towns by Hundreds. So Hwiccan Yardley, already in the Bishopric of
Worcester, went to the shire of Worcester, with the rest of Pershore Hundred and
stayed with it until 1912. The Shire Moot met twice yearly, attended by
Yardley's reeve, four prominent tenants, and the priest of St. Edburgha's
church. Its concerns were justice, tax collection, roads and bridges, and
military service. In Domesday Book (1086) Yardley appeared as a 'member' of
Beoley: the two manors shared a rad man (literally 'riding man' who was the
Abbot's reeve.)
William the
Conqueror abolished the folk-moots, replacing them with individual manor courts.
He wanted none of that election nonsense. 'Every man must have a lord', the
court baron, which met twice a year to administer justice. Manorial officials
included the Bailiff, Conners (food and drink inspectors), the Constable and his
assistant the Headborough: these were all appointees of the lord's steward, who
presided at the courts. Shires, now called counties, were controlled by the
King's sheriffs (shire-reeves). Frank-pledge and Hundred Moots continued. Thus
in Norman
and Medieval times administration and justice were controlled by a blend of
Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French institutions.
As manor courts
declined with the replacement of labour services by money rents and the nobility
killed itself off in civil wars, the local gentry acting as justices acquired
greater powers. Ecclesiastical parishes were often, as at Yardley, co-extensive
with manors. Two 16th century Acts gave onerous tasks to the Civil Parish of
Yardley, often called the Vestry because the officials met therein. From 1547
Overseers, appointed annually by the Justices from among the chief tenants in
turn, were required to find work for orphans and fit paupers, money for the sick
and indigent, and to keep a register of householders and the poor. Surveyors of
Highways similarly appointed from 1555, were responsible for putting
parishioners to repairing the roads on their begrudged 'statute days', for
ensuring that the wealthy provided carts and horses, and for collecting rates to
pay for materials.
So large a
parish as Yardley could not be served by one set of overworked and unpaid
officers. Originally there were three divisions of the parish south of Warwick
Road, one being called Broomhall. Later the south was sufficiently populous to
become one of four Quarters. Broomhall then lay between Warwick and Stratford
Roads, and Swanshurst was the large area to west and south of the latter
highway. Later population growth, and the ever-greater burden of the poor
brought sub-division of the Quarters into Near and Far Ends, each with overseers
and surveyors. The parish constable, assisted by the headborough and
thirdborough of each Quarter, had to prepare lists of men for militia training,
keep the peace, lock malefactors into the stocks or the stone lockup by the
church school, and take the major criminals to Worcester Assizes. The vestry
system survived with little change other than that of title to Parish Council,
until the late 19th century. Meanwhile the Yardley Courts Leet and
Baron continued to be held at the Trust School:
the Taylor squires maintained these anachronistic meetings until 1820.
For more than
four hundred years local government was in the hands of Vestrymen, the chief
tenants of the manor, who were responsible to the magistracy for poor relief and
the maintenance of highways. Vestries met in open meetings, which all ratepayers
could attend, or in closed sessions for the 'selectmen' only. These worthies
were chiefly concerned with keeping down the Poor Rate. In Victorian times they
were rather inaptly called the Guardians of the Poor. Yardley's workhouse was on
Red Hill, Coventry Road: out-relief was also given. Beggars and vagrants from
other parishes were soon moved on! From 1836, Yardley was in a Poor Law Union
with
Solihull,
where a new workhouse opened two years later.
By 1880 there
was a multiplicity of local authorities, all of them levying rates and none of
them elected, which had been created by various Acts. Change was overdue. The
system established by the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894 was to survive
with little alteration for eight decades. Council were thence forward elected to
control counties, excepting towns of more than 10,000 people. The second Act
established Urban and Rural Districts: Yardley became the latter, because
despite its population of 18,000 and a phenomenal rate of increase it still had
an administration appropriate to a country village. Thanks to County Councillor
Joseph Malins of Sparkhill an unnecessary duplication of authority was avoided:
he succeeded in amending the second Act so that where as in Yardley the new
District and the old Parish covered the same area a single council could perform
both functions.
Thus Yardley
acquired its first representative local government. Malins was a notable
Chairman of the District Council, which met first (1894) in what is now the
Sparkhill Institute and then (1902-12) in the new Council House on 'The Hill'.
When the Council House was opened in 1902 (having been built with Worcestershire
money, the county being anxious to prevent Yardley for succumbing to the
blandishments of Birmingham), the porch shields bore only the letter 'Y. D. C.',
clearly looking ahead to Urban District status eventually. Birmingham had sought
to annex Yardley since the 1880s. The newly-formed Worcestershire County Council
was determined to retain the District, and it sought the make good the
deficiencies in services: policing had been done by Warwickshire since 1857, but
this was taken over and a fine police station was built on Coventry Road -
prominently displaying the arms of Worcester.
A noble Council House on Sparkhill was both an advertisement for the County and
a focus for local pride. The County built a police station, magistrates’ court,
fire station and public works depot beside the Council House in the next few
years. But water, gas and transport came from Birmingham,
as did most of the new Yardleians: these amenities made possible the enormous
increase in population (from ten to sixty thousand) in the three decades from
1880. The R. D. C. had an impossible task: with only a rudimentary organisation
and too-low rates it could not supply all the services and amenities demanded by
the thousands of new. Drainage, street-surfacing and lighting were wholly
inadequate, and there was no refuse collection. In 1911 the city's offer to
provide everything else and not to claim full rates for the first fifteen years
won over Yardley's voters, who decided to become citizens of Birmingham.
Thereafter the ancient name has only geographical significance, referring to no
more than a square mile of the parish and manor.
The enlarged
city was still not fully master in its own house, because administration of the
Poor Law remained in the hands of Guardians. In 1912 the several Boards combined
in one Union to administer the largest Civil Parish in Britain: its functions
were not taken over by the City Council until 1930.
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