Seal of approval
SOMETIMES to understand how things work round here, you need to see how they got started. Which was why an invite to photograph a brief ceremony involving the Wokingham Charters was interesting.
Not standing on ceremony
Earlier, the county archivist had invited the Wokingham Society’s committee to take a tour of the Berkshire Records office. It’s much like a reference library, with some documents being quite rare.
Among these was the King James I charter for Wokingham, complete with its original seal. A good read at the time, but unless you’re up on your 17th century Latin, a bit much today.
But it sparked the idea to find all of Wokingham’s charters, so the hunt was on for readable versions of what each one said.
Eventually, four were found and as they describe jobs, activities or ideas which aren’t easily understood today, glossaries have been added to explain things.
These help one understand why the shire-reeve might settle the amerciaments; demise the liberties; and levy piccage from the mysteries. Strong stuff !
All this has been pulled together by The Wokingham Society in an e-booklet which has just been published here: www.wokinghamsociety.org.uk/ wokingham_ charters. html
Charter Chitter-Chatter
Back in 1219, archbishop Richard Poore had a problem. Based at Old Sarum, he’d had a falling out with the military there and the cathedral was rather small, so he wanted a bigger and better one elsewhere.
He couldn’t get the land he wanted, so had to build near the floodplain at Salisbury.
In the days before power tools, cathedrals weren’t just expensive, they were EXPENSIVE! And they took a long time to build, so keeping up with the Joneses (actually the Yorks and the Canterburys) wasn’t easy and it needed cash, lots of it.
At the time King Henry III was only 12, so bishop Richard agreed to give the king a horse every year (a Ferrari in today’s money) in return for being allowed to hold a weekly market on the edge of his manor of Sonning. This was where the road from Farnborough to Henley crossed the one from Reading to Woking at a place called Oakingham. And it was in Wiltshire on Bishop Richard’s land.
He was able to supplement the weekly cash income from the market stalls by selling plots of land (burgages) to the people who wanted to live nearby. But kings change their mind, so eight years later the deal was formalised in writing, signed and sealed – thus the first charter in 1227.
Three centuries passed…
Just like London buses, suddenly another two charters came along. They were actually 30 years apart, but hey, we’re talking centuries here.
The second was from
Elizabeth I in 1583. It defined who was responsible for running the town; keeping the marketplace clean and the traders honest; settling disputes, oh, and collecting taxes and paying them to the Crown.
It introduced the appointment of public officials, but there’s a whiff of ‘land grab’ as local worthies wanted to codify their rights since the dissolution of the monasteries under Elizabeth’s dad had left a vacuum.
Another 30 years on and the town’s governance had evolved, as the James I charter of 1612 shows. The rule by local squires was out and a form of local government was in, together with a local legal system. Contemporary maps and tax records show that the town was known under two names – Oakingham and Wokingham.
Another three centuries…
And the system of self- appointing individuals was nearly as fouled up as Wokingham’s water supply was.
The Municipal Corporation
Act of 1882 allowed a town’s householders to petition the privy council for a charter of incorporation as a borough.
So the fourth charter, granted by Queen Victoria in 1885, established an elected council with a fixed number of councillors serving defined wards for a limited period of time. Citizens had gained some freedom to choose their political masters, but had surrendered much local control to a national system supported by local bylaws.
And the point was
As more and more people came to live here, the social and political systems changed.
Local squires replaced the rule of the Church and were in turn replaced by local merchants and craftsmen. As the self-appointed cronyism of the few made life unbearable for the many, the municipal corporation was introduced. This lasted for almost a century.
Until Berkshire split itself into six and the unitary authority of Wokingham District was created in 1974 (with a chairman). Which in turn became the Borough of Wokingham in 2007 (with a leader).
The Last Word
The way in which things run round here became more complex as population grew and as social, religious and political relationships evolved.
It’s ironic to note that the founder of the borough, bishop Richard
Poore of Salisbury, did so in order to raise money to pay for something else. Today, we’d call him …
… a property developer.