George IV Becomes King, January 1820
George III died at Windsor Castle on 29 January 1820 after a long illness. His eldest son, George Augustus Frederick, became George IV at fifty-seven, having governed in his father’s name as Prince Regent since 1811. The change of title gave a new king to Britain and Hanover, while Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool, led the ministry already in office. The new reign began with the memory of war against Napoleon, heavy national debt and arguments about parliamentary representation, religious rights and the price of food. The king’s only legitimate child, Princess Charlotte, had died in childbirth in 1817, leaving his brothers next in the line of succession. The road through Loxwood had changed during the Regency. The Wey and Arun Junction Canal opened in September 1816 and crossed the turnpike immediately uphill from the Onslow Arms. At the canal bridge, Loxwood Wharf joined water transport to the road that led south across the River Lox towards Newbridge and north towards Alfold and Guildford. John King of Loxwood and members of the Napper family had supported the canal scheme, while George O’Brien Wyndham, third Earl of Egremont at Petworth, was its principal landed promoter. Barges were unloaded near the turnpike by men whose carts and horses took goods onward to farms and villages.
Farther up the hill St John the Baptist’s chapel stood beside Church Cottage and near the house and farm buildings of Loxwood Place. The chapel trustees held endowed houses, land and rents for the support of worship, with men from local families responsible for legal title. The vicar of Wisborough Green oversaw the dependent chapel and its services within the Diocese of Chichester. The medieval timber nave had stood for generations, but alterations to this building were approaching. In 1822 builders would remove the old nave and replace it in brick, while the surrounding cluster of houses acquired new early-nineteenth-century buildings.
The First Parliament and the King’s Estranged Wife, 1820
George IV called a general election soon after his accession. Candidates and patrons across Sussex prepared county and borough contests while Liverpool sought a Commons majority willing to fund the government and defend public order. Landowners with interests at Petworth, Goodwood and the Sussex boroughs cultivated their electoral connections; elsewhere the qualifications for voting depended upon freehold property or the particular rules of a parliamentary borough. Men living in Loxwood with qualifying county freeholds could take part in a Sussex election, while women and most labouring households were excluded from the parliamentary franchise. Acts passed at Westminster nevertheless governed tenants, smallholders, traders and non-voters as well as those represented at the polls.
The new Parliament encountered a bitter dispute over George’s marriage. Caroline of Brunswick, whom he had married in 1795, had lived abroad for years. She returned to England in June 1820 and demanded recognition as queen. Liverpool’s ministers presented a Bill of Pains and Penalties to the House of Lords, seeking to deprive Caroline of her position and dissolve the marriage after proceedings examining accusations about her conduct. Lawyers questioned witnesses and peers debated the evidence. Crowds assembled for Caroline, opposition newspapers attacked the king, and the ministers abandoned the bill in November after the Lords’ votes showed that a passage through the Commons was unlikely. These events unfolded while magistrates across the country applied the measures enacted after earlier disturbances. The government had responded to demonstrations and the shooting at Peterloo in 1819 with new restrictions on large political meetings and some forms of printed agitation. In February 1820 officers in London uncovered the Cato Street conspiracy to murder ministers. The conspirators were arrested and several were later executed. The Sussex countryside was governed by parish constables and justices, who dealt with theft, disorder, settlement and relief under the existing law. Wisborough Green parish officers served Loxwood and its neighbouring hamlets, bringing settlement and relief cases before justices at the appropriate courts.
Wisborough Green Parish Officers Record Local Cases, 1820
A removal order dated 13 March 1820 named Martha Sherburn in the papers of Wisborough Green parish. Two months later, on 13 May, parish officers recorded an examination of her settlement. Such papers were drawn up when justices and overseers needed to decide which parish carried financial responsibility for a person who sought relief or whose residence was disputed. A settlement examination could record earlier service, residence or family relationships, and the resulting decision could be contested or confirmed by magistrates. The case was entered under Wisborough Green, the parish which also administered Loxwood, Drungewick and other outlying hamlets. On 25 November 1820 a removal order named Elizabeth Hurst. The record series also contains bastardy orders or bonds bearing her name on 27 November and 30 December. Such papers dealt with two different legal matters that could arise within one family’s affairs: the parish in which relief should be charged, and the financial maintenance of a child born outside marriage. Officers sought orders or security from those legally responsible, because the parish rate was paid by the inhabitants assessed for it. The catalogue gives a name and date for each instrument; the detailed testimony and relationship between the orders require the documents themselves.
These cases were heard in the same year that Parliament investigated Queen Caroline and the king attempted to settle the position of the royal marriage. In Wisborough Green the parish records give the names of people whose own family circumstances brought them before local officials. The officers’ powers came from laws governing settlement, poor relief and child maintenance, and their proceedings could end in a written order, an examination, a bond or an appeal. Families across the full parish used the same administrative system, and the parish-wide entries cover households in Wisborough Green village and its dependent hamlets.
The Canal, the Turnpike and Loxwood Wharf in 1820
By 1820 the Junction Canal had been carrying goods through Loxwood for more than three years. Its channel linked Newbridge with Stonebridge near Guildford, where boats could enter the Godalming Navigation and the River Wey route towards the Thames. To the south the Arun Navigation provided a connection towards the coast. Coal, timber, stone, lime and agricultural cargoes could be loaded onto boats and drawn by horses along the towpath, saving the repeated work of moving heavy consignments between carts on the roads. Canal cargoes still needed local cartage after reaching a wharf, so the arrival of water transport increased the amount of work concentrated at the crossing beside the Loxwood turnpike. The wharf occupied ground near the Onslow Arms, a roadside property whose older timber frame had been altered and used for hospitality by the opening years of the nineteenth century. A tollgate stood north of the River Lox bridge, with the road crossing the canal a short distance higher up the slope. A traveller approaching from the south passed the river crossing and toll point, the inn and then the canal bridge before climbing towards the chapel and the older village houses. At the wharf, bargemen and carters had to arrange the unloading of a boat, storage of goods and their collection by people from farms in Loxwood, Drungewick, Brewhurst or Alfold.
East of the village, the channel ran near Brewhurst House and its watermill, crossed Brewhurst Lane by a separate canal bridge and descended through Brewhurst Lock. The older Brewhurst stone bridge crossed the River Lox on the lane leading to the farmhouse and mill. The two bridges carried different forms of traffic and belonged to different centuries. Local carriers used both routes because grain needed to reach the mill, tenants moved between farms, and a load of coal or lime delivered to the wharf could finish its journey on a horse-drawn cart. The owner of a field near the canal had to take account of bridges, banks and the company’s legal rights of navigation when arranging access.
The Barges Reach Brewhurst and Drungewick
The canal east of Loxwood ran between farmland and wooded holdings before reaching Brewhurst Lock. Boats travelling towards Newbridge passed close to the Brewhurst estate, crossed below the bridge carrying Brewhurst Lane and were lowered through the chamber where the water level changed. The lock keeper had to control the paddles and gates as a boat entered and left, releasing water from the upper level into the lower pound. A loaded boat could move heavy cargo more steadily than carts on the clay roads, but lock passages and the length of the towpath limited the speed of a journey.
The canal’s bridges created new crossings for landowners whose older tracks had been cut by the channel. At Brewhurst the lane from the house and mill crossed the waterway at its own bridge, while the older stone bridge over the river lay farther south. Tenants approaching their fields needed access from one side of the canal to the other, and livestock had to be taken across bridges or along approved roads. The engineers had also built culverts to carry streams beneath the waterway. A farmer concerned about a wet field or an obstructed ditch now had to consider the canal embankment, the company’s drains and the natural course of the local water.
The Ifold estate lay beside a long stretch of the waterway. Edward Napper had acquired Ifold in 1811 and built a larger house there, establishing a residence among farms and woodland holdings towards Plaistow and Alfold. He had married Anne Seward in 1803, connecting his family with the Sewards who held property at Brewhurst. Landowners with holdings on either side of the canal could be shareholders as well as neighbours, giving them an interest in toll revenue, bridge upkeep and the effect of boats and towing horses upon fields beside the channel. The Napper and King names also appeared in the lists of men entrusted with Loxwood chapel property.
New Houses along the High Street, about 1820
Building work around 1820 added a new group of houses to the Loxwood road above the river. Mellow, later a substantial High Street house, belongs to this period, as does Finches nearby. The earlier shops and timber-framed cottages occupied the line between the chapel and the new canal crossing, and the newer brick-fronted buildings provided further accommodation beside the turnpike. Mellow was built with two storeys, a tiled roof, a red-brick front and sash-style windows with glazing bars. Gardens and orchard ground extended behind the frontage, with room for outbuildings beyond the road-facing house.
This part of the village had a very different appearance from the houses nearest the medieval chapel. Oak-framed buildings such as Church Cottage and older cottages had been assembled with morticed joints, plastered wall panels and steep roofs. Brick houses called for bricklayers, mortar and more regular window openings, while tiled roofs drew upon the clay products made in the surrounding country. The canal could carry bulky fuel and building material towards the wharf, but the final section of road from the waterside still required horses, carts and men to unload bricks, tiles or timber.
The older road frontage provided opportunities for local trades. A roadside shop or workshop could serve people walking to church, the inn or the wharf, as well as farmers stopping on their way to a market. Over time the houses around Mellow, Finches and the established cottages would be used by tradesmen and shopkeepers. The early-nineteenth-century construction dates belong to the houses themselves; later names for shops and businesses would appear in land-tax returns, directories and census records from subsequent reigns. Mellow and Finches added substantial dwellings close to the older group of shops and cottages near the turnpike.
The Coronation and Caroline’s Death, 1821
George IV was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 19 July 1821 after his intended coronation in the previous summer had been postponed. The ceremony was exceptionally expensive, with a procession, ceremonial regalia, a royal banquet and elaborate arrangements for the peers and other guests. Caroline attempted to enter the Abbey but the officers at the entrances refused her admission. Crowds watched a spectacle in which the king’s dispute with his wife was made public outside the church where he was being anointed and crowned. The bill against Caroline had failed, yet the separation of the royal couple shaped the ceremony itself.
Caroline died on 7 August. The arrangements for her funeral led to renewed confrontation in London as crowds contested the proposed route of the procession and troops tried to maintain order. During the same month George travelled to Ireland, where he made a royal visit and attended receptions. He later crossed to Hanover, the German kingdom which he also ruled. The visits were among the most conspicuous journeys made by a monarch after George III’s long period of illness, and they placed royal ceremony before audiences in parts of the kingdoms that had received few personal visits from a reigning sovereign.
The Coronation service and the king’s public oaths also brought the constitutional position of the Church of England into view. In Sussex, the bishop ordained and licensed clergy, and the vicar of Wisborough Green supervised the ministerial responsibilities belonging to the Loxwood chapelry. Families attended the chapel for worship and the sacraments; burials were arranged through parish rights and churchyards, including Wisborough Green and neighbouring Alfold. Chapel trustees held endowed property under local deeds and arranged the repairs and rents associated with the building.
Removal Cases Before the Chapel Rebuilding, 1821–1822
On 3 July 1821 Wisborough Green officers recorded a removal order concerning Elizabeth Mann. Another order on 17 November named Richard Willett, and a further document on 1 June 1822 again concerned Richard Willett. The second entry places the same name in the parish’s papers during the year when Loxwood Chapel was rebuilt. Officials could investigate an individual’s settlement more than once, because an order might be disputed, reconsidered or followed by proceedings involving another parish. The dated index establishes the repeated involvement of Richard Willett in the documentary sequence.
Loxwood Chapel Is Rebuilt in Brick, 1822
In 1822 the medieval oak-framed nave of Loxwood Chapel was taken down and a larger brick nave erected in its place. The builder John Peckham Henley prepared plans for the work. He replaced the long-used timber structure with a building whose round-headed windows gave it a recognisably Georgian appearance, while the older chancel was kept. The chapel stood at the historic worship site beside Church Cottage, across the road from Loxwood Place and close to the pond around which the older part of the village had developed. Removing the nave required careful work around the portions of the building that were to be kept. Carpenters dismantled the timber frame, masons and bricklayers prepared foundations and walls, and roofers provided a covering for the enlarged space. Oak timbers, old doors and fittings had belonged to a building that had undergone alterations over several hundred years. Brick offered a way of raising straighter walls with larger window openings and admitting more light to the congregation. The builder’s task was to join the new nave to the standing eastern part without interrupting the structure of the adjoining property.
The former chancel had an unusual arrangement, with its roof running across the building and gables to north and south. Keeping it preserved a part of the chapel’s older design beside the new brick nave. The relationship with Church Cottage also required attention because the cottage stood directly east of the worship site and had long been associated with the earlier chapel foundation. The two buildings had developed together from the medieval period. Henley’s work in 1822 concentrated on the nave where the congregation assembled, producing a larger worship room within the same small group of roadside properties.
The chapel had no burial ground of its own. Families brought their dead to established burial grounds, including the churchyards at Wisborough Green and Alfold. The work of 1822 altered the building in which people attended services, while the parish rights controlling burial and other responsibilities were administered through the established church authorities. The trustees who held endowed properties were concerned with the fabric and income supporting the chapel; the vicar of Wisborough Green and the bishop’s officers dealt with clergy and the legal conduct of worship.
An old porch and oak door have a separate place in Loxwood’s building history. Local research associates the entrance later seen at Black Hall with the porch removed from the medieval chapel during the 1822 rebuilding. Black Hall stood by the turnpike, and its enlarged entrance faced the road that had taken a more direct course through this part of the village. The local attribution associates the entrance of Black Hall with medieval oak joinery moved a short distance across the village. The building faced the turnpike, where early-nineteenth-century trades were beginning to occupy roadside premises.
George IV Visits Scotland, August 1822
In August 1822 George IV travelled to Scotland, becoming the first reigning British monarch to make such a visit since the seventeenth century. Sir Walter Scott helped arrange ceremonies in Edinburgh, and noble families, civic officers and Highland representatives assembled to welcome the king. The visit encouraged elaborate public displays of tartan and Highland dress, joining royal ceremony with Scottish history and aristocratic loyalty. George’s travels to Ireland, Hanover and Scotland gave prominence to the different kingdoms and territories under his crown, while ministers continued to manage business at Westminster.
Canning Returns to Foreign Affairs, 1822–1823
George Canning became Foreign Secretary in 1822 following the death of Lord Castlereagh. He handled Britain’s relations with European governments at a time when monarchs and ministers were trying to contain revolutions and preserve the settlements reached after Napoleon’s defeat. Britain’s commercial and naval interests differed at times from those of Austria, Russia and Prussia. Canning’s policy involved recognising the growing independence of countries in Latin America and defending British trading opportunities overseas, while Britain also weighed the consequences of intervention in Spain and Portugal.
The connection between policy overseas and an inland Sussex village ran through shipping and commerce. Merchants in London, Portsmouth and other ports imported goods that moved into Sussex by coastwise vessels, rivers and the turnpikes. At the same time timber, grain and farm products travelled outwards from inland estates. The canal through Loxwood had been promoted partly to offer an inland connection between the Thames and the south coast. By the 1820s the proprietors sought paying cargoes from merchants using established commercial routes, with coastal shipping competing for the larger consignments. At Petworth, George O’Brien Wyndham, third Earl of Egremont, had invested heavily in the Junction Canal and supported the company during its costly construction. The estate at Petworth also supported agricultural production, employment, markets and road traffic reaching west Sussex. Egremont’s backing linked a great landed proprietor with the shareholders who had hoped to earn revenue by tolls on boats passing through country estates and market districts. In Loxwood the direct result was a maintained channel beside Brewhurst and a working wharf at the road crossing, with water levels, banks, bridges and locks requiring regular paid attention.
The Royal Pavilion at Brighton Is Completed, 1823
In the summer of 1823 craftsmen completed the decorated interiors of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. George IV had occupied the building on 2 January 1821 while John Nash was transforming the prince’s earlier seaside residence during the Regency, adding domes, minarets, galleries, grand reception rooms and a striking mixture of decorative forms. Builders used stone, iron, glass, plasterwork, timber and costly imported furnishings. The principal construction had been carried out between 1815 and 1822. Brighton builders and tradesmen had received contracts for materials and labour during years of court expenditure.
Brighton was connected to the Western Weald by roads through Horsham, the Downs and the towns of eastern Sussex. Wealthy visitors travelled to lodgings, entertainments and the Pavilion, while builders and suppliers needed carts, timber, coal, plaster, furnishings and many different trades. A country landowner could maintain a house at Petworth or Goodwood and also take part in metropolitan society, buying objects or employing craftsmen from the same commercial networks that served the royal court. George’s architectural patronage changed Brighton more directly than Loxwood, yet both places possessed buildings altered during the 1820s by owners deciding to rebuild with brick and provide more accommodation.
At Loxwood the chapel was the building most urgently demanding substantial work. The medieval nave lay close to Church Cottage and faced the road near the village pond. Its oak frame had endured repeated alterations across the centuries, and the old structure required more repair than its owners considered economical. The trustees’ decision to commission a larger nave placed the replacement of an ancient place of worship into the same early-Georgian building period as the houses on the High Street. Bricklayers also supplied the nearby houses on the High Street, where Finches and Mellow had been built around the beginning of the decade.
Wisborough Green Officers Record Three Removals, 1823
The papers for 1823 name Stephen Stone in a removal order dated 31 May, followed by Lucy Woodford and Ann Rugman in separate orders on 23 August. These were actual named proceedings, prepared within the administrative parish containing Loxwood. An overseer responsible for parish funds could examine claims and arrange relief, while a magistrate had legal authority to order a person to be sent to a parish recognised as responsible. Sending someone away affected an individual’s home and employment as well as the calculation of which parish should pay the expense.
Parish officers acted in a district crossed by roads leading to Kirdford, Billingshurst, Alfold and Horsham. A labourer could work for one farmer and lodge elsewhere, a widow could seek help from relatives and an apprentice could be bound to a master across a parish line. Officials examined settlement records when a claimant’s birthplace, marriage or earlier service connected that person with another village. The papers provide names and legal dates without locating each individual household within the large Wisborough Green parish.
John Buckner Dies and Robert James Carr Becomes Bishop, 1824
John Buckner, who had governed the Diocese of Chichester since the end of the eighteenth century, died on 1 May 1824. Robert James Carr was appointed to succeed him. Carr had been associated with the royal household and held a benefice at Brighton, bringing a personal connection with George IV into the government of Sussex clergy. The king had patronised Brighton for decades, and Carr’s earlier work there placed him close to the court before he received the bishopric. The bishop’s responsibilities extended far beyond Chichester Cathedral. He could ordain priests and deacons, grant licences and investigate questions about church buildings, incumbents and parish appointments. When his office dealt with a chapel such as Loxwood, the records identified the mother parish of Wisborough Green and its dependent place of worship. A bishop’s visitation might require information about the minister, the furnishings or the condition of a church, while property deeds concerning the chapel’s endowed houses were administered through the trustees. A question about the minister’s licence belonged to diocesan officials; a dispute over a rent-paying house belonged to the trustees who held its title.
Loxwood’s new brick nave had been completed only two years before Carr’s appointment. The Diocese of Chichester also included churches in Kirdford, Billingshurst, Petworth and Pulborough, where clergy worked among communities with different histories of patronage and endowed income. Over the county boundary the Bishop of Winchester governed Alfold and nearby Surrey churches. The road between Loxwood and Alfold crossed the boundary between two dioceses and connected adjoining farms, markets and relatives. The ministers and churchwardens used the separate diocesan jurisdictions when carrying out their responsibilities for baptisms, marriages, burial and church property.
Parliament Changes the Combination Laws, 1824–1825
In June 1824 Parliament repealed many laws that had made agreements between workers to seek better wages or hours punishable as criminal combinations. The change followed evidence taken by a Commons committee about relations between employers and workmen. Workers in several trades began to organise more openly, while masters and ministers disagreed about the limits of collective action. Parliament returned to the question the following year and enacted new restrictions on intimidation, obstruction and certain forms of organised pressure, while allowing agreements concerning wages and hours under more limited rules.
The statutes chiefly entered national debate through manufacturing and urban trades, but Sussex possessed craftsmen whose earnings depended upon contracts, hours and the availability of work. Carpenters fitted roofs and doors in the houses and chapel buildings around Loxwood; masons and bricklayers repaired canal bridges and other structures; blacksmiths made tools, iron fittings and wagon parts. A farmer could engage labourers for haymaking and harvesting or employ a specialist tradesman to repair a mill. Their terms of employment were negotiated between masters and workers in a country now debating whether groups of men could press collectively for changes.
The agricultural worker experienced another legal system through service and settlement. A labourer’s wages could be seasonal, and moving to a job in another parish might eventually affect the parish responsible for poor relief. Churchwardens and overseers at Wisborough Green dealt with those rules, while justices determined disputes. The laws on combinations were enacted at Westminster, and the local evidence of Loxwood in this period is stronger for deeds, land tax and building work than for named workers organising over pay. In the Weald, timber cutters, brickmakers and agricultural workers sought wages from different employers as they moved between building work, farms and canal maintenance.
Speculation, Bank Failures and the Panic of 1825
In 1825 share dealing and speculative investment encouraged the formation of new enterprises, including mining and ventures promising profits from overseas trade. Many investors borrowed or used credit to buy shares. During the final months of the year confidence collapsed, lenders demanded repayment and banking houses failed. The Bank of England took emergency measures to supply money and prevent wider failure, but losses spread through businesses which depended upon credit for stocks, purchases and wages. Parliament reconsidered the arrangements that permitted numerous small private banks to issue notes and take deposits. Country banks mattered to farmers and traders even where transactions were made partly in coin or goods. A substantial farmer might need a bill discounted to pay rent before crops were sold. A miller could buy grain, pay for repairs or extend credit to a customer until the next market. A road contractor might need to meet weekly wages while awaiting payment from trustees or a landowner. Loss of confidence in banks could interrupt these arrangements, making a debt difficult to collect or forcing a trader to find cash unexpectedly. Bank failures disrupted credit across many counties and made borrowing and the collection of payments more difficult for rural traders and landowners.
The Junction Canal had its own problem of raising sufficient income to meet the cost of construction, maintenance and borrowing. Its proprietors had hoped for valuable through traffic between London and Portsmouth. Coastal shipping and other routes offered competition when the threat of invasion receded after the Napoleonic wars, while cargoes generated locally supplied a smaller market than had originally been forecast. The banks, locks, bridges and wharves required expenditure whenever a boat used the canal, and a shortage of capital could delay work regardless of whether the channel carried enough cargo to employ bargemen and labourers.
The Canal’s Commercial Prospects and the Petworth Estate, 1825–1826
During the mid-1820s the proprietors of the Wey and Arun Junction Canal weighed the cost of maintaining the navigation against tolls received from boats. Through cargoes used a succession of navigations and locks between the Thames and the Sussex coast, and each undertaking had its own charges and operating arrangements. Merchants could compare that route with coastal shipping and road transport. The Junction Canal’s rural course gave it limited industrial freight from its immediate banks, although agricultural produce, coal and building materials provided business at places such as Loxwood Wharf.
George O’Brien Wyndham, Earl of Egremont, had promoted the scheme from Petworth and was among its largest financial supporters. He had encouraged the building of the water connection through western Sussex at a time when it appeared capable of supplying a strategically useful inland route. By the 1820s his investment also had to be judged as a business undertaking. Water for the summit level, expenses of lock repairs and the cost of wages had to be met while the company sought the commercial traffic needed to pay its debts. The proprietors’ difficulties led to arguments about capital and financial responsibility in the following years.
Josiah Garton Dies and Fletchings Changes Owners, 1826
Josiah Garton senior, a butcher associated with Fletchings on Brewhurst Lane, died in 1826. He had been recorded there as a tenant by 1790 and later as owner of the property. A will associated with his estate named his son Josiah, also a butcher, who had worked from Fletchings during the previous years. The shop and trade had a practical relationship with the farms around Loxwood: cattle and other animals were raised locally, carcasses had to be prepared and handled, and households bought meat from tradesmen who could obtain animals through farms, markets and dealers.
Land-tax records place Edward Napper of Ifold as owner of Fletchings in 1826 and 1827, with the younger Josiah Garton recorded as occupier. The house had a long leasehold and manorial history reaching back to the sixteenth century. It was a timber-framed property beside the lane leading east towards Brewhurst, where Richard Pay and the Seward family had held the house-and-mill estate earlier in the century. Through Anne Seward’s marriage to Edward Napper, the Napper family also acquired connections with Brewhurst and neighbouring holdings. Edward Napper owned the property as a member of the family associated with Ifold and Brewhurst.
A butcher’s trade required premises, knives, scales, cool storage and regular supplies of livestock. Customers could come from the surrounding farms or meet the butcher through deliveries and local shops. The younger Josiah was working in a district whose main roadside settlement had grown around the chapel, bridge and canal crossing. During the following two years he moved his household and business towards that High Street group. The younger Josiah took the family trade into the High Street, where his son would be born in 1829.
The General Election of 1826 and Loxwood’s Landholding Families
George IV dissolved Parliament and held a general election in 1826. Liverpool’s ministry sought renewed support from electors across the United Kingdom, while rival patrons contested county and borough seats. In Sussex a vote could be influenced by landownership, local patronage and disagreements over taxes, agricultural protection and Catholic emancipation. County elections drew qualifying freeholders towards polling places, and small boroughs followed their particular electoral customs. Families with holdings around Loxwood, Drungewick, Rudgwick and Kirdford belonged to the larger property network from which county politics drew candidates, money and local influence. The income and authority of a landowner rested on precise holdings. The Onslow family owned property around the Manor of Loxwood and Drungewick, and the King and Napper families dealt with adjoining estates and chapel endowments. A lease of a house, a long-held farm tenancy or a small plot beside a road could form part of the legal title passed through an inheritance. Land-tax records recorded owners separately from occupiers, making it possible to trace the same property through changes of household. In these years Josiah Garton junior worked from Fletchings under Edward Napper’s ownership, while other tenants cultivated fields whose rents helped support manorial and family income.
The political issues discussed in an election reached many households through the cost of corn and the taxes levied on everyday goods. The Corn Laws restricted the importation of grain when domestic prices stood below specified levels, protecting the interests of many landowners while increasing arguments over food prices in towns. In the Weald, farmers sold grain when harvest and markets allowed, and labouring families had to buy bread with wages earned from field work, timber trades and service. Land-tax records identify local owners and occupiers more fully than they identify the choices made by electors at the poll.
Liverpool Falls Ill and George Canning Forms a Ministry, 1827
Lord Liverpool suffered a disabling stroke in February 1827 after more than fourteen years as prime minister. George IV had to choose a successor and settle the composition of a new ministry at a time when prominent politicians disagreed sharply about Roman Catholic admission to Parliament. In April the king appointed George Canning as prime minister. Some leading members of the former Cabinet refused to serve under him, forcing Canning to create a new administration with different supporters in both Houses of Parliament. The political argument reached from the king’s court into elections and parliamentary speeches across the country. Canning’s ministry lasted only a few months. He fell ill and died on 8 August 1827, and Viscount Goderich formed another administration that struggled to hold together. The king consulted advisers, made appointments and followed his preferences among the leading politicians. William Huskisson and other ministers dealt with trade and public finance, while the question of Catholic political rights continued to divide former colleagues. George’s personal attitude mattered because the sovereign appointed ministers and could influence the timing of legislation, even though the government had to obtain votes in the Commons.
At Brighton the king made one of his final visits to the Royal Pavilion during 1827. The building’s domes and richly decorated rooms had been completed by 1823, and the palace had become a landmark for the town’s fashionable growth. The ministers’ struggle in London and the king’s seaside residence occupied different places within the same county’s travelling network. The roads passing north from Brighton towards Horsham and Surrey carried people and supplies, while farther west the Loxwood canal and turnpike handled the agricultural and commercial traffic of a much smaller settlement.
Dunsfold Church Needs Repair, 1827
Richard Bartholomew, rector of Dunsfold in Surrey, died in December 1826. During 1827 the church was presented as needing repair, and the parish had to decide how to pay for the work. Dunsfold lay north of the Sussex boundary, within the Diocese of Winchester, and its parish church stood in a district crossed by the Wey and Arun Junction Canal. People approaching Church Green walked through a settlement associated with surrounding farms, while farther out the artificial waterway cut across older lanes at bridges built during the Regency. The Honourable John Evelyn Boscawen became rector in 1827. He lived elsewhere and employed Charles Courtenay as the resident curate, so the man regularly serving the congregation differed from the rector who held the benefice and its income. When a parish church needed work, the officers had to assess the cost, secure agreement and arrange materials and labour. A church rate was a charge upon local ratepayers to meet authorised church expenses. It brought the repair of a building into the same household accounts that already contained rent, poor rate, land tax and the cost of keeping roads and farm buildings in order.
Dunsfold’s church stood within reach of Alfold and Loxwood by the local road system. Its parish government belonged to Surrey and Winchester, while Loxwood’s chapel depended upon Wisborough Green and Chichester. The new brick nave at Loxwood had been completed in 1822; Dunsfold now faced repair to its existing parish building. The expenses and personnel differed, but both communities had to find craftsmen, building materials and money to maintain the places where their congregations gathered. The Dunsfold vestry would make a recorded decision about the cost in the following year.
Peter Mitchell and Charlotte Rugman Challenge Removal, 1827–1828
On 10 February 1827 a Wisborough Green removal order named Peter Mitchell. A separate record dated 6 April notes an appeal concerning his removal, and on 24 April magistrates quashed the order. The short sequence gives a rare view of an individual resisting the first decision made about the parish responsible for him. Removal could require a person to leave their current place of residence, and an appeal gave the parties an opportunity to bring evidence before another court. Charlotte Rugman appears in a removal order dated 8 September 1827 and an appeal recorded on 20 December. Another entry dated 15 January 1828 describes a confirmation of the order. Magistrates examined Charlotte Rugman’s case over several months and confirmed the removal order, unlike the order quashed for Peter Mitchell. Parish officers might rely on evidence of hiring, service, birth or marriage, but a contested order required them to put their case into the legal form accepted by the court. The sequence also incurred time and expense for the people and officers involved.
The records for 1828 continue the same pattern. James Pope appears in an appeal dated 21 March and a confirmation entered on 15 April. Elizabeth Ede is named in a removal order dated 17 May. These documents were issued while the Dunsfold vestry was organising its church repairs and the Church of England’s parliamentary position was being debated in London. They give the Wisborough Green parish a separate series of dated local actions, with individuals named as the subject of proceedings which could determine where they lived and who paid for their support.
Dunsfold Votes for Repairs, 1 May 1828
On 1 May 1828 Dunsfold’s vestry approved repairs to its church costing £150 11s 6d. The ratepayers were to meet the expenditure through the church rate, and the work was arranged while John Evelyn Boscawen held the rectory and Charles Courtenay served the local congregation as curate. Masons, carpenters, glaziers and other craftsmen could be employed according to the work required, with parish officers responsible for accounting for the money raised. A hatchment bearing George IV’s royal arms and the date 1828 hung above the congregation in the repaired church.
Dunsfold also acquired a singers’ gallery at the west end under Boscawen’s incumbency. A gallery gave musicians and singers a raised place within the church and could alter how the congregation heard psalms and other music. In neighbouring Loxwood the newly enlarged chapel nave had already changed the space occupied by worshippers. The Loxwood building had brick walls and round-headed windows, while its minister served under the vicar of Wisborough Green.
Parliament Repeals the Test and Corporation Acts, 1828
In 1828 Parliament repealed the sacramental qualifications which had excluded many Protestant dissenters from public offices under the Test and Corporation Acts. These older laws had made reception of Holy Communion according to the rites of the Church of England a qualification for holding particular civic and state posts. Members of Presbyterian, Baptist, Independent and other dissenting congregations could now enter offices without meeting that Anglican religious test. Parliament adopted declarations in place of the older sacramental requirement and altered the practical position of many Protestant families who had lived for generations alongside the parish Church. Western Sussex already contained dissenting meeting houses and congregations. At Horsham the General Baptist community had established its brick meeting house during George I’s reign; the property grant named Billingshurst, Slinfold, Shipley and Sullington among the parishes from which its members were drawn. People travelling to a meeting could use the same market roads as farmers, carriers and tradesmen. The House of Commons then considered further petitions concerning religion and access to public office.
Josiah Garton Moves from Fletchings to the High Street, 1828
By 1828 Josiah Garton junior had moved from Fletchings on Brewhurst Lane to the High Street house later called Garton House. The move brought the butcher and his family from a lane serving the Brewhurst agricultural district into the group of roadside houses between the older chapel and the canal. Land-tax records place Edward Napper as owner of Fletchings in 1826 and 1827, and the occupiers in 1828 were recorded under the names Seward and Botting. Those surnames were also associated with farming and milling at Brewhurst, linking the cottage with a group of holdings managed by connected families.
Garton House was an older timber-framed building on rising ground beside the High Street. The road offered access to people approaching from the chapel, Alfold, the river bridge and the wharf. A butcher needed customers as well as livestock: animals had to be bought, slaughtered and dressed, and meat sold before it spoiled. The family trade had long been established at Fletchings, with Josiah Garton senior recorded there as a butcher during the previous century. The relocation changed the place where the younger Josiah’s customers and household were based, while the Seward and Botting names entered the land-tax record at the older cottage.
The two properties had different relationships to the village’s transport. Brewhurst Lane carried local traffic towards the mill, farm and canal bridge, while the High Street handled a larger mixture of carts, livestock, walkers and goods moving between Alfold Bars and Newbridge. The canal had opened across the road in 1816, increasing activity near the lower end of the village. Around the same period Mellow and Finches had been built along the High Street. The Garton family’s move placed a working trade beside that growing roadside settlement, close to the houses and shops which would become more numerous during the nineteenth century.
The King’s Ministers Confront Catholic Emancipation, 1828–1829
The Duke of Wellington became prime minister in January 1828 after Goderich’s ministry broke down. He was joined by Robert Peel as Home Secretary, and both men faced the growing pressure to admit Roman Catholics to Parliament. In Ireland Daniel O’Connell organised a powerful campaign for Catholic political rights. His election for County Clare in 1828 showed that a candidate excluded by the existing oath could nevertheless win the support of voters. Ministers feared that continued refusal to change the law would deepen agitation and threaten public order in Ireland. George IV opposed Catholic emancipation. He believed the measure conflicted with his coronation oath and had long been reluctant to surrender the restrictions which prevented Catholics from sitting in Parliament. Wellington and Peel urged him to accept a settlement, and the king’s resistance produced another period of difficult negotiations with ministers. Parliament eventually passed the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829, enabling Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament and hold most public offices after taking a new oath. The accompanying Irish legislation also raised the county voting qualification, removing the franchise from many poorer freeholders who had helped O’Connell win support.
Bishop Robert James Carr of Chichester took part in the argument in the House of Lords and opposed the Relief Bill. His position connected royal religious policy with the bishop governing Sussex churches. The Act altered the qualifications for Parliament and public office while bishops continued to govern their dioceses and Anglican ministers conducted the prescribed services. Loxwood’s chapel had recently been enlarged, and its religious services belonged to Wisborough Green and the Diocese of Chichester. Catholic families elsewhere in Sussex gained new access to public life under the national act, while Anglican parish clergy exercised their ordinary responsibilities through the church courts, registers and authorised services.
A Loxwood Child Is Baptised at Wisborough Green, June 1829
In 1829 John Arthur Garton was born at Garton House, the son of butcher Josiah Garton. On 28 June the family took him to Wisborough Green, where his baptism was recorded. The entry connects a named infant with the High Street house to which his father had moved from Fletchings the previous year. His parents lived within the Loxwood chapelry, yet the baptism at the mother parish church entered their child into the register of Wisborough Green. The family had been associated with butchery in Loxwood since the late eighteenth century, and the trade was now carried on from the road used by people travelling between the chapel and the canal.
Garton House stood among buildings of different ages. Older timber framing formed the principal structure; nearby houses of the early nineteenth century used red brick, tile roofs and regular windows. From Garton House the family could see carts and drovers using the turnpike, barges crossing below the road bridge and people walking towards the church beside the village pond. Meat bought from the Garton household was connected to farms raising cattle and sheep across the district. Customers calling at the Garton property used the road where carts travelled between the river crossing and the chapel. Later in life John Arthur Garton would move with his family to London, prosper in the meat trade and return to Loxwood for village gatherings.
Loxwood Common and the New Road Recorded in 1830
On 17 April 1830 the Wisborough Green parish series recorded an examination concerning Rebecca Lillywhite. Three days later, on 20 April, an appeal record described the removal order concerning John Tickner as quashed. The entries give the parish officers two dated cases during George IV’s final spring. An examination gathered information about a person’s legal settlement, while the cancellation of an order meant that magistrates had rejected the action previously taken to remove a person. The same series was used for people throughout the wide parish, whose boundaries included Loxwood and its neighbouring hamlets.
The enclosure map dated 1830 gives a detailed view of land and roads around Loxwood at the end of George IV’s reign and the opening of William IV’s. It records holdings beside Loxwood Common, including land associated with Loxwood Place and Spy Farm, and identifies a road called the “New Road from Pawlies to Pancake Lane”. This route became known as Spy Lane. The map belongs to the rearrangement of older common ground into fields and holdings with more clearly defined boundaries and access ways. Land that had been crossed by customary paths acquired marked roads and surveyed allotments. John King held Loxwood Place when the enclosure award allocated additional frontage land in respect of the property. The old farmstead stood beside the chapel and village pond, with barns, yards and fields that had been altered by the earlier construction of the canal. The enclosure papers placed his ownership within a new measurement of the nearby common. A frontage allotment could change the practical use of the land beside a road: it might provide room for an entrance, hedge, garden or the movement of carts. John King’s allocation was set out in relation to the existing holding at Loxwood Place.
At Spy Farm the map names General Onslow as landowner. The farm stood among small fields, lanes and common ground whose old names included Spye Lands and Spy Common. The new road from Pawlies to Pancake Lane linked this part of the settlement with other routes towards Rudgwick and the main highway. Older farms such as Little Pound and Pound Cottage occupied neighbouring ground, while the enclosure map recorded names including Pound Field and Chestnut Mead. A pound was a place where livestock could be held, and the name fitted a part of the village whose farms and grazing rights had developed across several centuries.
Surveyors had to measure ground, mark boundaries and determine what access landowners and occupiers would have after enclosure. A new road needed land of sufficient width, bridges or culverts where it crossed water and agreements about gates and hedges. The map names the individual fields and marks the line of the new road. Its date gives a view of Loxwood immediately around the accession of William IV, and the legal allocation of land would shape the routes and property frontages used by later generations.
George IV Dies and William IV Succeeds, June 1830
George IV died at Windsor Castle on 26 June 1830, aged sixty-seven. His only legitimate child, Princess Charlotte, had died thirteen years earlier, and the crown passed to his younger brother William Henry, Duke of Clarence. William IV inherited a government led by Wellington, an unfinished debate over parliamentary representation, and a kingdom in which the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and Catholic emancipation had altered access to public office. The new king also inherited Hanover, which had been governed by the same sovereign as Britain throughout the preceding reign. Robert James Carr was Bishop of Chichester, and the Loxwood chapel congregation gathered in the brick nave built in 1822 beside Church Cottage. Josiah Garton had moved his butchery from Fletchings to the High Street, and the baptism of his son John Arthur was entered at Wisborough Green in June 1829. The canal carried goods past Brewhurst and the Onslow Arms, while the turnpike crossed it and descended to the River Lox bridge. John King and the Onslow family held land appearing on the enclosure map dated 1830, with a new road laid out across the former common towards Spy Farm.