Showing 376 results

The Tithe Commission was established in 1836 under the Tithe Commutation Act. It was set up in order to establish exactly what tithes were due in each area of the country and to whom, and to formalise the commutation of tithes from payment in kind to cash payments.
Tithes were payments made from early times for the support of the parish church and its clergy. Originally these payments were made in kind (crops, wool, milk, young stock, etc.) and usually represented a tenth (tithe) of the yearly production of cultivation or stock rearing. The tithes were often stored in a tithe barn attached to the parish.
The ownership of the tithe was a property right that could be bought and sold, leased or mortgaged, or assigned to others. This resulted in many of the rectorial tithes passing into lay hands - particularly after the dissolution of the monasteries. These tithes then became the personal property of the new owners.
From early times money payments had begun to be substituted for payments in kind. Fixed sums (moduses) were substituted for some categories of production, particularly for livestock and perishable produce; while adjustable payments known as compositions, which were sometimes assessed annually, were increasingly being substituted in local arrangements in latter years.
Tithe commutation was the process by which the payment in kind was substituted for a cash payment. By the time of the Tithe Commutation Act there was considerable discontent over payment of tithes. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 was designed to ensure that commutation was achieved smoothly and quickly throughout the country. It required tithes in kind to be converted to more convenient monetary payments called tithe rentcharge. There had been an increasing demand for the Commutation of Tithe during the 18th century (some reformers campaigned for the abolition of tithe) and in 1836 the government of the day successfully steered the Tithe Commutation Bill through Parliament. The Act received the Royal Assent on 13 August 1836.
The Act substituted a variable monetary payment (referred to as the "corn rent") for any existing tithe in kind. This payment was originally calculated on the basis of seven-year average prices of wheat, barley, and oats, with each type of grain contributing an equal part to the total. Prices were determined nationally. Some land was free of tithe obligation, due to barrenness, custom, or prior arrangement.
The 1836 Act set up the Tithe Commission which was established to identify all affected properties and to resolve boundary issues arising from their survey. It was headed by three commissioners sitting in London who were William Balmire (chairman), Thomas Wentworth Buller and the Rev. Richard Jones. Valuation of current tithes could be negotiated by the parties; in the absence of an agreement, they were determined by the commission.
The first tasks of the Commissioners were to find out where commutation had already taken place, and also to establish the boundaries of every unit in which tithes were paid separately. This unit was mapped and named as a tithe district to distinguish it from a parish or township. Enquiries were directed to every parish or township listed in the census returns. The results of these enquiries are found in the Tithe Files at The National Archives. Tithe districts are usually parishes, but a minority are townships, and some are chapelries, hamlets, or extra-parochial places, many of which enjoyed separate status solely for tithe commutation purposes. Areas in which tithes had already been commuted were not mapped, so that coverage varied widely from county to county. The maps indicated parcels of land and buildings, assigning each a number. The initial intent was to produce maps of the highest possible quality, but the expense (incurred by the landowners) led to the provision that the accuracy of the maps would be testified by the seal of the commissioners, and only maps of suitable quality would be so sealed. In the end, about one-sixth of the maps had seals.
There were two distinct stages to the commutation process, first, the fixing of a global assessment for the tithe district and second, the apportioning of the tithe rent-charge on the individual properties.
The apportionment was recorded on a map and in a written schedule. These maps and schedules together constitute what is usually termed by historians ‘the parish tithe survey’. The essential purpose of a survey was to provide an accurate measurement of the acreage of each parcel of land, or tithe area, and record its observed state of cultivation. Associated with each map was an apportionment schedule, which listed each map item by number. For each entry the owner, tenant, area, name or description, state of cultivation, rent charge payable, and the tithe owner was listed. A preamble gave the name of the tithe owner, the circumstances under which tithes were owed, and whether the apportionment was agreed by the parties or was being imposed by the Crown. Assistant tithe commissioners travelled to all the non-commuted tithe districts to hold meetings with parishioners about valuations, and to settle the terms of the commutation of their tithes.
The surveying was carried out expeditiously, with the majority of the work performed by 1841, and largely completed by 1851. In some cases, amendments had to be filed when properties were divided or other circumstances intervened. The work was also complicated by numerous inconsistencies in how tithes were assessed. For example, timber might or might not include standing trees, branches, acorns, mast, and even charcoal. Variations as to the circumstances of tithe-paying were also considerable. The terms of the commutation were formalized in a document called a tithe agreement, if all parties concurred, or a tithe award, if the assistant commissioner had to arbitrate in a dispute. The agreement or award formed the basis of the tithe apportionment, which was the legal document setting out landowners’ individual liabilities. Each apportionment was accompanied by a map; both were signed by the Tithe Commissioners. Tithe rentcharge then became payable.
The Tithe Act provided for the making of an original and 2 copies of every confirmed instrument of apportionment; all were sealed and signed by the Commissioners. The originals were retained in the custody of the Commissioners and are now in a complete set in The National Archives. The other two copies were deposited one with the Diocesan Registrar and the other with the incumbent and churchwardens of the parish. Some of these copies remain in the parish churches but many are now deposited in the local record offices. Most record offices also have photocopies of the maps and schedules for their district.
This commutation process reduced problems by effectively folding tithes in with rents. Rent charges in lieu of abolished English tithes paid by landowners were converted by a public outlay of money under the Tithe Act 1936 into annuities paid to the state through the Tithe Redemption Commission. The Commission ceased to exist when such payments were transferred in 1960 to the Board of Inland Revenue, and those remaining were terminated by the Finance Act in 1977.

Pietro Torrigiano was a fifteenth-century Florentine sculptor who played an important role in introducing Renaissance art to England. In the account of his life given by Giorgio Vasari, Torrigiano was born in Florence in 1472 and studied art in Florence as a young man under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He came to England c.1509 and in 1511, was commissioned to create the monument for the tomb of Lady Margaret Beaufort. He went on to receive appointments for a number of other royal works, including a commission to create a terracotta bust of King Henry VII and the monument and effigies of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth of York. The monument and effigies may still be seen in the Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey and were completed c.1517. Torrigiano spent the later years of his life in Spain, especially at Seville. He died in 1528.

Master of the Free School at Hereford.

Anthony Tuckney was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a fellow there from 1619 to 1630. He was town preacher at Boston, Lincolnshire from 1629 and in 1633, succeeded John Cotton as vicar of St Botolph's Church, Boston. From 1645 to 1653 he was Master of Emmanuel and then from 1653 to 1661 Master of St John's College, Cambridge. In 1655, he became the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge – then the seat of Puritan thought. After the English Restoration in 1660, he was removed from his positions and retired from professional life.
For more information on Tuckney see the Oxford DNB

Born in 1430 to Owen Tudor and the dowager queen Catherine of Valois at Much Hadham Palace in Hertfordshire, Edmund Tudor was the half-brother of Henry VI of England and father to Henry VII. After the death of his mother in 1437, Edmund and his brother Jasper were raised in the care of Katherine de la Pole, the eldest daughter of the 2nd Earl of Suffolk, Michael de la Pole. He became a prominent member of the royal court of Henry VI and was ennobled as Earl of Richmond in 1449.

In 1453, Edmund was given the wardship of the then nine-year old Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby. The two were married two years later at Bletsoe Castle on 1st November 1455 and the marriage was subsequently consummated. However, Edmund died before the birth of their son, Henry.

As half-brother to the King, Edmund was inevitably implicated in the bloody power struggles of the Wars of the Roses. In late 1455, he was sent to Wales to enforce the authority of the King and remained there until August 1456 in order to suppress a rebellion led by Gruffydd ap Nicholas. During this time, however, Henry VI was incarcerated by Richard, Duke of York, who resumed the office of Protector and sent troops under William Herbert in August 1456 to seize South Wales. On reaching Carmarthen Castle, Herbert’s forces captured Edmund and imprisoned him in the Castle. He died in captivity in November 1456.

Francis Turner was the oldest son of Thomas Turner, Dean of Canterbury. He was born 23 August 1637. From Winchester College, where he was elected scholar in 1651, Francis proceeded to New College, Oxford, where he was admitted probationer fellow on 7 November 1655, and graduated B. A. on 14 April 1659 and M. A. on 14 January 1663.
Turner’s preferments were mainly due to the favour of the Duke of York, to whom he was chaplain. In February 1664/5 he was incorporated at Cambridge, and on 8 May 1666 he was admitted fellow commoner in St. John's College, Cambridge, to which the patronage of Peter Gunning, the Regius Professor of Divinity, attracted him.
On 11 April 1670 he succeeded Gunning as Master of St. John's, Cambridge; he was vice-chancellor in 1678, and resigned his mastership, "because of a faction," at Christmas 1679.

Joseph Timmis Ward was born in Banbury in 1853, and subsequently educated at King’s School, Rochester. He was matriculated at St John’s in 1872, and took his degree in 1876 as Senior Wrangler. Following this, he was first Smith’s prizeman, and was elected to a Fellowship that lasted until his death.
Ward was ordained as a deacon in 1877, and then as a priest at Ely in 1879. After returning to Cambridge, he became mathematical lecturer at St John’s, where he also served as a tutor for twelve years started in 1883. From 1896 to 1903, he was also Senior Dean.
Ward was an original founder of Westcott House, Cambridge. He was a supporter of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, and served as Secretary of the Committee for the St John’s College Mission at Walworth c.1906-1910. He died in Cambridge on the 23rd June 1935.

Obituary in the Eagle: Vol. 49, Mich 1935, p. 122

Thomas Watson was born near Durham in 1515. Watson matriculated in 1529 and received his B.A. in 1532/3 and his M.A. in 1536. He received his degree in theology in 1543, the year in which he became domestic chaplain to Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.
On the accession of Queen Mary, Watson was admitted Master 28 September 1553, but he soon left the College, being appointed Dean of Durham 18 November 1553; he was then appointed Bishop of Lincoln by Papal Bull dated 24 March 1556-1557, but was deprived of his bishopric on the accession of Queen Elizabeth I and spent the rest of his life in imprisonment or restraint of various kinds.

For more information see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

George Fiddes Watt was a portrait painter and engraver. He was born in Aberdeen on 15 February 1873, the only son and the eldest of the five children of George Watt and his wife, Jean Frost. On leaving school at fourteen, he was apprenticed to a firm of lithographic printers in Aberdeen. During these next seven years he also attended evening classes at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen.
At the age of twenty-one Watt went to Edinburgh to study in the life class of the Royal Scottish Academy. For a time he struggled to make ends meet, but through exhibiting his paintings at the academy from 1897 he soon obtained small commissions, particularly for portraits of local dignitaries such as Provost Smith of Peterhead (1901) and Provost Wallace of Tain (1908). When commissions continued to come in steadily, he began renting a large studio at 178 Cromwell Road and exhibiting at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
In 1903 Watt married Jean Willox, art teacher at Peterhead Academy, and youngest daughter of William Willox of Park, a farmer in the Buchan area of Aberdeenshire. They had three sons and a daughter.
He first began to attract attention with a number of portraits of women, including one of his wife which was his first exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1906. A portrait of his mother painted in 1910 was later bought out of the Chantrey bequest for the Tate Gallery in 1930.
Watt's later reputation, however, rests on his portraits of men. He was interested in strong character, expressed with vigour and freedom of handling. His most vital works probably date from before the First World War and he is seen at his best, for example, in the series of senior legal figures at the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh: Lord Salvesen (1911), Lord Kingsburgh (1912), and Lord Dundas (1916).
Watt's work is regarded as being in the Scottish tradition stemming from Henry Raeburn, with its unaffected simplicity and robust directness of handling. He was much in demand in both Scotland and England for official portraits and painted, among others, Herbert Henry Asquith and Lord Loreburn (both 1912) for Balliol College, Oxford; Cosmo Gordon Lang (1914) for All Souls, Oxford; Arthur James Balfour (1919) for Eton College; Lord Ullswater (1922) for the House of Commons; Sir Joseph Thomson (1923) for Trinity College, Cambridge and Robert Forsyth Scott (1913) for St. John’s College, Cambridge.
After 1930 he ceased exhibiting at the Royal Academy and painted less and less as his eyesight had started to fail. He had been elected an associate (1910) and a full member (1924) of the Royal Scottish Academy and his last exhibit there was in 1941.
In 1940, when the bombing of London became severe, Watt retired to Cults, near Aberdeen. In 1955 the University of Aberdeen awarded him the honorary degree of LLD and late in life he was granted a civil-list pension. His wife died in 1956 and her death was a severe blow to him. In his later years, he became a well-known figure in Aberdeen, with his Vandyke beard, wearing a deer stalking cap, and carrying a long shepherd's crook. Fiddes Watt died at his home in Aberdeen, on 22 November 1960. His work is represented in most Scottish collections, including the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, which has four paintings. A bronze statue of Watt by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones, made in 1942, is in Aberdeen.

Sir Richard Wentworth, 5th Lord le Despenser, was born circa 1480 at Nettlestead, Kent. He was the son of Sir Henry Wentworth by his first wife, Anne (Saye) Wentworth, and married Anne Tyrrell around 1499. He served as Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. On his death in October 1528, Sir Richard was buried at Ipswich in Suffolk.