Edward Bates and his tough duties as Headborough

The delivery of a felon by Edward Bates (left) and a 'heavy' (right) to Horsham Gaol from The Ship Inn. As visualised by ChatGPT.

Edward Bates, born c1767 and died in 1845, was known in Cuckfield as the local clockmaker, but his rôle in the town went far beyond the workshop. For a crucial year, in 1812–13, he also served as Headborough, a parish officer whose duties placed him at the heart of local order, poor relief and wartime administration.

Thanks to his diligence in keeping a diary, we can learn about his demanding term in office. It is a revealing record of how one Sussex community managed law, labour and military disruption during the Napoleonic Wars and before the arrival of professional policing.

A parish officer in an old system

Bates was sworn in as Headborough on 20 November 1812, at the Talbot Inn, and the office lasted for one year. He was about 44 at the time. At the same meeting, William Newnham of White House, Balcombe, was chosen as constable [presumably for that village], while Mr Tulley of Scotches Farm [Malthouse Lane, Hurstpierpoint] was appointed constable [for Hurstpierpoint?]. These appointments were made through the manorial Court Leet, an institution that played a central rôle in local government before the era of modern police forces.

The Court Leet met under the lord’s steward, usually once or twice a year, with a jury of respected local inhabitants who helped determine what action should be taken to manage local nuisances, offenders and minor disputes. Serious offences were passed to higher courts, but many everyday matters - such as assaults - were handled locally.

The court's business also included dealing with obstructions of the highways, offences relating to weights and measures, and the quality and measurement of bread and ale; inspecting roads, paths, and watercourses; fining people who blocked ditches or caused local nuisances; and recording property transfers and copyhold tenancies across the manor.

Law before police

Before county police forces were created in the 19th century, law and order in places like Cuckfield depended on the constable and the Headborough.

They were responsible for apprehending offenders, serving warrants, arresting wrongdoers and conveying prisoners to magistrates and gaols.

Bates's records show how active this role could be. He served warrants on local men, including a James Ockenden bringing them before magistrates and escorting them to the House of Correction at Lewes. He also served a warrant on Walter Picknell and escorted him to prison

Minor punishments such as confinement in the stocks still belonged to this older world of discipline, but Bates does not record any such punishments being administered. But some more serious offenders were taken to Lewes or Horsham. The office demanded not only firmness, but meticulous record-keeping and entailed much travel around the district.

As a postscript you may be interested to know that The East Sussex Constabulary was established in 1840, making it one of the earlier county police forces in England. It set up a headquarters in Lewes. One of the earliest rural police stations is what is today 'Peelers', 5 Church Street, Cuckfield. Records show a police station existed there by 1841, only a year after the East Sussex Constabulary was formed. The building remained in police use until around 1945 (according to Geograpg.org.uk). Brighton Borough Police was established in 1830, making it the first modern police force in Sussex.

Prisoners, travel and fees

Bates kept careful accounts for the cost of serving warrants, the mileage involved in conveying prisoners and the daily keep of those under escort. He was paid for these tasks, including mileage, prison maintenance and warrant fees and he received payment for extra assistance to help transport prisoners. Sometimes he would have the local solicitor, Samuel Waller with him.

One particularly revealing case took him to places more than 30 miles away - to Reigate and Merstham in Surrey to obtain a justice’s warrant for the apprehension of James Knowles. The account records the coach hire, the cost of serving the warrant and the journey home, showing how far a local parish officer might have to travel to carry out his duties. This was practical policing in a world before law enforcement had been formalised into a cohesive system with standardised procedures.

Prisoners from the Cuckfield area were often confined in Horsham Gaol, which was notorious as a filthy place where men, women and children were crowded together. The records of the time make clear how harsh that system could be. Horsham Gaol and the House of Correction at Lewes formed part of the wider punitive landscape. While awaiting appearance before the local court prisoners were locked in an upstairs room at the Ship Inn (now the Co-op) in Whiteman’s Green while awaiting a hearing or trial.

Cuckfield wrongdoers and debtors were more often confined in Horsham Gaol, where a mixed population of men, women and children were sleeping three in a bed. The diary of Thomas Turner (1729-1793) shopkeeper of East Hoathly gives us some background:

January 11th, 1757. This day I gave a man 6d. who came about begging for the prisoners in Horsham Gaol, three of which are clergymen, two of them for acting contrary to the laws of men, but not, in my opinion, to the laws of God - that is for marrying contrary to the Marriage Act (of 1755). The other is for stealing linen; but I hope he is innocent.

April 16th, 1790. Abraham Chatfield was sentenced to seven years’ transportation for stealing one bushel of wheat in the chaff from the barn of John Coppard of Cuckfield. He was 22 years old, of previously good character, had a wife and one child and another daily expected.

War on the doorstep

Bates’s year in office coincided with the Napoleonic Wars, when the threat of invasion was constantly on the minds of people in Sussex. His diary and accounts portray Cuckfield as a community shaped by the constant movement of troops on foot and horseback. Soldiers were billeted in the local inns, while wagons rumbled through the village carrying out the business of military administration.

As part of his duties, Bates was responsible for arranging billeting accommodation in Cuckfield and the surrounding villages, including Ansty, Staplefield, Lindfield, Balcombe, Bolney, Pease Pottage, St John’s Common (which grew into what we know now as Burgess Hill), Slaugham, and Warninglid.

Bates recorded large numbers of men staying at the King’s Head, the Talbot, the Ship, the Rose and Crown, the White Hart and the Green Cross in Ansty. His notes also make clear that women and children travelled with some of the troops, with entries recording soldiers’ wives. That detail gives the record a human dimension,: war was not only about regiments on the move but also about families uprooted and lodged in parish communities that had to absorb them.

His duties included organising the movement of military baggage and arranging wagons provided by local farmers and tradesmen. His accounts include entries for men, horses and wagons arriving in both small groups and in larger formations, showing the administrative burden that military movement placed on a local officer. One entry records payment for seven wagons carrying baggage of the 10th Regiment of Light Dragoons from Cuckfield to Brighton Barracks, at a set rate per mile. The detail is valuable because it shows how military movements depended on civilian transport, local farmers, and careful accounting..

Here are a couple of examples from Bate'ss Diary recording soldiers arriving in the town in small groups and laegrer bodies of troops and one concerning payment for organising transport of military baggage:

17th May, 1813 4 men and 4 horses of the 10th Batry Regt came into Cuckfield.

18th May, 1813 2 troops 142 men and four officers and quartermaster 176 horses.

19th May, 1813 7 wagons 4 o’ clock Wednesday morning. Sent to Lindfield 40 men, 50 horses

19th May, 1813 2 troops 152 men 160 horses 8 wagons 1 team 4 horses.

Sent to Lindfield 52 men 56 horses

To the Treasurer of the Eastern part of Sussex to Edward Bates, Headborough of the Eastern part of the county [payment for]:

19th May, 1813 For seven wagons conveying of baggage belonging to the 10th Regt of Light Dragoons from Cuckfield to Brighton barracks being the distance of 15 miles' at 8d per mile each wagon £3 10s 0d.

Poor relief in practice

'Overseers of the Poor', who were appointed annually by the local vestry, looked after assessing and collecting the 'poor rate' (a local tax) which paid for the distribution of bread, money or goods to the deserving poor. As Headborough, Bates was in the front line of not only collectng the money but also distributing it to the needy.

He paid small sums, acting in effect as a relieving officer. The recipients included soldiers’ wives, sailors, sick travellers and former prisoners of war. The payments typically amounted to one or two shillings at a time. These modest sums suggest a system that was flexible but limited, relying on local discretion as much as official rules.

This broader experience of life contrasted with Bates's clockmaking activities which were largely in the service of the gentry and wealthier tradesmen. His records show a parish balancing charity, discipline, military demands and ordinary hardship. In one office, he encountered war widows, passing soldiers, debtors and the poor, all while maintaining a tradesman’s sense of order and meticulous bookkeeping.

A town under strain

His records paint a picture of Cuckfield as a market town under pressure from war, a busy coaching town and his own burdens of administrative responsibility. Bates’s diary captures invasion fears, troop billeting, baggage transport, poor relief and the punishment of offenders in one interconnected local system. It also shows how a watch and clockmaker could become a significant figure in the management of the parish when civic duty called.

When his year ended at the Court Leet, held at the Talbot Inn on 9 November 1813, his replacement was Robert Hart who was sworn into the office of Headborough. Bates’s service, however, had already left a rich written account of local life in Napoleonic wartime Sussex. Through the clockmaker's brief notes and financial records, Cuckfield emerges not as a quiet rural village, but as a working centre of administration where the demands of war, law and poverty had to be addressed by a thorough, authoritative and diligent parish officer.

Article based on a transcript by the author of Edward Bates Commonplace Book - a diary kept by Edward Bates (bn 1767 - d June 1845), Clockmaker in Cuckfield, From 1809-1834

Contributed by Malcolm Davison.

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