CHAPTER VI THE ATTORNEY IN LOCAL SOCIETY THE Country attorney was an important figure in provincial society in the eighteenth century. His professional concerns placed him at the centre of affairs in many localities, and by the end of the century he was often to be found among the more energetic leaders of a greatly enriched provincial life. The evidence for this is scattered through all the specialised histories of the period, histories of families, estates, banking, commerce and politics. Indeed, a large part of the flesh which the local historians are attaching to the bones of eighteenth-century English history is based on documents which have come to the various record offices from solicitors' attics and strong-rooms. Even the catalogue of any one of these deposits gives a very clear picture of the great variety of ways in which the attorneys touched the life of the community in which they lived. The lists of the Tibbitts Collection at Sheffield may be taken as an example. These are the professional papers of a Sheffield attorney of the eighteenth century, Samuel Dawson, and of his predecessors and successors in the practice. There are a great number of deeds of all kinds, principally relating to Yorkshire, but occasionally to other parts of the country. There are copies of wills, leases and agreements; papers relating to partnerships of linen drapers, runners and casters of steel; a draft agreement of twenty-seven butchers to avoid causing nuisances with the garbage from the slaughter house; appointments of the surgeon of the workhouse; the papers relating to the Earl of Shrewsbury's Hospital in Sheffield; documents concerning the Cutlers' Company of Sheffield, lead mining, turnpike trusts, the Dove and Dearne Canal, the River Dun Navigation Company, and parish business of all kinds-apprenticeship indentures of pauper children, settlement disputes, disputes about rights of way, indictments for not repairing highways. There are papers relating to various criminal cases, and to cases of slander heard in the Consistory Court at York. The concern of Dawson and his colleagues with manorial business is shown in many ways— court rolls, rentals, presentments, maps, plans, and surveys are all carefully preserved. There is evidence of the work of this firm as clerks to the Town Trustees. There are the note-books kept by the articled clerks, a pamphlet describing a plan 'to remedy the great charge and delay of suits at law and in equity', and another relating to the proper conduct to be observed by the apprentice towards 'his master and the world'. Another Sheffield attorney was James Wheat, who practised at the end of the century.1 Wheat was a master in chancery, and one of the most important of some seventeen attorneys in the town. He had been articled to a local attorney, John Battie, and when Battie retired, had succeeded to his practice. In 1766 Wheat was clerk to the Capital Burgesses of Sheffield, and in 1778 he became one of the burgesses himself. He was solicitor to the Sheffield General Infirmary and the Charity Schools, and steward of the manor of Sheffield for the Duke of Norfolk. He succeeded Samuel Dawson as Clerk to the Town Trustees in 1777. He had financial interests in the Water Works, the White Lead Works, and the brewery. He was a target for the mob in 1791 because of the part he had played in securing the Cutlers' Act, and also for his concern in obtaining several local enclosure acts. He subscribed to the Tontine Inn, and was the government's agent for the building of new barracks in the town in 1792. Wheat had a large business in putting out his clients' money on mortgage, and occasionally he lent small sums himself: there are several letters from a neighbouring attorney in Paradise Square, Michael Burton, asking for loans of two or three guineas. Wheat acted as clerk to many ad hoc bodies in Sheffield, tithe committees, the committee for building a new poor house, and to those petitioning against the Park Road bill. He was concerned in the Brightside enclosure, and negotiated with Edward Barnell in London about soliciting the bill in Parliament.2 In 1777 he was appointed clerk and treasurer to the Sheffield-Wakefield turnpike in succession to Samuel Dawson, and for this he was paid an annual salary of £25, in addition to a monopoly of the legal work that 1 Details derived from J. B. Wheat, Wheat, a Family History (Sheffield, 1893); and from Wheat's own business and personal papers at Sheffield. See also R. E. Leader, Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century (Sheffield, 1901), pp. 190-2, for details of Wheat and other Sheffield attorneys of the eighteenth century. 2 It was the legal business which enclosures involved, and not so much the fees for secretarial work, that provided the profit in this kind of work. Wheat's fees for the Hallams enclosure were: 1791, £265. 11s. 8d.; 1792, £139. 19s. od.; 1793, £15. Is. 4d.; 1797, £120. 1s. od.; 1799, £112. os. od.; 1800, £214. 14s. 5d. (W[heat] C[ollection], 1240/3). founders in the way of estates and local bodies for which, like their predecessors, they are still concerned.1 Some of them continue to occupy the same premises in a Georgian house which had formerly served their founders for both home and office. A similar part was played by attorneys in the life of eighteenthcentury Birmingham.2 Most of the attorneys in the town appear in the local newspaper advertising property for sale. Thomas Steward was clerk to the Street Commissioners in 1761. Thomas Cecil received the money due to the weighing machine sold for the benefit of the poor. John Hallam was steward of the Carnation Show in 1775; John Meredith clerk to the builders of the canal from Birmingham to Worcester, to the Trustees for building the new Chapels of St Paul and St Mary in 1772, and the builders of the Coventry and Oxford canal in 1774; he was clerk to the Street Commissioners and the Birmingham Boat Company in 1770. Thomas Brock was secretary to the proprietors of the Birmingham Theatre in 1792; Charles Stuart clerk to the Guardians of the Standards of Wrought Plate in 1778. Thomas Gem acted as solicitor to the Committee of Button Manufacturers; Benjamin Parker was concerned for the Overseers of the Poor; William Smith was clerk to the Street Commissioners in 1791, and secretary to those enclosing Birmingham Heath in 1798, a matter in which Ambrose Mainwaring and Thomas Hunt were also employed. Messrs Barker and Unett were the solicitors to those rebuilding Deritend Bridge, to those opposed to the sale of Comin Square, to the committee of those who opposed the Water Works, and to the committee of Volunteers in 1804. Mr Simpson was Treasurer to the Button Association in 1799; John Brooke to the Church and King Club in 1792, and to the Association for the Protection of Liberty and Property. H. W. Gem acted as clerk and treasurer to the Trustees for enlarging St Martin's Churchyard in 1811; Richard Bird represented the Birmingham Union Fire Office in 1805; William Haynes, George Meredith, and John Meredith were commissioned in the Loyal Birmingham Volunteer Infantry in 1803. Lewis Thompson, who was a partner with Wrightson in the publication of the Birmingham Directory in 1808, had been an 1 There is one firm which claims direct descent from a sixteenth-century attorney; see Reginald Hine, Confessions of an Uncommon Attorney (London, 1945), and Relics of an Uncommon Attorney (London, 1951). 2 Details derived from J. A. Langford, A Century of Birmingham Life, 1741– 1841 (Birmingham, 1868), which is based on Aris's Birmingham Gazette. attorney, and returned to legal work on the dissolution of the partnership in 1812. The local histories and newspapers of other areas tell a similar story, and show the attorney in touch with local life at a large variety of points, and occupying a position near the head of the hierarchy of the provincial town.1 There are many examples of this. At Helston families of attorneys intermarried and formed a sort of lesser aristocracy in the town. The families of Grylls, Roberts, Hawkins, Johns, Plomer, Sandys, were town clerks, mayors, stewards of manors, well to the fore in all local affairs.2 It was commonly believed that attorneys occupied the best houses in town,3 and in King's Lynn they certainly did occupy residences appropriate to their position in the local community. There the Turners, John Mayer, Robert Underwood, Edward Bradfield, and Philip Case enjoyed such a station. Case, indeed, was a man of outstanding importance in King's Lynn and in Norfolk generally.5 He had been apprenticed to the town clerk of Lynn at the of sixteen in 1728.6 He was admitted an attorney in 1733, bought himself a large house in Lynn, married the daughter of a prosperous age 1 The profession continued to attract a wide variety of men; they were agents only, and ministered to the needs of their community, whatever they might be. William Hall, an attorney of Barnard Castle, advertised in the Newcastle Journal that he would take in laundry to be bleached by John Flanders of Crathorne, Yorks. 2 See H. S. Toy, The History of Helston (Oxford, 1936), especially Appendix 30 by J. P. Rogers on 'Families connected with Helston'. See also chapter IX below on Christopher Wallis. 3 'A Lawyer now was to be found; And where's the spot of British ground, Where our experience doth not show (Dr Syntax's Tour in Search of Consolation (London, 1820), pp. 170–1.) On the houses of country attorneys, see also Samuel Foote, The Orators (1762) (Foote's Lecture), and Crabbe's The Borough (1801), Letter vi, 'The Profession of the Law'. * See H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence, 'The Merchants of Lynn', in A Supplement to Blomefield's History of Norfolk, ed. Clement Ingleby (London, 1929), pp.145203. For the Turners, see J. H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole: the Making of a Statesman (London, 1956). There is some correspondence between Walpole and Charles Turner, an attorney, in the Cholmondely (Houghton) MSS. in Cambridge University Library. 5 Details derived from Bradfer-Lawrence. • His first master, Edward Bradfield, was dismissed in 1728, and Case continued with his successor, Robert Underwood. Of Bradfield it was said: 'His fine Patrimony, And a Profession wherein he excell'd, Gave him Independency, And every Enjoyment that could make Life agreeable: But alas! his accepting doctor, Walpole's friend George Hepburn, and quickly acquired an exceedingly prosperous practice, numbering among his clients Townshends,1 Walpoles, Pastons, Turners, Paytons, Wyndes, Spelmans, and Beveys. After serving as deputy clerk of the peace for Norfolk, he became clerk in 1760. He was steward of many manors, and became Comptroller of Customs at Lynn, Wisbech, and Wells in 1754. He purchased his freedom at Lynn in 1733, and was mayor in 1745, 1764, 1777, and 1786. He was deeply involved in politics with Townshend at Lynn and with Townshend's son at Yarmouth. With all this he made a large fortune, and died in 1792 leaving extensive properties in Lynn and the county, and £100,000 in the funds, having from 1745 'virtually controlled the public and social life of Lynn',3 the valued friend and adviser of Walpoles and Townshends alike. Similarly at Liverpool it was men like William Roscoe and his kind who took the lead in local affairs.4 Roscoe was articled to an attorney in 1769, and was admitted in 1774. He went into partnership first with Mr Bannister, and afterwards with Samuel Aspinall, an attorney who had 'long been known for the respectability of his practice'. Roscoe's profession became increasingly distasteful to him, and he left it in 1796, not, however, before he had achieved considerable prosperity by it, and become one of the most prominent citizens of Liverpool.6 the Office of Town Clerk subjected him to Servility, And to every Disappointment That could make Death desirable' (Epitaph written by William Brown, printed in W. Richards, History of Lynn (Lynn, 1812), 11, 915). Bradfield died in 1736 at the age of 47. 1 One of his brothers, Edward, was agent to the 3rd Viscount; another brother, Thomas, was an attorney. 2 See the letters printed in Bradfer-Lawrence, op. cit. pp. 193–9. 3 Bradfer-Lawrence, op. cit. p. 200. 4 Dr Chandler quotes a poem from the Roscoe Papers with reference to the part played by Roscoe and his friends in local affairs: 'But unluckily then in the Town (George Chandler, William Roscoe of Liverpool (London, 1953), p. 52.) • See the letters Roscoe wrote to his wife, printed ibid. pp. 205-6: 'I am almost disgusted with my profession as it affords me a continual opportunity of observing the folly and villany of mankind.' |