We are indebted to Bill Willett for providing us with scans of Two Surveys of the Manor of Berkhamstead (with spreadsheets extracting relevant data) and the history of one of the town’s schools.
Two Surveys of the Manor of Berkhamstead
I. Survey by Sir John Dodderidge, Knight, One of H.M. Sergeants-at Law, dated 1607
II. Survey by John Norden, Deputy Surveyor to the King and Edward Salter High Steward of the Honor, dated 1616.
Concise History of the Free Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth
A Concise History of The Free Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth, at Berkhamstead, as detailed in the Report of the Relators in a suit instituted in the High Court of Chancery in Michaelmas Term, 1742, which finally terminated in 1842, with the new scheme for its future management, upon an enlarged system of classical and modern useful education. Also, the proceedings of the newly appointed governors, and the injunctions of the Rev. Lewis Sneyd, M.A. Warden of All Souls’ College, Oxford, the visitor.
Constables Accompts Book
At Berkhamsted Museum, the Local History Society is caring for an old Constables’ Accompts book, which tracks the activities of the various incumbents of this challenging role from 1748 to 1819. The book sets out the accounts of each pair of constables, elected at the regular Vestry meeting, as they took their turn each year from Michaelmas (in September).
In 1885, the book belonged to William Philbey of High Street Berkhamsted, a bootmaking son of Eliza Philbey, a laundress. Henry Bussell proudly wrote his name in the front of the book as “Constable for the King”. He took the post for two years from 1785 to 1786.
Read more about the Parish Constables of Berkhamsted, printed in the Berkhamsted Local History Society’s Chronicle volume III (2006).
Berkhamsted Local History & Museum Society 