In February 2013 I attended a lecture at the Wallace Collection in London given by Joan Reid. I had recently joined the Westminster Arts & Decorative Fine Arts Society and Joan was a member. She had publicised her talk at the club, so I went along to hear her lecture which is copied below.
Joan Reid
At the end of the lecture Joan asked for volunteers to help look into the Overseers records, which she explained were plentiful and were held at Westminster City Archives.
Being a keen family historian myself I was excited by such a project and found myself a week later in Joan’s study at her home in Westminster. Also present was Fiona whom Joan had met when she lived in Singapore.
From that small start we began firstly to compile a list of all the Overseers from records starting 1584 up until 1834. Later through research we added as much personal details about the Overseers we could find from various sources. We wanted to find out who these men were, where they lived, their occupations, families, and the other civic duties they performed. In short we wanted to produce the social history of the Overseers.
Much to our great surprise our Elizabethan Overseers were to provide a rich source of information.
Joan herself was a Past Overseer of Westminster and over time we produced for the current Society of Past Overseers small booklets, featuring the lives of the most colourful Past Overseers we discovered during our research.
Over the next five years I made internet searches and recorded the information. Joan and Fiona would then input the data into our ever growing database. Joan and Fiona were the experts at putting the booklets together.
We planned to publish the database on the internet but found it difficult to find a provider of such a service. We continued our work together, which we greatly enjoyed and over time Joan became a very dear and much loved friend.
Sadly Joan passed away on 10thNovember 2017 before we could complete our project. This WordPress blog, which will contain as much as possible of the information we compiled, is dedicated to a wonderful lady it was my pleasure and honour to work with. She is greatly missed.
Anne Lewis
WALLACE LECTURE BY JOAN REID
“Good afternoon. My name is Joan Reid and in real life I am the historian of the Benjamin Franklin House in Craven Street, off Trafalgar Square. My task today is to interest, intrigue, and make you take a closer look at this most unusual set of silver boxes owned and preserved by the Past Overseers’ Society for the last 300 years. They have been seen publicly very rarely and so this is a great opportunity for many people to see them on display”.
Original Horn Box, 1713.
WHO WERE THE OVERSEERS and WHY WERE THEY PAST?
“I want to go over very briefly the history of the treatment of the Poor in England before I move on to the early story of the Past Overseers’ Society, and the reasons for creating this unique set of silver inscriptions. After that, if you are still with me, I shall describe a selection of the inscription. As there are about 500 of them this will be short journey into a huge forest of events.
Let us go back in time to at least King Henry Vlll in the early 1500s. Although the poor, sick, homeless, and insane had always been around, in general they had been looked after by the Feudal agrarian social system, and the beneficence of the many Monasteries and Convents that catered for the needy. Two changes occurred. There was the beginning of the development of an urban society which sucked in indigent poor from the countryside, whilst at the same time the Dissolution of the Monasteries took away a large section of the voluntary help available. There were many more vagrants and beggars which led to the first of the State Laws trying to regulate alms giving. We are talking about the 1570s. The Overseers of the Poor were volunteers in the parish who collected donations from householders and distributed the results to the poor of their own parish. At this time there were many local philanthropists who gave small or large capital sums. The interest from the capital would be allocated to the poor by the Overseers. In Westminster several of these funds still exist and nowadays are gathered together in a larger fund and are available for grants to specific purposes. In the 17th century this led to the building and endowment of a great many almshouses, nowadays restored and considered local treasures.
However the history of our treatment of the Poor became a yo-yo pattern, as compassion gave way to discipline and punishment, and then returned to a more sympathetic approach.
The key dates are 1601 – 1782 – 1834 and 1906. The Overseers became official in each Parish by the introduction of the Elizabethan Poor Law Act of 1601. The tax was made compulsory on all householders but the position of Overseer remained unpaid. By 1782 the arguments had started whether to support people in their own homes or in specially built institutions, which led to the establishment of Workhouses rather than Poor Houses. By 1834 when the revolutionary, contentious Poor Law Act was finally passed, the country was encouraged to be peppered with workhouses and semi-prisons. By 1906 sentiment had begun to swing the other way and the first Social Policy Acts promoted a more liberal regime.
The Overseers survived most of these policy changes as the Parish remained the unit of administration until the 20th century. In Westminster the Justices of the Peace in the parish of St Margaret’s selected its Overseers, who then voluntarily formed a Past Overseers’ Society sometime in the late 1600s. This included the retired Overseers, the new Overseers and usually some of the Churchwardens. The purpose was officially to discuss parish affairs with each other, share problems and pass on advice and counselling.
The Past Overseers Society inevitably became one of the hundreds of Clubs, Societies, Academies, and Institutions that characterised the enthusiasm for improvement that flooded the newly urbanised cities of England. In 1660 the return of the monarchy, coupled with the freedoms which the Enlightenment encouraged, created a uniquely British set of Associations in which learning, self-development and purely social communication flourished.
From 1660 there was also a prolific growth of taverns, inns, public houses, coffee houses and alehouses which encouraged the meeting of like- minded people, and the formation of clubs, societies, academies and institutions. Each of them promoted different values, interests and reasons for coming together. Most, but not all were male. Many were purely social but most had definite self-improvement purposes, and could be considered part of the Enlightenment, particularly in Britain, in contrast to the Salon type gathering in France.
The tendency for small groups to develop locally is most obvious in the plethora of Freemason Lodges that were established in the 18th century.
The Past Overseers of Westminster met in various taverns to discuss, yes, but also to eat, drink and smoke the favourite weed ‘tobacco’. The mixture of serious and social made the Club a most attractive and popular part of a gentleman’s life. The original groups were usually Clubs, meaning that they added together the costs of the evening then divided it amongst themselves to share the bill. But as our Society became established it adopted more of the formal admission requirements such as subscription and fines for absence. It also developed a set of ceremonies to hand over positions and responsibilities. The arrival of the Horn Tobacco Box in 1713 became the catalyst that created a formal ceremony of custodianship, and transfer, that could match any of the London Societies.
Our Overseers were those of the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist in Westminster. St Margaret had been one parish until the opening of St. John the Evangelist in 1728. The parishes then split into two Vestries until they were amalgamated once again in 1855.
Who were the Overseers and what were their duties? Each Parish in England had to select 2 Overseers each year. People could refuse the office but had to pay a fine or find a suitable replacement. Their duties were to collect the Poor Rate levied on all householders and distribute it to the Poor of the Parish. This would include the workless able-bodied male, the homeless family, the indigent female with children, the sick, the infectious, the insane, the feckless and the vagrant. This was not an easy role for a Volunteer, but the most burdensome part was returning individuals or families who were not from the Parish to their own birthplaces. Quite often this involved travelling considerable distances with reluctant customers. Relief was often simply money, but it was also housing, skill training, medical advice and of course, restraint. At the end of each year an Overseer presented his annual account which had to be passed by the Parish. He then became a Past Overseer and could join the Society and hand his advice and experience to the new ones.
The Past Overseers met monthly in various venues over the years. First in Parliament Street, then in Palace Yard and for 29 years at the Swan Tavern in King Street, where supper was charged at 6 pence not 3 pence. Since there were no minutes, and much of the archive was lost in the 1940’s Blitz, we have only a sketchy idea of the conversations that took place. Parochial affairs, general disasters, fires and tragedies, but also of football in the Strand, and fights between the Linkmen, the Carrymen and the Ferrymen, jostling for custom on a dark night.
One of the ex- Overseers Henry Monck was accustomed to bringing his small horn tobacco box to the dinners, and when he retired in 1713 he donated the box to the Society, stipulating that they were to keep 3 ounces of tobacco in it. In 1720 when he died the Society decided to put a commemorative rim of silver on the box in his memory. This began the tradition of affording silver decorations and inscriptions, etchings and engravings to embellish not only the original horn box but the subsequent ones which were commissioned to contain the previous one. As all the boxes until modern times fitted inside each other, they of course grew larger and larger until the Victorian Box that seemed very fitting to represent the power and size of the British Empire in the late 19th century.
It is impossible to do justice to the amount of snippets of history recorded on the boxes either by inscription or engraving. What is not there is also interesting, for instance the War of Independence with the American Colonies and the French Revolution pass unnoticed. They were obsessed with births and deaths of Royalty, there were several naval battles, and many references to Nelson, Wellington and the Corsican interloper. Fire and accidents interest them, as did London building projects such as bridges and sewers.
Intriguing controversies are sprinkled alongside the births, marriages and deaths. None more so than one of the earliest etchings, the English Victory at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. This etching is rumoured to have been made by Hogarth, but already since this Exhibition began we have been advised that it was more probably by Henry Cheere, a well known sculptor of Westminster, whose name is also on the appropriate inscription”.
Joan then used slides to give a brief summary of the content of each case.
ORIGINAL HORN BOX.
1713 – 1720 William Hogarth – Sir Henry Cheere. Popularity of decorated horn boxes. Ours cost 4d.
See picture above.
FIRST CASE
- Story of the Fireworks in Green Park. Celebrating the Peace of Aachen which consolidated the succession of the Hanoverian Monarchs.
2. Altar piece of St. Margaret’s. 1757 -Seffrin Alken lime wood carving of Titian’s masterpiece ‘Supper at Emmaus’ inside bottom of case.
3. Inside lid JOHN WILKES .
4. First Case – Top inside. Engagement between French and English Fleets. Court Martial of Admiral Keppel.
These two engravings have political overtones.
- a) Wilkes had returned from exile in order to sit for Parliament, he had been arrested and imprisoned when this engraving was made. An indication of sympathy with one of their ex-church wardens perhaps?
- b) The court martial of Admiral Keppel caused a huge media furore. Keppel had turned down a position as naval Commander of the Fleet going to the Colonial Rebellion so was seen as sympathetic to their cause. He had no qualms about fighting the French, but was accused of deliberately not pursuing the enemy after the Battle of Ushant (off the Brittany Coast). The trial was accompanied by falsified logbooks, missing pages, etc. Keppel’s supporters were deliberately sent to sea whilst the Government Commanders were summoned to Portsmouth. Trial sponsored by Sandwich, backed by Lord North. Obviously there was a political agenda, typical of the atmosphere in England at that time when concerted energy was needed to pursue the American War especially when the French decided to support the Colonies. The Overseers of Westminster were showing where their sympathies lay.
SECOND CASE
Overseers at work.
THE THIRD CASE
Story of the Court Case and the Tobacco Box. Inside leaf with court case details.
1793 – Mr Reed when his accounts were not accepted refused to return the Box. Two other Overseers joined him and the Box was handed into the care of the Court. Efforts to retrieve the Box dragged on until at length the case was heard in Chancery by the Attorney General Lord Loughborough, who decreed that the Box be returned, with all costs to the defendants.
- To celebrate this a flyleaf was inserted in the current box with the event recorded on it.
FOURTH CASE
Numerous engravings. Coronation of George lV. Battle of Waterloo
Inside Bottom: Westminster Hall unlabelled, before 1824 when the case was full, therefore before the great fire in October 1835.
TRAFALGAR CIGAR BOX
Commissioned by St Margaret’s Vestry in 1806 to commemorate Nelson’s Victories. Transferred to the Past Overseers in 1906
On the Lid: Crocodile and inscription “Britain’s best Bulwarks are her wooden walls.”
The ends of the box depict the bow and stern of Nelson ship “Victory”.
There is also a plain covering case to hold the cigar box, made from a plank of the starboard gunnel of the ship severed by a shot during the Battle of Trafalgar. The Society honours Nelson with a silent toast at its annual dinner.
Trafalgar Cigar Box Case
Close up of Cigar Box Case
THE ST. JOHN’S SNUFF BOX AND CASES – (photos to be added later).
Acquired about 1800 a small snuff box. 4 cases recording events 1800 – 1840
- Small snuff box. Musical engraving
- Records Nelson’s victories Engraving include one of the Battle of the Nile, which led to the gift of Cleopatra’s Needle.
- The Wellington Box, His Victories, especially Salamanca and Waterloo.
- A round box commemorating Royal Weddings.
- Engraving of the restored St John’s Church.
On the bottom is an engraving illustrating the important Parliamentary Privileges Act of 1840. Case of Stockdale v Hansard settled the arguments about Parliaments right to publish anything without fear of libel. Mr Allen Sherriff of London was arrested and imprisoned for a short time for refusing to return the fine that Hansard had had to pay.
THE FIFTH CASE
Characterised by the increase in written records. From now on inscriptions commissioned almost every year. Very dense and difficult to read. Events of global interest next to parochial matters.
Death of Prince Albert. Big Ben’s installation. Opening of the new sewage system. Moving of the old Alms Houses.
THE ABBEY OAKEN CASE
Middlesex County Hall which became the famous Caxton Hall near St. James’ underground station.
One of my favourites, mostly because of the decoration. Apart from honouring Disraeli and Hatherley the Lord Chancellor, there is a portrait of Stanley Dean of Westminster, who was a wise, widely travelled, tolerant man, beloved by everyone. He said “My church is neither high nor low but broad”. 1885- Explosions at the Houses of Parliament and the Tower.
FOUR TUDOR ROSE DISHES
Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Dish 1: Arms of both Queen Elizabeth’s. Death of George V
Close up of Dish 1.
Dish 2: 1963- Past Overseers 250th anniversary. Return of Queen Elizabeth II from Commonwealth cruise.
Close up of Dish 2
Dish 3: Arms of the Lord Mayor of Westminster. Silver Jubilee coin Decimal currency, end of half crown. Arrival of the £1 coin.
Close up of Dish 3
Dish 4: 400 years of the City of Westminster. End of the halfpenny.
Close up of Dish 4
OTHER SILVERWARE –
CANDLESTICK.
SILVER RIM
THE SHARD.
THE NEW HORN BOX to start the next hundred years.
Joan thanked everyone for attending and finished by asking if anyone was interested in volunteering to continue helping her research the history of the Past Overseers of Westminster to contact her.
Collection of the early tobacco box and subsequent cases, including the Victorian case.
Past Overseers of St Margarets & St John's, Westminster 
What a fascinating story Anne, and amazing objects. I look forward to reading more!
LikeLike