Catalogue description RECORDS OF BOARDS OF HIGHWAY DISTRICTS: established under the Highway Acts 1862 and 1864

Composition of Highway Districts in Hertfordshire

Buntingford District (1868-1880)

Anstey,

Ardeley or Yardley,

Ashwell,

Aspenden

Barkway

Barley

Broadfield

Buckland

Cottered

Hinxworth

Great Hormead

Little Hormead

Kelshall

Layston (including Buntingford)

Meesden

Nuthampstead, added 5 January 1869

Reed

Royston

Rushden

Sandon

Therfield

Throcking

Wakeley

Wallington

Westmill,

Wyddial.

Hadham District (1868-1899)

Albury,

Braughing,

Eastwick

Gilston

Little Hadham

Much Hadham

Hunsdon

Brent Pelham

Furneux Pelham

Stocking Pelham

Sawbridgeworth,

Standon,

Stanstead Abbots

Thorley

Thundridge

Ware, except Ware Local Board of Health

Wareside

Widford, added 5 January 1869.

Hatfield District (1868-1880)

Ayot St. Lawrence

Ayot St. Peter

Codicote

Digswell

Essendon

Hatfield

Kimpton

North Mimms

Northaw

King's Walden

St. Paul's Walden

Welwyn

Hertford District (1868-1880)

Great Amwell

Little Amwell

Aston

Bayford

Bengeo

Benington

Little Berkhampstead

Bramfield

Brickendon

Broxbourne

Datchworth

Hertford, All Saints, St. Andrew, St. John, except area within borough of Hertford

Hertingfordbury

Great Munden

Little Munden

Sacombe

Stanstead St. Margarets

Stapleford

Tewin

Walkern

Watton

Wormley

Hitchin District (1868-1891)

Baldock, until Local Board of Health established 1873

Bygrave, removed 18 October 1890

Caldecote

Clothall

Graveley

Hexton

Hitchin, except area of Local Board of Health (even though this body was not functional between 1858 and 1873); separately represented hamlets

Langley added 5 April 1870

Preston added 5 April 1870

Walsworth added 5 April 1870

Ickleford

Ippollitts, removed 19 October 1882

Knebworth, added 20 October 1868, removed 18 October 1883

Letchworth

Lilley

Newnham

Norton

Offley

Pirton

Radwell

Shephall, removed 28 June 1882

Stevenage, until Local Board of Health established 1873

Weston

Willian

Great Wymondley, removed 2 January 1884

Little Wymondley, removed 2 January 1884

St. Albans District (1868-1880)

Chipping Barnet, except Barnet Local Board of Health and East Barnet Valley Local Board of Health (established 1874)

East Barnet, until East Barnet Valley Local Board of Health established

Elstree

Harpenden

Redbourn

Ridge

St. Albans, St. Michaels, St. Peters, St. Stephens, except area within borough of St. Albans

Sandridge

Shenley

Totteridge

Wheathampstead

Watford District (1868-1884)

Aldenham

Bushey

Abbots Langley

Leavesden, hamlet in Watford parish

Rickmansworth

Sarratt

Theobald Street, hamlet in Aldenham parish

Watford, except area of Watford Local Board of Health

The extant records of the Hatfield and Hertford Highway Boards were acquired in 1955 from the former offices of Passingham and Hill at Hitchin, while those of the Hitchin Highway Board, to which G.A. Passingham had been clerk, had got among some of the records of the Hitchin Board of Guardians which were deposited by the secretary of Lister Hospital, Hitchin, in 1952 (Accession 439). A minute-book of the Buntingford Highway Board, which appears to have passed with the records of the Buntingford Rural Sanitary Authority to the Buntingford (and subsequently Braughing) Rural District Council, was transferred to the County Record Office by East Hertfordshire District Council Council in 1974 (Official Accession 205), and the previously missing volume of minutes of the Hadham Highway Board was also deposited by East Hertfordshire District Council in the same year (Official Accession 211). No records of the Watford Highway Board have been deposited in the County Record Office.

Neither the 1878 nor 1894 Acts made provision for the transfer of records to the authorities assuming the functions of highway boards, except where the successor body was coincident in area, but, in cases where the clerks to the former highway boards served the succeeding authorities also, there was often an unofficial transfer of the records. The county council experienced some difficulty in consequence of the lack of highway records and in 1903 the Clerk of the Peace and Clerk of the County Council, (Sir) Charles Elton Longmore, made an attempt to obtain highway board records for deposit with the County Surveyor. The records of two boards were obtained at that time from the successors to the practices of the former clerks: St. Albans from Albert Rowden, and Hadham from Richardson, Foxwell and Hart (except for the minute-book, 1882-1899, which could not be traced). Negotiations with George Passingham (successor to the practice of W.M. Armstrong) for the acquisition of the records of the Hatfield and Hertford Highway Boards were for some reason not completed and most of their records have since been lost.

• Hertfordshire

Legislative background, 1835-1862

The parochial system of road maintenance established by the Highway Act, 1555 (2 & 3 Philip and Mary c. 8) was altered in several important respects by the Highway Act, 1835 (5 & 6 Wm. IV c. 50), but road maintenance still remained the responsibility of the parish, acting through an annually elected surveyor of highways. Sections 13-15 of the 1835 Act enabled two or more parishes to apply to the justices of the peace in quarter sessions or special sessions (or, after 1864, also in petty sessions) to be united in highway districts having a salaried district surveyor, but each parish was to remain responsible for its own assessment, rate collection and expenditure (sections 16-17). The supposed advantages to be obtained from belonging to such a district were the employment of a more skilled person to supervise repairs, greater uniformity of method and greater efficiency in management. However, little advantage was taken of these provisions in the country as a whole and no highway districts appear to have been formed in Hertfordshire under this Act. Section 18 of the Act provided that, in parishes which had a population in excess of 5000 at the last census, the rights and duties of the surveyor of highways could, by the vote of two-thirds of the ratepayers assembled at a vestry meeting, be assumed by a board of between five and twenty persons, who might appoint a salaried assistant surveyor to supervise the work.

Under this provision a parochial board of surveyors was established in 1856 at Bishop's Stortford (for its minutes see D/P 21/24/1) and it remained in being until 1868 when its powers were transferred to a Local Board of Health (for records of these authorities see class LBH). A similar parochial board existed in Hemel Hempstead from 1840 to 1898 and others appear to have operated in Watford and Rickmansworth during the late 1880s. The adoption of this expedient elsewhere in Hertfordshire was limited firstly by the requirement as to population and secondly by the transfer of highway responsibilities in other populous places to Local Boards of Health formed under the Public Health Act, 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. 63) or the Local Government Act, 1858 (21 & 22 Vict. c. 98). The areas of jurisdiction of Local Boards of Health were not necessarily coincident with parish boundaries and could be more or (usually) less extensive than a parish, with the result that responsibility for highways might be divided between different bodies in the same parish (for example, in Watford the Local Board of Health managed the highways in the town itself while the rest of the parish was under the jurisdiction of a district highway board 1868-1884 and later of a parochial board). The parochial unit was also disregarded for highway purposes in the case of boroughs recognised by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835 (5 & 6 Wm. IV c. 76) or subsequently incorporated by charter, which had assumed the powers of a Local Board of Health, and certain other places which were managed by Improvement Commissioners or which exercised highway functions under a Local Act. With these exceptions the unit of administration in highway matters remained the parish until 1862.

Highway Acts, 1862 and 1864

The Highway Act, 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. 61) enabled the justices in quarter sessions to form compulsory unions of parishes for highway purposes. By sections 5 and 6, any five justices could require the court to consider a proposal to constitute the whole or any part of the county a highway district. If their motion was accepted, provisional orders were to be issued and either confirmed within six months by final orders or amended by further provisional orders. Under section 7, highway districts were not to include any area under the jurisdiction of a Local Board of Health (or by section 41 any area subsequently forming one), any parish or part of a parish within a borough without the consent of both the borough council and the vestry, nor (without its consent) any parish which either already had a parochial highway board or chose to form one within six months of the passing of the Act. Parishes which were not qualified to exclude themselves by any of these means had no power to resist inclusion in a highway district. Under section 39, quarter sessions could alter the composition of a district by addition or subtraction of parishes, or could dissolve the entire district by procedure similar to that for its formation, but there was no provision, as there had been in respect of districts formed under the 1835 Act, for parishes to withdraw without the approval of quarter sessions.

Highway districts formed under the 1862 Act were to be managed by a board consisting of the justices resident in the district, together with waywardens elected annually by each parish in place of surveyors. The powers of the parish surveyors were vested in the board as a corporate body, which was to appoint a treasurer, clerk and district surveyor, whose salaries and other expenses of administration were to be charged to a district fund to which each parish was to contribute in proportion to the average of its expenditure on highways in the preceding three years (amended by the 1864 Act to be in proportion to its rateable value). Though the highway board was to maintain the highways and levy a precept for that purpose, the expenses incurred in road maintenance were to be borne by the parishes individually, according to the work performed in each. It was not until 1878 that this principle was altered so that all expenses were deemed to be for the common benefit of the district.

The principal amendments made by the Highway Act, 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. 101) related to accounting procedure. Accounts were to be made up and balanced to 31 December each year, examined by the board within one month, signed by the chairman and audited by any fit person not being a member or officer of the board. An annual general statement of receipts and expenditure was to be returned to the Home Office and printed copies were to be circulated to all members of the board, overseers of the poor in all parishes within the district, and (on payment of one penny) to any ratepayer who required a copy. The form of the statement was prescribed by the Home Office (whose functions in this respect were assumed by the Local Government Board in 1871), but no form was laid down for the keeping of accounts. A degree of uniformity in accounts procedure and records was nevertheless brought about by the widespread adoption of systems based on manuals which enjoyed quasi-official approval. The boards established in Hertfordshire appear to have been equally divided between those which adopted the system produced by Shaw and Sons and those which favoured the system of Knight and Company.

Further legislation affecting the operation of highway boards, 1878-1894

Major changes in the law relating to highway administration were made by the Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 77). The procedure of highway boards was also affected by the District Auditors Act, 1879 (42 Vict. c. 6), the Highway Accounts Returns Act 1879, (42 & 43 Vict. c. 39) and, most importantly, by an order having statutory effect issued by the Local Government Board, 29 April 1879. The re-organisation of local government in 1888 and 1894 eventually terminated the existence of the few remaining highway boards.

With regard to highway board procedure, the most important provision of the 1878 Act was section 7, whereby the expenses of maintaining roads, and not merely the administrative expenses, were to be charged to the district fund contributed by the parishes in proportion to their rateable values. The most important alteration in the sphere of responsibility for highways was the provision, by section 13, that roads which had ceased to be maintained by turnpike trusts since 31 December 1870, were to be deemed "main roads", for which half the expense of maintenance was to be paid by the county authority (quarter sessions until 1888, thereafter the county council) out of a county rate. Highway authorities (whether parishes, urban sanitary districts, or highway districts) could apply, under section 15, to the county authority for an order declaring other important roads to be "main roads", but the county authority could also reduce main roads to the status of ordinary highways under section 16. By sections 13 and 18, annual accounts of expenditure on main roads were to be submitted to the county surveyor for his certificate that the work had been performed satisfactorily and in accordance with such other conditions as the county authority might prescribe.

In forming or altering the boundaries of highway districts, the county authority was directed by section 3 to "have regard to the boundaries of the rural sanitary districts" (the Poor Law Guardians acting as sanitary authorities under the Public Health Act, 1872), but it was not obliged to make existing highway districts coincident in area with them. Where the two kinds of district were conterminous, the sanitary authority might apply to exercise powers over highways and the highway board was thereupon to be dissolved and thenceforth no waywardens or parish surveyors were to be elected (section 4). These provisions were not applied in Hertfordshire as none of the highway districts was coincident in area with a Poor Law Union.

The cumulative effect of the statutory order and Acts of 1879 was that the accounts procedure was standardised and subjected to much stricter audit. The form of all the principal books of account was prescribed by the Local Government Board so that there was a complex system of multiple entries and cross-references (see: George Gibson, An Exemplification of the General Order for Accounts ... relative to Highway Boards (London, [1879]), available in the search-room library). Accounts were to be balanced to 25 March each year, certified by the District Auditor (an official appointed by the Government) who was to return a simplified financial statement to the Local Government Board, while a more detailed statement of receipts and expenditure was to be printed and distributed to the parishes. The only returns required to be made to the county authority (quarter sessions) were those in respect of main roads.

From 1882 until the establishment of county councils, Parliament made an annual grant to highway authorities in respect of one quarter of their expenditure on main roads, in addition to the half that was paid out of the county rate. These payments, and the statements of account on which they were based, were brought to an end by the Local Government Act, 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) which made county councils entirely responsible for the cost of maintaining main roads (though the maintenance work could be contracted out to other authorities) and transferred to them the power of quarter sessions to decide whether or not a particular highway was to be a main road. The power to form, alter or dissolve highway districts was not transferred to county councils and remained with courts of quarter sessions until the fate of highway boards was sealed by section 25 (1) of the Local Government Act, 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) which established rural district councils as highway authorities in place of parishes and highway districts. County councils were empowered to postpone the operation of this section for three years, or for a longer period if approved by the Local Government Board. In Hertfordshire, this opportunity was taken to prolong the life of the sole remaining highway district and the highway responsibilities of the parochial and other authorities until 1899.

District Highway Boards in Hertfordshire

In 1868, highway administration in Hertfordshire was entirely parochial except for the turnpike roads and urban roads administered by the corporations of the boroughs of Hertford and St. Albans and the Local Boards of Health of Barnet, Bishop's Stortford, Cheshunt, Tring, Ware and Watford. At the Epiphany Session, 1868, the justices of the peace for the county and the Liberty of St. Alban decided to divide the whole of Hertfordshire into eight highway districts. Despite considerable local opposition, orders constituting seven districts became final in April 1868 (see Quarter Sessions Books). The first elections of waywardens were held on 29 May and the boards first met on 12 June 1868. The composition of the seven districts is shown at the end of this introduction. The intended eighth district, Hemel Hempstead (which was to have comprised the parishes of Aldbury, Bovingdon, Flamstead, Flaunden, Great and Little Gaddesden, Kensworth, King's Langley, Puttenham and Wigginton, but would have excluded Great Berkhamsted, Hemel Hempstead, Northchurch and Tring), was not established, probably because of the practical difficulties which would have attended the administration of such a scattered area.

No alterations in the boundaries of highway districts were made by quarter sessions as a result of the Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878, but demands for the removal of parishes or the dissolution of districts as a whole soon arose in consequence of the Act's provision that the burden of highway expenditure should be shared between all the parishes in a district in proportion to their rateable value. In response to this pressure the Buntingford, Hatfield and Hertford districts were dissolved in April 1880, and St. Albans district in June 1880, but several of the boards continued to meet for some time in order to settle their accounts and distribute any remaining assets to the parishes which resumed responsibility for maintaining their own highways. The Watford district was dissolved in January 1884 and the area of the Hitchin district, which had already been diminished by the formation in 1873 of Local Boards of Health at Baldock, Hitchin and Stevenage, was reduced by the removal of several parishes: Ippollitts and Shephall in October 1882; Knebworth, October 1883; Great and Little Wymondley, January 1884; and Bygrave, October 1890. When the Hitchin district was altogether dissolved in November 1891, only one highway district remained in existence. The Hadham district had escaped dissolution in 1880 because the mortgagees who had advanced money to meet the cost of an improvement at Widford insisted that to charge the debt to Widford alone (as was required by law) would reduce the security for their loan. Quarter sessions refused to dissolve the district until the mortgagees were satisfied, but no alternative arrangement appears to have been made. Dissatisfaction with the operation of the district declined as the burden of maintaining main roads was shifted to the county council entirely in 1888 and further routes were declared main roads in the 1890s, and the Board and the parishes appear to have been fully in favour of the prolongation of its existence by the postponement of the implementation of section 25(1) of the Local Government Act, 1894, until 31 March 1899. From that date the maintenance of local roads became the responsibility of district councils, while main roads remained the responsibility of the county council.

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