Act
A Bill (proposal) to Parliament, which has
been passed. For a Bill to be passed, assent
has to be given by the House of Commons, the
House of Lords and the monarch. Royal assent
is now merely a formality – it has not been
refused since 1708.
Bill
A draft proposal to parliament for a new law
or to change an existing law. If the proposal
is passed, it becomes an Act of Parliament.
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Chancery hand
A set style of handwriting used in the royal
chancery at Westminster for the engrossing
of royal letters patent, writs and enrolments.
Many government departments had their own set
style of handwriting, which had evolved purely
from a desire for distinctiveness, rather than
concern for legibility. During the Commonwealth
(1649-1660) such set hands were banned, along
with the use of Latin in domestic administrative
documents. Records were to be written in English
and in an ordinary and legible hand. But the
restoration of Charles II also restored all
such set hands, which returned as idiosyncratic
as ever. An Act of Parliament in 1731 (which
came into force in 1733), declared that all
records should be written in a common legible
hand. The only exception was the enrolment
of Acts of Parliament on Parliament rolls,
for which Chancery hand continued to be used
until 1836.
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Enrolled
Written on to a roll, to be kept as a permanent
record.
Membrane
A 'skin' or page of parchment.
Roll
Rolls consist of rectangular sheets of parchments
called membranes, sewn together and rolled
up to form a cylinder. Chancery and Parliament
rolls are made of membranes sewn end to end
and rolled up. Exchequer rolls are made of
membranes placed in a pile and sewn together
along the top, before being rolled up.
Toll
A payment. In the case of toll or turnpike
roads, a toll would be made for permission
to use the road.
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Turnpike road
A road for which a charge is made to use it.By
a statute of 1555 parishes were responsible
for repairing roads that ran through them but
the growing volume of traffic made this increasingly
difficult. It was illegal for a toll to be
charged on a public highway without the consent
of the Crown and Parliament. Once consent was
given, all road users could be stopped at gates
across the road and charged a fixed amount
to use the road, determined by the amount of
damage each was considered to cause to the
road. People on their way to church were exempt.
The first turnpike road was
established in 1663 and ran between Wadesmill
and Royston in Hertfordshire. Between 1751
and 1772, 389 new Turnpike Acts were passed.
A trust would be set up to administer the road.
Trustees
Turnpike trusts were administered by trustees
or commissioners appointed by the individual
Turnpike Act. The number of men appointed as
trustees named in each act could vary from
about 30 to over 400, with the average number
in the mid 1700s standing at 200. (Size was
a feature of 18th-century public bodies.) Only
a few trustees would actually attend meetings.
Trustees were generally local men of standing:
noblemen, gentlemen, Members of Parliament,
justices of the peace, influential local landowners
and clergymen. Trustees could appoint surveyors,
arrange for the repair and upkeep of the roads,
erect gates and appoint toll collectors.
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