Chippenham <1>
6th May 1834
Dear Sir/
I send you the Plan & Elevation (& the estimate in another Cover) of the addition to the new Workhouse – I understand there will not be any blank Windows, but I should think that this addition to the Building will be rather an improvement from your Garden – in comparison with its present appearance & especially if you cover it with Ivy & other Creepers.
I hope to send you the Account of Tythe payable from your Land, in a few days – I presume you mean Vicarial Tythe – as all the rectorial is your own – in fee <2> –
I do not apprehend the consequences which you allude to, respecting the proportion between Rent & Tythe – The Poors <sic> Rate cannot, in any case, affect the Value of Tythe – except to the Receiver of the Tythe, who is charged with the Rate, after it is received – & I conclude that the Commissioners under the new Bill <3>, must estimate the Land to be with reference to the Value of it, for Produce – or it would be impossible that they would make an equitable award – as the Rent may be, from a variety of causes, much too high or too low – I should imagine therefore, that the Commissioners must have a discretionary power to estimate, according to local Circumstances – Perhaps you could let me see one of the Bills when they are printed –
I have not heard the subject of Sir A. Agnew’s <4> bill much discussed in this Neighbourhood – probably from the circumstance that the influential part of the Community generally set their faces against any flagrant profanation of the Sabbath & we therefore do not feel so much the want of a new Law, as Persons near the Metropolis – The number of the Minority makes one imagine, that a more reasonable Bill upon the subject, than the last, will be brought in, on a future occasion –
I am Dear Sir
Yr obliged Sert
W. H. Awdry
W. H. F. Talbot Esqr M.P.
31 Sackville Street
Piccadilly
London
Notes:
1. Chippenham, Wiltshire: largest town near Lacock, 3 miles N.
2. Before the Reformation, the rectorship of Lacock would have been vested in the Abbey and the parish would have been served by a vicar – the representative of the rector. After the Reformation, the lay owner of the Abbey became the nominal rector. WHFT therefore received rectorial tithe from his tenants, and the vicarial tithe was paid to the vicar, that is the clergyman. However it should be noted that the actual work of the parish was done by a curate.
3. Various Tithe Commutation Acts were passed between 1836 and 1860, which regularised the payment of tithe in money rather than in kind.
4. Sir Andrew Agnew, 7th Baronet (1793–1849), MP, Sabbatarian Promoter. He was first elected for Wigtonshire in 1830, sat until retirement in 1837.