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This page is part of a website based
on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric
Alexander with any comments or queries. |
Gosport administration
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Cort came to Gosport when it was a
boom town, rapidly growing – second only in size to Portsmouth among the
Hampshire towns, bigger even than both Southampton and the county town of
Winchester.
From George Watts's contribution to West
Street Trail (ed Eric Alexander, 2000) |
Because its status has failed to keep up with its growth,
eighteenth-century Gosport lacks a town charter. No mayor or burgesses: it has to make do with Paving Trustees (or
Commissioners) set up by special Act of Parliament.
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An Act for the better paving of the
Streets and for preventing Nuisances and other Annoyances in the town of Gosport
in the County of Southampton.
Statute of 1763 quoted by the Gosport Trustees to uphold their status
in a dispute in 1800. |
White’s The Story of Gosport gives an account of this
Act, and lists the trustees initially named – nearly 50 in all. William Attwick
is one. Other Gosport
worthies who feature in the Cort story are amongst those listed.
How they deal with paving, nuisances and annoyances is recorded
in minute books now held at Hampshire Record Office.
Their earliest recorded meeting: 9 May 1763 at the India Arms,
Middle Street – “the largest and most dignified of the beer houses, with
capacious stabling at the rear”, according to The Story of Gosport –
just over the road from Attwick’s shop.
Meetings continue there until December 1769, when one is held at the
Crown Inn. Later there are meetings at
the White Lyon and the Dolphin.
On 7 October 1768, we read, the trustees resolve that “Mary Biddlecomb
be admonished to throw no cabbage leaves or any Garden filth into the footway,
gutters or Horseway of the Streets of Gosport.”
On 1 November 1779 “Mr Henry Cort be summoned to appear at the
next meeting” to say why he should not be “fined for depositing coal and
cinders on the Green”.
On 24 April 1780 “Mr Cort at liberty to fence in the wharf which
he rents of Mr Child”.
In December 1800 a dispute is recorded with the military about
their right to block off rights of way in the town.
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The Roads within the town of Gosport
are vested in the Trustees and that they alone can exercise jurisdiction over
them and that His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the Courts have no
power to act herein under the Highway Acts or any other Act of Parliament..
From statement by Gosport Trustees in a dispute in 1800. |
Related files |
henrycort.net
gp