Celebrating the Charters of Higham Ferrers

In 2018 Higham Ferrers was given a Heritage Lottery Grant to conserve its Charters. These were important historical documents but they were very old and in danger of disintegrating and being lost. The money was used to save them so that everyone could see them andm enjoy them in the future.

In 2019 the town celebrated the restoration and return of these Charters. The School celebrated with a week of fun and learning activities and took part in their own commemorative Charter film. 

The week ended at the Chichele Garden Fair with a display of pupils' scarecrows, model castles and other artwork.

Q. What is a Charter? 

A. A Charter is an agreement between the Lord of the Manor and the people of the town

The first Higham Charter was granted in 1251 to the people of Higham by the Lord of the Manor, William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, who owned Higham. It gave some of the people the freedom to marry whoever they wanted, the freedom to own things, the freedom to leave the town and live somewhere else, and the freedom to pass the farms they rented on to their children. And they did not have to work on the Earl’s land when he told them to.

When you are given some rights, you also have to accept some responsibilities. So the people of Higham Ferrers had to set up a law court and make sure the people obeyed the law. They also had to elect a mayor, look after the town’s mill and bakehouse and hold regular fairs and markets.

The Lord of the Manor was made wealthy as a result of this Charter. He owned a town that was safe for business, so trade increased as people from all around came to its fairs and markets. There was more money to spend so they could afford to build a second aisle for the church. Earl William was so pleased about Higham’s progress that he added his family’s name to ‘Higham’ making it ’Higham Ferrers’.

Q. Who lived in Higham in 1251?

A. In 1251 ninety-one citizens with their families lived in Higham, 300 of whom were freed

Among them were Thomas the Cook, Ralph the Cobbler, Andrew, son of Jocelyn, Ralph de Irthlingborough, Hugh at the gate of the Church, Walter Brun, Hugh Rufus, Simon Sely, Simon Halfpenny, Beatrice Kisse, and Muriel Bones. Their names tell you something about them: Thomas was a cook, one Ralph was a cobbler, another Ralph came from Irthlingborough, Hugh lived next to the church gate, Hugh had red hair, Andrew was Jocelyn’s son (so you didn’t confuse him with any other Andrews), Simon could have been happy, innocent, good, kind, or poor – the word “sely” had many meanings. I wonder what Beatrice and Muriel were famous for?

Q. What was it like to live in Higham in 1251?

A. Children and their parents worked hard, and most were very poor

Higham was made up of a number of small farms and cottages with vegetable gardens. Children aged 10 lived in a small wooden house with two rooms – one for the family and the other for their animals. They wore woollen tunics, shorts and stockings. Their food was pottage – a stew made of vegetables, beans and meat (rabbit or pork); black bread and cheese; and berries and fruit in the  autumn. If the weather had been bad, you would have gone hungry. The roads were only muddy tracks. The Castle was in the field behind the Green Dragon and a church was being built.

The father of a family was a serf which meant he was almost a slave. He could not leave Higham or choose a wife without the Earl’s permission and he could not own land or goods. He worked on the Earl’s land for three days a week and on his own land for the rest of the week. The boys would have worked in the field picking stones, sowing seeds and scaring the birds. They might have been able to learn to read and write but many didn’t. The girls stayed at home learning how to cook, sew, and make butter and cheese; girls never went to school. For fun the boys would play a very rough game called football and the girls would go shopping at the market.

Everyone got up as soon as it was light and went to bed when it got dark  because candles took a long time to make and they were not very bright. As they got older the boys learned farming and how to grow the family’s vegetables while the girls learned how to look after the house and the family’s animals – chickens, and perhaps a pig, a cow and a sheep. A few people in the town were shoemakers, there were some shop keepers and market traders and some builders and carters (people who made carts and transported goods). 

It was a hard life and most people only lived to be around 40 years old. There were no pensions, few medicines and no medical services. Now you can expect to live until you are 80 thanks to modern medicines and the National Health Service.

Q. And what happened to the Charter of 1251?

A. We lost it 

Somehow it just disappeared. When we looked for it 300 years later, we found we had lost it. So we asked Queen Mary (Henry VIII’s daughter and sister of Queen Elizabeth I) to please give us a new Charter. And she did.

Q. How many Charters were there?

A. Six in total but the first one was lost

Higham’s second charter was granted in 1556. Thank goodness, this new Charter confirmed all the rights and duties granted by the first Charter; the freedom to marry who you wanted to, the freedom to move out of Higham and the freedom to own land and goods. Higham also had to elect a mayor and councillors, set up law courts and hold fairs and markets.

But there were also new rights. Higham was allowed to hold 4 more fairs on the Market Square, each one lasting for 3 days on:  • St Thomas’s Day (23 February) • St Botolph’s Day (17 June) • St Michael’s Day (29 September) • St Katherine’s Day (25 November).

The Councillors of Higham could also elect a member of Parliament and they could spend the money left to Higham by Henry Chichele.

[Henry Chichele was born in Higham Ferrers in 1364 and became a very  important Englishman. When he was a young boy he showed great promise as a scholar and as a person of character. So he was educated to become a lawyer and a priest, eventually becoming Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII. Chichele became very wealthy and left money to build All Soul’s College at  Oxford, and Chichele College, a Grammar School and a Bede House in Higham Ferrers. The School and the Bede House are still standing and used by Higham people but the College is unfortunately a ruin apart from one building which is now used for exhibitions and community events].

We looked after this new Charter and still have it.

Q. Who lived in Higham in the 1550s?

A. Higham Ferrers was now owned by the Duchy of Lancaster and about 1000 people lived there in 1550

There was a mayor and a Council and most people still farmed, made flour and baked bread, made shoes and held regular markets.

The boys still started work in the field at the age of 7 and the girls still stayed at home learning about housework, cooking, weaving and sewing. By the age of 12 the girls would have been engaged to be married and by 14 they would have either been married or would have been employed as a servant in a wealthier family. Boys were apprenticed at the age of 14 – that is, they were taught a trade – so that in time they could become a farmer, miller, cartwright or  shoemaker. Even though they were full-time workers they would still be beaten for mistakes or bad behaviour.

Q. What was Higham like in the 1550s?

A. The houses and roads had not improved very much 

The Castle had been pulled down and most of the stone taken away to build Kimbolton Castle. The only things left of Higham Castle were the fish ponds, the dovecote and the rabbit warren. 

Henry Chichele’s College (in College Street) had been closed by Henry VIII and left to fall down, some of the stones being used to build houses in College Street. 

But the Church would have looked much like it is today and so would the Bede House and the Grammar School. The Wardeyn Cross was probably located somewhere else in the churchyard.

Q. How many Stuart Charters were there?

A. Three – the first of these Charters was granted by James I and the other two by Charles II

Queen Elizabeth I was the last of the Tudors. She had no children so the crown went to James I. James was the first of the Stuart kings who between them gave Higham Ferrers three new Charters.

This was the time of the English Civil War between the Parliament’s forces (The Roundheads) and the King’s army (The Cavaliers).

None of these Charters made much difference to Higham Ferrers; they just updated the old ones. The Charter of James I told the people to behave  themselves and he would protect them. He made a few small changes but agreed to all the old rights and privileges. The most exciting thing to happen was in 1631 when the Church spire fell down, but it was re-built in two years which just shows how wealthy Higham Ferrers had become!

The English Civil War began in 1642 and ended not far from Higham Ferrers at Naseby in 1651. It caused a few difficulties for the Lord of the Manor, but it didn’t affect most of the people of Higham Ferrers very much. 

In the Civil War some people supported the King and some supported  Parliament. The King’s supporters were known as Cavaliers and the supporters of Parliament were called Roundheads. In Higham, the Mayor, Thomas Rudd, supported the King. He was a very important man – the King’s Chief Engineer who wrote books about mathematics and military subjects. He was married three times, lived in Castle Yard in Higham and became Mayor of Higham. 

Another important man in Higham was Twyford Worthington. He was a  businessman and town councillor but he was a Roundhead so he was an enemy of Thomas Rudd. Life is very difficult when people in the same town (even in the same family) support two very different causes. It was rather like the arguments about “Brexit” but more a matter of life and death!

King Charles was tried and executed in 1649 and England was then ruled by Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell “The Lord Protector”. This period was known as “The Commonweath” and lasted until Oliver Cromwell died. 

Then Charles II became king in 1660 and one of the first things he did was to give Higham Ferrers a new Charter which had some new rights for the  people of the town: the Monday Market would now be held on a Thursday and the Saturday Market could sell horses and cattle. The King also allowed Higham Ferrers to have two more fairs. They would be held on Thursdays and would be great occasions with stalls and feasting and dancing and lots of fun and games.

But, once again, with rights come duties and the King told Higham’s Mayor, councillors, judges and public servants to swear an oath that they were members of the Church of England and not Roman Catholics or Dissenters who could not hold important offices. 

Q. What was Higham like in the 1600s when the Stuarts were kings?

A. The Civil Wars meant that sometimes the armies raided towns and villages for food – animals and crops – so ordinary people went hungry. 

But gradually things got a little better and by the end of the century most people had a reasonable diet although it was still hard work to produce enough for your family. 

A few more people lived in Higham now – perhaps 1,200 men, women and children. Sickness and disease were always present; in particular there was the Plague which killed hundreds of thousands of people and there was no cure for it. [When the village of Eyam in Derbyshire found they had the plague they refused to let anyone enter it and catch the disease – and every single person in the village died.]

People still played games and enjoyed sports. Their favourites seem cruel to us – cock fighting, bear, badger and bull baiting (when the animal was chained to a post and dogs set on it to tear it to pieces), dog fighting, and football. Two new games were beginning to become popular – Golf which started in Scotland and Cricket which started in the south of England.

Girls still did not go to school and boys only went until they were 12. Some boys went to Grammar Schools like the one in Higham and a few wealthy boys were sent to famous schools – like the school at Winchester where Henry Chichele went – and they usually went on to Oxford or Cambridge University to become lawyers and important people in the government and the Church. 

Most Higham boys went out to work in the fields or were apprenticed to learn a trade and the girls stayed at home where they looked after the house, the dairy and did sewing and weaving. Occasionally they learned to read (not for education or pleasure but just so that they could read the Bible which had recently been translated into English).

Q.  When was the last Charter?

A. The Charter of 1886 was the last one given to Higham

Queen Victoria, Empress of India, came to the throne in 1837 and she reigned for 63 years. In that time England changed from being an old farming country to being a modern industrial country with strong influences all over the world. Look at an old map and notice how much was coloured in red, the colour of the British Empire.

When Victoria became Queen the old Charters still told towns what rights and duties they had, and every town had a different Charter. But England was changing fast; roads and railways were being built and many people had moved from the countryside to work in factories in the large towns. Towns now had large businesses where the townspeople worked, new houses were being built and children – boys and girls – went to school. 

So the old Charters had to be updated to suit the lives of the people. Instead of every town having its own Charter which was different from the Charters of other towns, what was needed now was a Charter that treated every town the same. 

The Charter of 1886 said that all towns would now have the same rights and duties and they would all elect their mayors and councillors in the same way and they would all have the same powers to organise the town’s affairs. 

Parliament would now decide how the people were governed and the whole country would have to do as Parliament told them. So there would be no more Charters and feasts arranged specially for Higham, because Higham had to do the same as every other town. 

Q. What was it like living in Higham under Queen Victoria?

A. At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign Higham Ferrers was still a farming community of about 1,500 people which relied on fairs and markets for its wealth. At the end of her reign in 1901, Higham was a business community of around 3,000 people with factories tanning leather and making shoes. 

Our school was built in1876. 

By this time both boys and girls went to Elementary School and some fortunate pupils stayed on and became lawyers and doctors and school teachers. Most boys and girls left school when they were 12; the girls to go into “service” and the boys to work as “hands” in the boot and shoe factories where they could earn more money than when they worked on the farms. Although they had more money to spend, they were still not really wealthy, and they had to work long hours in the factories. The men and boys now did less work in their  gardens so more shops were set up where they could buy food and other goods. Fairs and markets became less important.

Life was still hard for most people and disease was common. Children died of measles and scarlet fever and tuberculosis (which they called “consumption”) and there was always a risk of typhoid and cholera, caused by drinking contaminated water. In Higham, the town’s water supply became polluted and caused an outbreak of typhoid which killed many men, women and children. 

Even the doctors left the town to keep themselves safe but one young doctor, Dr Richard Hacon, stayed behind to look after the sick working classes. In the end, he too died of the disease but the people of Higham were so  grateful to him for helping them when they needed help most, they paid for a memorial to him to be put in the churchyard and it is still there – it is an obelisk next to the pathway through the churchyard.

There were more things for young people to do in Queen Victoria’s time. 

You could join a football or cricket club or sing in a choir, play the piano, join a band or orchestra and take part in a concert or show. Many of these activities were organised by the Church or Chapel. Some of the sports clubs are still  running.

Q. Why were there no more Charters?

A. There were no more Charters because every town and village was now governed by Parliament in London and obeyed all the same laws and had the same rights and duties 

We still have a mayor and council to look after some of the things that affect only Higham people. 

To remind us that they used to be very important in the old days they still wear the same special robes and gold and silver Chains of Office as they did in Queen Victoria’s time.

Q. Do we care about our Charters?

A. Yes we do!

The Charters were very important to Higham Ferrers. 

Without them Higham Ferrers would have remained a small farming village of no importance with a small church, no College, no Bede House, no Market Square and no Town Hall.