Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

in the first half of the nineteenth century suggesting that the town was a base from which
they served the surrounding area. 286
In Period D male hairdressers were based in the town, while many laundresses,
washerwomen and charwomen appear in the 1841 census. 287
Some hawkers were
resident in Alcester, such as Anthony Wright, earthenware-dealer cum ‘packman’, and
Hugh McEvoy, convicted for hawking without a licence. 288
Professionals, gentry, domestic servants and others
Alcester had only one Anglican church, so Church of England clergy were not as
numerous as in larger towns. Typically the rector and his curate were resident in the
town, the curate sometimes doubling as a schoolmaster at the Newport Free School, (the
local grammar school), which had been in existence since the fifteenth century. 289
Perhaps schoolmasters also served as relief ministers in surrounding parishes. Certainly
the masters were mainly Church of England clergymen. 290
In the eighteenth century the
established church grew in strength, at least as far as parish governance was concerned,
with the vestry taking on some of the manor court’s functions. However, some men who
served in such roles as overseers of the poor were protestant dissenters, which may have
led to conflict with the three long-serving rectors who were in post during the first half of
286 This is more than for all the other parishes combined. One Alcester sweep, James Hurst, has children
baptised in Pershore as well as in Alcester, suggesting the nomadic nature of the job. (WaRO, Alcester
baptisms 1822 and Alcester 1841 census. WoRO, Pershore Holy Cross baptisms 1820.)
287 Before 1800 the term ‘hairdresser’ was not in evidence; hair-care, wig-care and shaving was undertaken
by the barber-surgeons mentioned in the next section.
288 WaRO, Alcester baptisms 1838, 1840, mention Wright. WaRO, QS17, king’s moieties for convictions
of unlicensed pedlars, hawkers and stage-coaches, 1829, refers to McEvoy.
289 Saville, Alcester - a History, p. 55.
290 For much of its time the grammar school seemed to employ two masters simultaneously. For example,
WoRO, BA2697, (ref.716:051), diocesan subscription book, lists Richard Jennings and John Gibbons for
1703. WoRO, Worcester diocesan visitation book BA2951 (ii) and churchwardens’ presentments,
BA2289/1, mention Samuel Case, ‘ludimagister’, for non-attendance at church; he preferred to attend
conventicles. He probably taught in Alcester, but lived in nearby Arrow.
127