Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Lord Brooke of Warwick’s parliamentarian cause and also acted as stewards for his many
properties in Alcester and elsewhere. 309
In the eighteenth century the growing emphasis on the written word increased the
demand for lawyers for all manner of legal documents including those dealing with the
transfer of land as the customary manor courts lost their influence. The attorneys
increasingly acted as stewards and estate agents, and, along with scriveners such as
Richard Attwood, were kept busy drawing up mortgages and bonds (including marriage
bonds). One attorney, Charles Magennis, had Irish connections. His father, Constantine
Magennis, was associated with the family at nearby Ragley Hall and may have been
brought over from their estates in Ireland to act as steward here. This exemplifies the
mobility of this class, as the law provided an alternative source of employment for
gentlemen’s sons apart from the army, the navy and the church. 310
As the eighteenth century progressed, the change in the sale of land and property
is shown by the emergence of auctioneers and newspaper advertisements of property for
sale (with details available from certain Alcester traders and attorneys). 311
Even the
humble attorney’s clerks begin to leave proof of their existence in surviving
309 Saville, ‘Look at Alcester, no. 2’, p. 11, informs us that Matthew Bridges was steward and had been
captain and then major in the parliamentary army. His father Colonel John Bridges was also a steward.
310 TNA, PCC probate of Constantine Magennis, Arrow, gentleman, 1702. He held land in Warwickshire
and County Down.
311 UBD 1792 and for example Berrow’s Worcester Journal 25 January 1776. Saville, Alcester – a History,
p. 38, shows how the manor court had declined. Though temporarily revived in 1785, it was without true
legal authority and land transfer was increasingly in the hands of lawyers.
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