Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

for actors), baptised children in Alcester. 329
Although by no means a typical incomer, the
presence of a foreign artist as early as 1703 reflects external influences in commerce and
culture, which played an increasingly important part in Alcester’s development. 330
Many Alcestrians must have fought during the Civil War, largely on the side of
parliament, but, as they settled down to civilian life, there is little mention of soldiers
after the Restoration. In Period B only two soldiers are known from local sources, both
based at Alcester in the 1740s, 331
while records in Period C reveal a number of soldiers,
(particularly in the last decade of the century), and one mariner. 332
The one soldier and
one Irish seaman caught in the 1841 census may have been merely passing through the
town. 333 Alcester had a succession of excisemen ensuring that the government received its
dues, but at least one of these had conflicting interests, for William Whissell combined
his role as excise-officer with that of publican. 334
Such tax collectors are joined in the
service of central government from 1801 by census enumerators and from 1837 by the
registrar of births, marriages and deaths.
Gypsies and travelling folk occasionally receive a mention, for example in
Alcester’s parish registers, but contemporary documentation does not do justice to their
role in the economy. Domestic servants are largely absent from the records before the
329 Fenton, Jones and Rogers families in WaRO, Alcester baptisms 1813-1826. They also baptised children
elsewhere.
330 WoRO, marriage licence of Anthony Vandersauren, (or Van der Schuren), Alcester, ‘pictor’ and
‘limner’, (painter and woodcraftsman), 1703; presumably from the Low Countries.
331 WoRO, marriage licence of Alexander Larrymour, Alcester, soldier, Sept. 1745, and of John Tibbetts,
soldier in the Queen’s Regiment of Dragoons, now at Alcester, April 1741.
332 Also Berrow’s Worcester Journal 4 June 1772 mentions Captain Bartlam of Alcester, but it is not clear
whether he was in the army or navy.
333 WaRO, Alcester 1841 census.
334 WoRO, marriage licence of George Churchlee, Alcester, glazier, Nov. 1712, witnessed by William
Whissell, innkeeper, and marriage licence of John Perkins, Studley, excise officer, May 1722, witnessed by
William Whissell, excise officer. Only one excise officer appears in Alcester’s probate (in Period C).
135