Agricultural History Review, Volume 61 Part 2 (2013), p. 359

Anyone who has ever wrestled with a set of Exchequer depositions in the National Archives is likely to approach this volume with a healthy degree of respect. Deciphering hundreds of undifferentiated rows of scribal hand, written on now-very-grubby table-cloth-sized sheets of parchment, each seemingly with a mind of its own, is a test for the patience as well as the eyesight. In exploring the records of the dispute over the Swaledale lead mines between Reginald Marriott and Thomas, Lord Wharton, Tim Gates has read, transcribed and edited two complete Exchequer cases between the parties, incorporating a total of 317 depositions by witnesses, involving over 1500 answers to individual questions posed between 1705 and 1707. In addition, because of his desire to reproduce the full cause papers, Gates has transcribed a further 34 affidavits made on behalf of the parties. This has required the analysis and transcription of 65 different components, beginning with the initial bills of complaint, encompassing the answers, affidavits, orders for a commission to hear the evidence, agreement of the interrogatories, depositions of witnesses, reports and exceptions made by each side to evidence, and the final decrees. These occupy 386 close-printed pages, and must amount to somewhere in the region of 200,000 words.

The case itself was a characteristic Exchequer complaint. Reginald Marriott had been granted a Crown lease of the lead mines of Grinton Whitaside and Harkerside in Swaledale in 1696. In 1705, the Whig grandee, Thomas Lord Wharton organized a ride of the bounds of his claim, to ensure that Marriott did not encroach across the moors between Harkerside and West Grinton, by ‘proving’ these boundaries before a series of local witnesses. A few days later, Wharton ordered the digging of lead mines on his side of the moors, to prevent Marriott encroaching. As Gates explains, Wharton was motivated to defend his claim because the price of lead had ballooned between 1702 and 1705, making such efforts (and the vast expense of this extensive litigation) worthwhile. However, as the price of lead subsided after 1708, so did Wharton’s interest in this case. The case turned on the always slippery issue of manorial boundaries across moorlands, and the status of the lease title granted to Marriott. The nature of the evidence collected about these rights sometimes seems to confirm Mark Twain’s definition of a mine as ‘a hole in the ground surrounded by liars’, but the testimony of many of the miners, and their wives and children illustrates the existence of a more thoroughly proletarian mining community than that described by Andy Wood in the Peak District.

The one unusual feature was that at the end of the equity proceedings in Exchequer, the decree pronounced that the matter should be resolved by a trial at common law, involving a jury of Yorkshire freeholders, rather than a determination by the Exchequer barons. This may have been because such a determination of the case was thought to carry greater local assent than a decision made in Westminster. As Gates shows, this opened up the case to a degree of undue influence, and there is evidence to suggest that Marriott tried to induce at least one of the jurors with an attractive offer of a lead smelting mill in the area. Wharton’s side attempted to retaliate by introducing a new bill of exceptions just as the jury were due to deliver their verdict. In the end, the jury decided on behalf of Marriott and the Crown’s lease. Although this was challenged in law and on the ground by Wharton’s party, the declining price of lead quickly reduced the value of this prize.

This amounts to a fascinating and extremely well-documented case, although it is by no means exceptional in size or detail within the annals of the Exchequer in the eighteenth century. This study will be of interest to at least three distinct readerships. The first will be those interested in the history of Swaledale, who will find nuggets of information on life, livelihoods and landscape in the area in this period that will not have turned up elsewhere. That said, even the most ardent enthusiast for the history of Yorkshire might struggle to climb to the summit of this mountain of evidence. The second will be researchers and students of economic, social and landscape history, particularly those interested in understanding the shifting allegiances and perspectives within competing communities and their clientage relationships. The voluminous evidence available in this study will allow the subtle intricacies of these connections to be reconstructed by further painstaking research. The third will be those who wish to familiarize themselves with the workings of the Exchequer court, and who will not find a better ‘worked example’ available in print. Perhaps the only regret is that such a vast body of evidence is not readily accessible (and word-searchable) online.

This point raises one further issue. The publication of such a large and detailed volume is a remarkable testimony to the Yorkshire Archaeological Society’s commitment to local records and their history. The publication values, editorial standards, glossaries and footnotes reflect the continual refinement of standards over the century-and-a-half since the foundation of this county history society and its many peers. One wonders what will become of such endeavours in the era of open access, when electronic publication ought to become easier, but when the charges that help fund such activities will disappear. Hopefully, heroic endeavours like this one will continue, done as they are for love of the subject, rather than in the hope of financial reward. As long as they do, we will certainly all become richer as a consequence.