If this meant a shilling each member it looked like "Rogersis'" bill for "licker" going up, but if for all the members together it was decided retrenchment as well as reform. Among others who were parties to the agreement, but not in the first committee, were:—John Cross, John Warren, John Hankin, John Trudgett—what a lot of Johns they had in those old days!—Peter Beldam, Robt. Leete and Danl. Lewer. The new Local Parliament had not been in existence long before it began to set its house in order for business and framed other rules for its conduct. Instead of being a mere vestry with a chairman waiting for a quorum, it became an active local body, and, thanks to its methodical five-guinea clerk, actually had its meetings convened by sending out printed cards, as appears by the following entry:—
"Ordered that 500 Printed Cards be got from the Printing Office at Cambridge for the purpose of calling the Committee."
There was no printing office in Royston till the beginning of the present century. Another innovation was more sweeping, and that was that the custom of meeting at the inns of an evening was, at least for a time, abandoned. The meetings were held at Whitehall, at the top of the High Street, and to make things smart and business-like, a dozen strong chairs were bought for the use of the Committee room. There was also a rule about attendances, and any member failing to put in an appearance was fined sixpence, and if he happened to be the overseer, the enormity of his offence was marked by a fine of a shilling—"unless a note be sent to the meeting" [explaining cause of absence]. Here was a model authority, the like of which the town of Royston has never had since, considered as a working body, and having a due regard to the light in which things were then regarded as compared with the present time.
In glancing at some of the things for which the Parochial Parliament was responsible, I must ask those readers who, though not resident in Royston, may take an interest in these pages, to bear with me while I refer to a matter which exclusively affects some of the townspeople of Royston. As it was, whether rightly or wrongly, brought into the parish accounts for Royston, Cambs., for many years during the last and the present century, it may be convenient here to make some reference to the property in Melbourn Street, Royston, Cambs., now generally known as the Cave House and Estate, and its management during the period of which I am writing. In the first place then, it has really nothing whatever to do with the Cave, as a property, excepting for the accidental circumstance that nearly at the end of last century the then occupier of the Town House, as it was called, Thomas Watson by name, and a bricklayer, set his men to work during the hard winter of 1790, at cutting the present passage down through the solid chalk into the Cave from the house by which it is now entered. An interesting advertisement of this event which I have found in the Cambridge University Library is given below. It bears the date 1794.
"ROYSTON CAVE OPENED.—
"T. Watson respectfully informs the public in general and the antiquarians in particular, that he has opened (for their inspection) a very commodious entrance into that ancient Subterraneous cavern in Royston, Herts., which has ever been esteemed by all lovers of antiquity as the greatest curiosity of the kind in Europe. T. Watson hopes that all those who may think proper to visit the above Cave will have their curiosity gratified to the full extent. The passage leading to it is of itself extremely curious, being hewn out of the solid rock.
"N.B.—It may be seen any hour of the day."
