"Upon the appeal of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish of Camden, in the county of Gloucester, to an order of removal of Mary Calcott from the parish of Kingsnorton, in the said county of Worcester, it appeared to this court, upon the examination of the said Mary Calcott, taken upon her oath in court, that the said Mary Calcott was, upon All Saint's Day, in the yeare of our Lord 1735, hired with John Ellis, of Camden, chapman, for a year, to spin with yarn, at the rate of 1s. 6d. a stone, and that she was to provide herself with meat, drink, washing, and lodging, where she pleased, and that she spunn for him the whole year, and lodged in her said master's house, and boarded with him at Camden, and received 1s. 6d. a stone for her work, allowing her master 2s. 6d. per week for her lodging and board. And upon her examination she said that by her said contract as aforesaid she thought she was not at liberty to work for any other master, but she thought she was at liberty to play or be absent from her work as long as she pleased, being to be paid att a certain rate for her work done. Wherfore it is the opinion of this court that the said hyring and service aforesaid was not sufficient to gain for the said Mary Calcott a settlement in the parish of Camden, and this court doth accordingly reverse the said order of removal."
A refusal to serve the office of overseer by a resident of the Cathedral precincts (in the year 1804) may be unknown to the present inhabitants of that locality, to whom it will prove interesting:
"I, Francis Stafford, one of the sextons of the Cathedral Church of Christ and the blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester, do hereby give you and each of you, and all others whom it may concern, notice that I shall appeal to the next general Quarter Sessions of the Peace, to be holden at the Guildhall of the city of Worcester, against the nomination and appointment made by you under your hands and seals, and bearing date July, 1804, whereby you nominated and appointed me by the name and description of 'Francis Stafford, a substantial householder of the vill and hamlet of the precincts of the Cathedral Church of Christ and the blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester, in the county of Worcester, to be overseer of the said vill and hamlet;' and be pleased to take notice, that the grounds of my appeal are—that the said precincts are not nor never were reputed to be a vill and hamlet, nor a place for which an appointment of overseer is directed by law. And further, that the said precincts are not, nor were, nor at any time have been reputed to be, a vill, village, hamlet, or township, nor a place for which an appointment of overseer is directed by law.
"Witness my hand, &c.,
"FRANCIS STAFFORD.
"T. Dowdeswell, Esq., and
"Henry Salmon, clerk."
The order for the appointment was quashed at the October Sessions of the same year. Exemption from the interruption of the civil powers was what all the great monastic establishments sooner or later obtained, but that of Worcester had a long struggle with the hereditary sheriffs of the county before its immunity from their officers could be obtained. The Reformation introduced great changes, and the precincts of the Cathedral became part of the outer county, but still they remain independent of the city or county interior, being a separate district under the superintendence of the Dean and Chapter.
