We pass over payments for intervening years, and come to 1709. In July of that year the first and second quarterly payments of the land-tax were each £36 19s. 4d.; for the third quarter, £37 8s. 4d., and for the last quarter, £36 10s. 4d. The first and second quarterly payments in full amounted to £73 18s. 8d. In 1702 a survey of the lordship of Madeley showed there were twenty-seven tenants, holding 2073 acres; that the yearly value was £1021 10s. 0d.; also that there were upon the land 3369 trees, and sixteen loads of wood, the value of which by purchase was set down at £17,366 9s. 4d. In 1725 a case was prepared by the vicar and churchwardens, after a vestry-meeting had been held, for the opinion of counsel on the question of the right of the vicar to receive tithe of wood cut down by the lay impropriator. The case set forth that “the vicars of the other twenty-two parishes in the franchise of the priory enjoyed tithes of wood as small tithes, excepting in a few instances, and that the vicar of Madeley has from time to time received the tithes of hay, clover, &c., which are usually esteemed great tithes. But hitherto no tithes of wood have been paid at Madeley within memory of living witnesses, except that about thirty years since the late vicar received one shilling as a composition from the tenant of the impropriator.”
Counsel (Thos. Browne, of the Inner Temple), in reply, says Madeley was appropriated to the priory of Wenlock at the same time as Stoke St. Milburgh—22nd March, 1343—and yet the vicar of Stoke receives tithe-wood, and thinks that the smoke-penny to the vicar is strong evidence in favour of his being entitled to the tithe of wood so used, because that payment comes in lieu of such wood; but it must be admitted that the impropriator is entitled to all the tithes of a vicar, unless such vicar shows usage or endowment to support the demand as to such great tithe.
The counsel’s opinion seems to have left the question pretty much in the same state as before, and that the vicar and churchwardens did not establish their claim is shown by subsequent assessments and by the report of the Tithe Commissioners (1848), who said all woodlands are by prescription or other lawful means exempt from tithe.
The appropriation of the rent-charge in lieu of tithes in the parish took effect in 1847, and it may be interesting to add that after various meetings and inquiries it was found that by prescription or other lawful means all the woodlands, containing in estimated statute measure 200 acres, well known by metes and bounds, were absolutely free from tithes; also all gardens annexed to houses.
It was also found that 267 acres of the Court Farm were covered from render of small tithes in kind by prescriptive or customary payments in lieu thereof to the vicar, and 233 acres of the Windmill Farm by payment of 5s. 3½d.; the Broad Meadow, containing twenty-two acres, by payment of ninepence; the Hales, seventeen acres, by payment of fivepence; the Bough Park, twenty acres, and Rushton Farm (Park House), twenty-six acres, by payment of 10½d.; part of Court Farm (J. and F. Yates, proprietors), and six other acres, by payment of twopence. The quantity subject to tithes amounted to 2800 acres, 2000 being arable, and 800 as meadow or pasture.
Finding also that the average value of tithes for the seven years preceding Christmas, 1835, did not represent the sum which ought to be the basis for a permanent commutation, the Tithe Commissioner awarded as follows: to Sir Joseph H. Hawley, impropriator, of Leybourn Grange, Kent, £115 10s., by way of rent-charge; and £226 to the vicar for the time being, instead of all the remaining unmerged tithes of hay and small tithes, arising from the lands of the said parish. The valuation was by William Wyley, upon wheat, barley, and oats, as under:—
| Wheat | 7s. 0¼d. | 32,427,300. |
| Barley | 3s. 11½d. | 57,517,590. |
| Oats | 2s. 9d. | 82,787,879. |
The great-tithes have since been purchased from Sir Joseph Hawley for Ironbridge church, now a rectory.
Scarcity of Wheat in Madeley in 1795.
The system of farming and the state of the laws regarding the importation of grain were such down to the period we refer to that the country was at the mercy of the viscisitude of the seasons, and if these were adverse nothing less than a partial or a general famine was the result, and it sometimes happened that the use of an extra ounce or two of bread was grudged if not considered sinful. Thus, an old writer commenting upon the scarcity of grain in the above year, censured the use of tea on the ground that it led to the use of bread and butter. He says:—