What Did People In The 'Vestry' Of An English Parish Church Do In The 17th And 18th Century?

After the manorial system went into decline from the 16th century, the main administrative unit in England was the ecclesiastical parish. All local responsibility for the poor, the roads and for control of law and order was done through the parish council and the Justices of the Peace.

The Parish Council was different to the Parochial Church Council of today, which deals only with church affairs. The main feature of the parish council was a group of officials known collectively as the vestry, named as they most often met in this room in the church.

Two types of vestry existed:
• An open vestry included all the male ratepayers of the parish (householders of the parish who contributed to the money raised by the vestry to pay parish expenses). Any ratepayer could attend the meetings and vote.
• A select vestry consisted of 12 or sometimes 16 or 24 ratepayers who selected new members of their own choice to fill the rest of the vacancies.

The vestry elected two of its members to act as Overseers of the Poor on an annual basis; their records are described later. It was also responsible for raising money to fund poor relief, to build and maintain roads and bridges and to do various other things, including building gaols.