The origins of Parish Councils can be linked to the development of villages all over England which dates back to Saxon and Norman times a thousand years ago.
As there was little central government, villages tended to be under the patronage of local lords of the manor and with time parish priests and schoolmasters joined in the process of providing local functions such as maintaining roads and looking after the poor.
With the dissolution of the monastries in Tudor times and the decline of feudal institutions, England needed a new system to continue to provide these local services.
As the whole of England was organised into individual parishes and had literate persons of authority, the parish system became an ideal replacement as everyone was required to be a member of their local church.
The Church already collected income by levying tithes (a tenth of the produce of the land and stock – usually taken in kind) and the parish system also had the advantage that it was accepted by the people.
Usually the whole body of parishioners met to vote money for church purposes or elect churchwardens, and its boundaries often matched with those of the Lord of the Manor who was the important landlord and part of the previous system.
Meetings usually took place in the local church and these Vestry Meetings became the way of looking after local matters. Parish Vestries had as a consequence gained their powers by default as they were not established by act of Parliament but were seen as a ready made way of delivering local services.
Certain duties were imposed on the parishes during the Tudor period. In 1536 these duties were to collect voluntary monies to look after the poor, register baptisms, marriages and burials in 1538 and to be responsible for maintaining the highways within the parish boundaries in 1555. By 1601 Parliament made each parish fully responsible for looking after the poor of their parish and formally allowed parishes to levy a rate (property tax) to fund this.
These duties would remain largely unchanged until the 19th century.
Parliament had also legislated for the parish to elect certain officers, such as Overseers of the Poor and Surveyors of Highways as well as an older post inherited from the old manorial system, the Petty Constable. Prestbury Parish had two churchwardens and two Overseers in 1674. Expenditure on poor relief in 1776 was £128, comparatively low for the size of the parish, £167 in 1803 rising to £493 by 1826.
A workhouse was opened in Winchombe Lane in 1824 where women and children were employed spinning yarn but following the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act which removed the responsibility of poor relief from Parish Vestries to the newly created Poor Law Unions, the workhouse was closed in 1835 when Prestbury became part of the Cheltenham Poor Law Union. Cheltenham Poor Law Union grouped thirteen parishes together, Badgeworth, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, Coberley, Cowley, Great Whitcombe, Leckhampton, Prestbury, Shurdington, Staverton, Swindon, Uckington and Up Hatherley with a total of 27 governing Guardians.
The small size of many parishes had meant that it became quite difficult to perform all the duties that were required and the actions of parishes varied considerably as a consequence. This eventually led to Parliament creating new bodies to carry out specific tasks. With the creation of County Police Forces in 1839 the role of the Parish Police Constable was superseded, the registration of births, deaths and marriages passed to the General Register Office in 1837. Sanitary Boards were created in 1848 to look after drainage and provide clean water, Highways Boards in 1862 to look after roads and School Boards formed in 1879 to look after education.
By the late Victorian period it was clear that this system of various boards plus the old parishes needed to be rationalised. This led to Parliament creating County Councils in 1888 with elected Councillors who took over the administrative duties of the magistrates meeting in Quarter Sessions, responsibility for maintaining main roads and schools.
The Public Health Acts of 1872 and 1875 had divided the whole country into Urban or Rural Sanitary Districts. In 1894 the Sanitary Districts were transformed into Urban or Rural District Councils, the forerunners of today's Borough Councils.
