Find your ancestors in Wiltshire Vagrants Passes 1702-1818

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This collection of vagrants' passes is contained in fourteen large boxes dating from 1702 through to 1838 with some breaks in dates. It has been roughly estimated that each box contains over 3000 passes which were for expenses incurred by the passing of vagrants, mostly for those from outside the county, being passed through Wiltshire and its county borders to other county borders on their way back to their parishes or supposed parishes of settlement.

There were some vagrants, of course, who were of Wiltshire and who were passed back to their parishes from places outside the county. By studying the passes, it would seem that vagrants were never passed on the Sabbath and would therefore have been maintained overnight with bed and board. It has been supposed that those passed through the southern and western bordering parishes such as Box, Donhead St. Mary, East Winterslow, North Wraxall, Martin, Marshfield, Tisbury, were passed through to counties in these regions. Similarly, those passed through Wiltshire to and from places such as Charnham Street and Hungerford on the borders of Wiltshire and Berkshire would usually be passed or sent from places such as Middlesex, the City of London and eastern and northern counties. In some cases, vagrants were passed to Bristol to be sent back around the coast to their parish of settlement and, in the numerous incidences of Irish vagrants, to be transported by sea to Ireland. Other locations seemed to be typical places of apprehension of vagrants such as Bristol, Bray, Cookham in Maidenhead, co. Berks, various parishes in Middlesex, the City of London and the City of Westminster.

The mode of transport differed from being conveyed on horseback, in a cart or on foot, but every vagrant was escorted, usually by a parish constable or some other responsible official after the punishment of a public whipping as a ‘rogue and vagabond’ to the next parish en route and then to be escorted by another parish official to the next county border, and so on. Interestingly, an Act of 1792 decreed that from this time on no female vagrants were to be whipped for any reason whatsoever. To save on some of the costs to the authorities, it would seem that some vagrants were collected and sent on together, but during the early years of these passes this did not seem to be a usual practice.

It will be noticed that some vagrants' names appear more than once, usually when they left their settlement parishes to venture once more on their illegal travels. The cost to the authorities of transporting vagrants seems to have been exorbitant compared with today's cost of living but, in course of time, the authorities reduced the amount of expenses involved to around ten shillings per person with a reduction for children when travelling with a parent. In the course of transcribing, it was seen that some vagrants died and were buried in the parish where they had died which, obviously, was not their parish of settlement. In one case, a Thomas Wells died in Whiteparish in the south of Wiltshire, but the burial register of that parish contained no entry for Thomas so he, more than likely, had been buried in unconsecrated ground. This may have been because there was no proof that he had been baptised and, possibly, because of the fact that vagrants were really of no consequence. The pass, then, for Thomas Wells was the only indication of his place of death and burial. Whilst searching for his burial an extremely interesting three and half page entry in the register concerning the treatment and disposal of vagrants in Wiltshire was discovered and this appears at the end of this Introduction. Unfortunately, many of the early passes did not show the vagrants' places of destination and in some cases, their names were not even recorded. It was seen, too, that throughout the years the format of the passes changed.

Abbreviations

• als / alias – otherwise known as
• C – Constable
• C/W – Churchwarden
• HoC – House of Correction
• n.d. – no date
• O/S – Overseer(s) of the Poor
• Southants. – County of Southampton
• T – Tythingman

With thanks to Wiltshire Family History Society