ROTHERHAM FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY

	THE FEOFFEES AND GREAVES OF THE COMMON LANDS OF ROTHERHAM
(Image Courtesy of Rotherham Archives & Local Studies)	Also see Rotherham The Unofficial Website (1) Rotherham The Unofficial Website (2) Reminiscenses of Ald G. Gummer JP

ABOUT THE FEOFFEES
(Decription by Rotherham Archives and Local Studies Service)

The Feoffees of the Common Lands of Rotherham were established as a board of trustees (‘feoffees’ is simply another name for ‘trustees’), headed by a 'Greave', responsible for using the Common Lands of Rotherham for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town. They were first granted common land in 1584 by Elizabeth I, and were given official recognition through a Royal Charter of 1589, however, the organisation had been in operation for a considerable period before this date.

Originally, the Feoffees performed a role similar to that of a town council; maintaining and repairing roads, gates, and wells, paying the 'bylawmen', clerk of the market, clothing the waits & beadles (town musicians), providing education, and to some extent improving the town's public health by protection from nuisances. It was not until the establishment of local authorities that this role began to gradually diminish, and the Feoffees started to become known more as a charity.

THE FEOFFEES OF THE COMMON LANDS OF ROTHERHAM

The considerable grants of land to the town of Rotherham by the Crown under Letters Patent 26 Elizabeth 26 (1584) restored much of what had been previously been confiscated in the reigns of Hery VIII, and then, five years later, the Royal Charter of the Common Lands (1589), styled "Copiae charte facte duodecim feoffatis", the first Feoffees of the Common Lands of Rotherham were named.

The conyeyance of the land had been made via two London barristers, Lawrence Woodnett and Anthony Collyns to four trustees:

William West of Rotherham,
William Blythe of Barnby-upon-Dunne,
Richard Burrowes
Henry Browne of Rotherham

Although the above-named twelve 'good men and true' were the first to be officially designated "Feoffees of the Common Lands of Rotherham", there had been many others acting in these positions as the town's trustees prior to the 1584 Crown Letters and subsequent 1589 Royal Charter.

Some of these are listed below:

Some of the early documents were signed by Feoffees without the word 'Greave', but one can assume that most of them took it in turns to preside at meetings, sign documents, and to be in fact, Greaves. Starting therefore with the forenamed twelve who were listed in the Charter, the following represent a fairly full record of their successors: