There were the
usual parish officers, but little is known of their
administration, churchwardens' accounts surviving only from 1831 and vestry minutes from
1858; (fn. 51) no overseers' accounts have been traced.
Parish government was heavily influenced during the earlier 19th century by the curate, Vaughan Thomas: he took on the office of parish
surveyor c. 1820 in order to push through improvements to Begbroke's roads, (fn. 52) and saw to it
that absentee landlords did not allow settlement
in the parish by families likely to prove a charge
on the rates. (fn. 53)
The community's small size, and Thomas's
vigilance, ensured that pauperism was not a
major problem in the parish. In 1776 only £9
was spent on the poor but in 1803 £33; that
increase, however, raising expenditure to 7s. per
head of population, was less than elsewhere, and
there were only three adults on regular outrelief. (fn. 54) It was not considered worth while to
appoint an assistant overseer. (fn. 55) The number on
regular relief rose to seven by the end of the
Napoleonic Wars, and expenditure increased
thereafter, with occasional remissions. Highest
expenditure was £1 14s. per head of population
in 1818; the total fell to 14s. in 1822 and 1827
but rose again to £1 8s. shortly before Begbroke
became part of Woodstock poor law union in
1834. (fn. 56) In 1932 it was transferred from Woodstock to Witney rural district, and in 1974 to
Cherwell district. There was no parish council
until 1952. (fn. 57)
||O.R.O., MSS. d.d. Par. Begbroke b 3, e 3.
||Ibid. c 4, item a.
||Ibid. items c, d.
Poor Abstract, 1804, 406-7.
||O.R.O., MS. d.d. Par. Begbroke c 4, item c.
Poor Abstract, 1818, 360-1; Poor Rate Returns, H.C.
556, p.138 (1822), v; H.C. 334, p. 173 (1825), iv; H.C. 83,
p. 161 (1830-1), xi; H.C. 444, p. 156 (1835), xlvii.
||O.R.O., RO 15; RO 3251.