HAVERING-ATTE-BOWER LIBERTY

Comprises only the three parishes of Romford, Hornchurch, and Havering-atte-Bower, which contain about 16,000 acres of fertile land, and 8,143 inhabitants; and were assessed to the Property Tax in 1843, at the annual value of about £35,000.  It is a separate jurisdiction, with its own magistrates, clerk of the peace, coroner, gaol, quarter and petty sessions, court of record, &c.  It is in Romford Union; and a branch of the County Court is now held here.  In the election of parliamentary representatives, it forms part of Romford Polling District, in the South Division of Essex.  Ecclesiastically, it is now in the Deanery of Barking, Archdeaconry of Essex, and Diocese of Rochford, but was till lately exempt from episcopal jurisdiction.  It is about 9 miles in length from north to south, and for about half that distance it is about 4 miles broad; but from Hornchurch to the river Thames, it decreases from 2½ to about one mile in breadth.  The centre is crossed by the Eastern Counties Railway, which has a station at Romford,--a thriving market town, where the liberty courts are held, and where the gaol is situated.  The small Ingerbourn river flows along its eastern boundary, southward to the Thames, as the Bourn brook or little river Rom, does on the west.  Above Romford, the latter intersects the liberty, but below that town it forms the western boundary.  The adjoining Hundreds are--Becontree, on the west; Chafford, on the east; and Ongar, on the north.

Havering Liberty formed part of the demesnes of the Saxon kings, and was anciently part of Becontree Hundred, as appears from Domesday book; but having a royal palace, it was constituted an independent liberty, with a separate civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, extending even to cases of life and death, but the custom is to send offenders to the Assizes and House of Correction at Chelmsford, where the liberty has to pay double fees for such accommodation.  The limits of the liberty were well defined at the time of the Municipal Inquiry, in 1833, when one of the Commissioners found that various charters, from the 5th of Edward IV. to the 16th of Charles II., had been granted to the lord of this liberty and his tenants; and that the chief governing charters were those of Edw. IV. and Elizabeth.  By that of the 30th of Elizabeth, the tenants and inhabitants were incorporated, but none of the charters have been in the possession of the corporation for many years.  In practice, the high steward, appointed by the lord of the manor; with the deputy steward, appointed by the high steward; and