Badger, Shropshire - History - Early Modern Badger

Early Modern Badger

Under the Kynnersleys, the manor again stayed in the same family for more than two centuries. An early challenge to their control came in the form of a royal appointment to the rectory. Since the Dissolution of the Monasteries, advowson or the right to present an incumbent had technically belonged to the Crown, but the old arrangement, by which the lord of the manor made the initial nomination, still held. Indeed, the Elmbridges and the Kynnersleys alike had continued to pay their annual dues to preserve it. In 1614, James I presented Richard Froysall to the rectory, without consulting the lord of the manor, Francis Kynnersley. Francis fought back. First he tried to stop Froysall entering the church and ordered the parishioners not to attend. Then he cut off economic support, seizing Froysall's tithes and planting trees on the glebe. He swore he would cut off the Froysall's head and throw it in Badger pool. He managed to get the rector imprisoned at Shrewsbury. However, Froysall apparently had some supporters, and they made off with some of Francis's oxen.

Francis seems to have done enough to vindicate his claims. The Kynnersley lords slowly crept up the social scale, serving their locality in various capacities. Thomas Kynnersley was High Sheriff of Staffordshire and later High Sheriff of Shropshire under the Commonwealth, and his grandson John was High Sheriff of Shropshire under George I. Around 1719, John Kynnersley demolished the old timber-framed manor house and built a new hall, a substantial but unpretentious building with six ground floor rooms, just to the north of the old site.

Starting in 1662, the whole agricultural organisation of Badger was transformed. Firstly a large part of the east of the parish was hived off as a separate estate: Badger Heath. and for more than a century was farmed by the Taylor family, before being sold to the Greens in 1796. Then a large area of common land was divided up among the cultivators. Some time after this the open field system was abandoned and the land enclosed. Heathland was cleared and ploughed up: by 1748, even the Heath estate was half arable and had only 3% heathland. This set the pattern which has persisted to this day. Despite concentration of holdings, Badger's landscape remains mainly one of farms, predominantly arable but with considerable pasturage.

The population of Badger evidently remained small. In the mid-17th century the adult population seems to have been less than 50. With such a small population, most of the rectors decided they need devote only a small part of their time to the parish. In most cases, they chose to live elsewhere and combined Badger with other posts of greater profit. Thomas Hartshorn was rector from 1759 to 1780. For most of that time he also held two prebends under the peculiar jurisdiction of St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton: Hatherton, near Cannock and Monmore, near Wolverhampton.

John Kynnersley died without issue and passed the manor to his unmarried brother, Clement, who died in 1758. It then passed to his nephew, also called Clement, of Loxley. Both Clements had their own property near Uttoxeter and neither lived in Badger. They rented the manor house to an ironmaster, William Ferriday. So, for many years, both the lords of the manor and the rectors were absentees, rarely seen in the village. The second Clement decided to sell Badger in 1774.