Before the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, the main purpose of the Commons (the whole assembly of Freemen) was to elect 24 of their number to serve on the City Council. The Council then appointed 13 of its members to serve on a committee to deal with certain matters. The Council was the legislative assembly and met in the Council Chamber in the Guild Hall. The “13” met in another room, and the Commons met only at the time of an election in the Commons hall where they would vote on nominations for the City Council. After 1835 the whole assembly of Freemen took over the role of legislation and became known as Common Hall. In 1863, Common Hall appointed a committee which eventually became involved with the Freemen’s day-to-day affairs. The new committee became known as the General Committee.
The modern Common Hall is continuing duties similar to those of the Guild Merchant/City Council before 1835, which had imposed strict laws upon the Freemen. According to Sir William Anson Common Hall was an ancient Leet Court (a local court dealing with petty common-law offences, it could impose fines but not imprisonment and became progressively weaker until it became extinct in 1960) and providing only matters relating to Freemen were dealt with any decisions made by it would be upheld in any court.
The first record we have of what would be called a Common Hall, is dated 16 Sep. 1823. This was about 12 years before the Act of 1835 which effectively divorced the City Council from the Guild Merchant. The first mention of a Common Hall by that name, is contained in an Oxford Chronicle report on the Common Hall of April 1904 at which a speaker refers to a Common Hall held in 1845. The meeting of Sep. 1823 was convened to take into consideration the Report of the Committee appointed by the Council Chamber and the general body of the Freemen, to enquire into the mode and custom of stocking Port Meadow, and to consider the expediency of subjecting the Commoners to rules and regulations in stocking the Meadow, a subject that has been discussed regularly at General Committee meetings ever since.
On 27 Apr. 1847 a matter of great importance to the Freemen was dealt with at a meeting of Common Hall and the City Council when the Byelaws and Rules for the Regulation of the Oxford City Fisheries were enacted, confirmed and passed without dissent. The preamble to these bylaws says:
The right of fishing in the Free Waters of the City of Oxford belongs exclusively to the Freemen being part of the rights reserved to them by the Municipal Corporations Act, 5th and 6th William IV c.76.
In our archives are details of every Common Hall held since 1845, as well as the meeting of 1823. Attendances in the past were high but in recent years only a few have attend meetings that may well decide the future of the Freemen. Until the end of the 1920s Common Halls were reported in the press. Much of our history can be gleaned from these reports and it can be seen that our predecessors knew the folly of making hasty decisions. Before voting on issues they held meeting after meeting until a matter was thoroughly thrashed out. They knew that decisions made without due consideration might later prove to be wrong and difficult to overturn.
The full version of this story is available on our website at https://www.oxfordfreemen.org/what-is-a-freeman/organisation.