56
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
but, such being the perverseness of those as were
owners of the lands assessed by the Commis-
sioners to undergo the charge thereof that they
neglected to pay their proportion thereof. Upon
complaint therefore made to the said Commis-
sioners by the said Cornelius in recompense of his
charges had parcel of the said lands assigned to
him, which assignation was by the Kings Letter
Patent bearing date 10 Aug 10 Caroli [reciting
the Act of Parliament of 13 Elis. Cap IX, viz.
that where any person should be assessed by the
Commissioners of Sewers to any lot and refuse or
neglect to pay the same the land to be leased or
past in fee simple in recompense to the Under-
taker] confirmed to him the said Cornelius and
his heirs.
Cornelius Vermuyden drained part of the Fens on the same
terms as are above set out.
There is no reference in Dugdale's book to justify the con-
clusion that Skippers Island was embanked under any of the
Commissioners there mentioned though it may be that reference
to the originals would show whether any of them did so or not.
All that can be concluded is that from the time of Edward III to
that of Charles, and of course ever since, the work of embankment
or repair of banks went on intermittently in this as in other areas.
In 1947 the bank along the mainland opposite the Island was
raised and strengthened by the Essex River Board who now have
power to rate the land owners for that purpose. It seems to me
probable that Skippers Island would have been embanked later,
rather than earlier, than the surrounding country. It cannot have
been a very profitable piece of embanking, as the land protected is
small, being an island, compared with the length of embankment
required. I have often wondered why it was thought worthwhile
to embank the north and north-east parts so far away from high
ground. Nothing less than the success of the embanking of
Horsea Island used on the mainland of Kirby could have justified
it, and then only in a period of prosperity for agriculture or of very
cheap labour.
The reference in the quotation from Dugdale to Cornelius
Vermuyden is interesting from another point of view, and when
I first read it I was reminded of a suggestion made to me that
Skipper is a Dutch name, and that possibly the island had been
given to a Dutchman of that name in payment for his services in
embanking some part of the coast, and so his name had become
that of the island.
But this pleasant theory seems to be dispelled by my finding
in the Essex Record Office of a Rent Roll of Quit Rents for the
year 1758 in which the following entry appears in the Manor of
Birch Hall: