waywarden

English

Etymology

From way (“highway, road”) +‎ warden.

Noun

waywarden (plural waywardens)

1. (historical) Someone elected to take care of highways in a parish.
   • 1707, J. Bond, A Compleat Guide for Justices of Peace‎^[1], London: I. Cleave et al., Part I, pp. 16-17:

     May present Constables and Way-Wardens if they appoint not six days for the repairing of Highways leading to Market Towns, […] shall upon the Justices Presentment be fined.

   • 1737, J. H. Easterby (editor), Journal of the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina Nov. 10, 1736-June 7, 1739, entry dated 5 March, 1737, The Colonial Records of South Carolina, Columbia: Historical Commission of South Carolina, 1951, p. 288,^[2]

     […] in each District one of the Commissioners or two, or two Way Wardens to be elected once a Year under Direction of said Commissioners be directed to assess each House keeper in said District for one Negro according to the Number they have in their Houses which may be either Male or Female, Boys or Girls above nine Years of Age once in three Months or as often as any Inhabitant shall make legal and regular Complaint that the streets are broken down […]

   • 1793, Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies‎^[3], Dublin: Luke White, Volume 1, Book 2, Chapter 5, p. 207:

     The vestries are composed of the custos, and two other magistrates; the rector and ten vestrymen; the latter are elected annually by the freeholders. Besides their power of assessing and appropriating taxes, they appoint way-wardens, and allot labourers for the repair of the public highways.

   • 1843, George Musgrave, Nine and Two, or School Hours‎^[4], London: J. G. & F. Rivington, Appendix, page 5:

     The roads of the parish are for the general use and benefit of everybody who lives in the parish; and all the persons who pay rents for houses in the parish, pay towards keeping up those roads. The waywarden, who is also called surveyor of the highways, wants money once or twice a year from the people of the parish, to pay for keeping up the roads.

   • 1869, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, chapter 3, in Lorna Doone‎^[5]:

     There is nothing I have striven at more than doing my duty, way-warden over Exmoor.