1700 To The Present Day

 
In 1869, Heyshott was transferred by the Poor Law Board from the Sutton Union to the Easebourne Poor Law Union, in the building we now know as Budgenor Lodge. The poor law unions, first established in the 1790s, were the beginning of the district-level local government. James Challen, Guardian of the Poor for Heyshott, represented the village on the Board of the Union from 1870 and he continued to represent Heyshott when the Midhurst Sanitary Authority was set up in 1872, although he was an irregular attender.
 
The Midhurst Sanitary Authority appears to have been reluctant to begin its task of regulating sanitary nuisances and providing clean water and sewage services from the rates. The Local Government Board had to insist on the appointment of a specialist medical officer of health by the Authority in 1876 and it was many years before even Midhurst had a clean water supply provided from the rates. The links between polluted water supplies and certain types of infectious diseases was well understood. In 1882, there were three deaths from enteric fever in Heyshott blamed on excreta in an ordinary closet used by all the family in a 'small and dirty cottage'.
 
Later in the same year the Medical Officer of Health reported
 
  Diphtheria appeared at Heyshott in the autumn. This village is built
  upon the gault, a stiff impervious soil between the upper and lower
  greensand. In wet weather, the soil is soft and spongy and fogs are
  common here. Towards the end of September, the nights begin to get
  cold and fogs rise towards the evening from the plains. The people of
  Heyshott dwell chiefly around the village green and the school house
  is situated at an angle to the common.
 
As a result of this outbreak of dyphtheria, in which two children died, the drains for the school were improved with the intention of making the building drier.
 
In common with many villages, public amenities were slow to reach Heyshott in comparision with most urban areas. Despite this, or possibly because of lack of amenities, the character of the village has changed completely over the past 150-200 years from being an agricultural community with most people living in poverty to a desirable residential village with a tiny proportion of people engaged in agriculture or rural employment. While population levels have changed very little in total, there is now a high proportion of people with incomes earned or derived from outside Heyshott.
 
These changes were becoming clear by the end of the nineteenth century when social conditions had improved in comparision with the 1830s and 1840s. The contributors to the Hungry Forties thought that life was more comfortable in old age than in their youth. The school had opened in 1867, although compulsory education was only introduced by legislation in 1871. It remained open for nearly ninety years until, in 1953, the separation of primary and secondary education forced its closure. The Cobden Club established and endowed by Richard Cobden's daughter to promote self-improvement and to counter the attraction of the public houses, was established in 1880 and eventually became the charity running the village hall in the old School building.