The Poor Law Commission: a New Digital Resource for Nineteenth-century Domestic Historians

Throughout the opening decades of the nineteenth century central government was bombarded with pamphlets, speeches and general political pressures to investigate and reform the operation of the poor laws.¹ Yet root and branch national poor law reform was never attempted. It was from the widespread violence in much of southern England (and elsewhere in the country) in 1830-31 that renewed concern developed about how poor relief was administered. The ‘Swing Riots’ and the coming to power of a new Whig government precipitated the Commission of Enquiry into the Poor Laws in 1832, although a disposition to reform was already detectable.² The resulting investigation was the largest and most detailed sociological investigation at that time. Twenty-six investigators visited around 3,000 parishes and townships (out of 15,000) throughout England and Wales, mainly in late 1832. These assistant commissioners were aided by an elaborate questionnaire referring to, amongst other things, pauper costs, population size, number of labourers required, the presence of Scottish and Irish labourers, wage levels and the way in which poor relief was administered. The parish officers, magistrates or rectors of around ten per cent of the 15,000 parishes filled out and returned these questionnaires.³

The resulting report was swiftly written and published, and despite a number of amendments the government lost no time in implementing it.⁴ A bill for the amendment of the poor law was introduced in April 1834 and by August the Poor Law Amendment Act was on the Statute Book. The main thrust of the New Poor Law can be summed up as follows. A central Poor Law Commission was to be established, based in London, with three Commissioners to oversee the national poor law and impose national uniformity.⁵ Parishes were to combine in ‘Poor Law Unions’, with each parish taking a share of the resources to maintain workhouse facilities.⁶ Each Poor Law Union was to be governed by an elected Board of Guardians accountable to the Poor Law Commission. Local magistrates, who previously had the power to supervise relief, were now ex-officio Guardians. Each parish would continue to levy a parish poor rate which would be collected by the overseers. Outdoor relief (where the recipient was relieved without being ordered to the workhouse) was to continue for the aged, the infirm and the able-bodied; although in the report and in practice the principle of deterrent relief ideologically excluded such a notion.⁷

As archivists rather than historians we are primarily concerned not with the history of the workings of the New Poor Law but with the records which it produced, as the newly created Poor Law Commission in London and the similarly new Poor Law Unions in the localities engaged in a continuous round of information sharing on a wide variety of subjects. This correspondence is now held in some 16,741 bound volumes at The National Archives (TNA) in record series MH 12 (Ministry of Health 12).⁸ Although the series as a whole contains correspondence from 1834-1900, we concentrate here on the period from 1834 to the mid 1850s: the years of the Poor Law Commission and the early Poor Law Board. For any investigation of working-class life, for any examination of the activities of local government, and for any study of the way the state intervened in both, the millions of letters, memos and reports held here are both essential and voluminous.⁹ They also offer scope for examining the introduction of the new system in a variety of settings. In the discussion which follows we present a number of specific cases illustrating the richness and range of these records.

These specific cases come out of the National Archives project ‘Living the Poor Life’, for which 105 volumes of MH 12, covering twenty-two Poor Law Unions, have been catalogued in detail and document images of each piece of correspondence made available via TNA's website.¹⁰ The cataloguing work was undertaken in 2009-10 by around 200 volunteer editors, mainly based in the localities of the unions on which they were working. In many instances local-studies librarians, borough and county archivists, or others already active in local museums and societies, have provided the local leadership.¹¹ The catalogue entries which this group have produced run to over 4.6 million words which can now be searched by keyword.

Information was shared between the unions and the Centre (here referring to both the Poor Law Commission and the Poor Law Board) on a thorough and regular basis. The Poor Law Unions were expected to provide detailed information to the Centre: returns for instance on the numbers and details of vagrants, lunatics, the able-bodied poor and so on. As the Centre required information to be standard and consistent, specific forms were devised for the unions to fill out and return. So for example there are appointment forms for the different union officers: medical officer, workhouse master, workhouse matron, schoolmaster, schoolmistress, porter, relieving officer and others. Such standard forms allow researchers today to determine the wages, qualifications and experience of the various officers; they may also reveal the individual career path. The various appointment forms and letters concerning one Joseph Hart, for instance, show he had been a pupil teacher before spending a year at the Exeter Training College. Moving on, he was employed in 1853 as a schoolmaster at the Clutton Poor Law Union. In September 1855 he went to the Tynemouth Poor Law Union, giving the reason for the move as an increase in salary. He stayed only until December 1855 when he was appointed as deputy workhouse master by the Sunderland Poor Law Union.¹² Other forms and returns concern pauper lunatics, workhouse inspections, financial audits, vaccination, sale of parish properties, emigration and in-house task work and allow researchers to undertake local, regional or even national comparative work over a set period.¹³

Sometimes records show the unions seeking approval for proposed actions or retrospectively for actions already undertaken. Historians can begin to collect cases drawn from across several unions to develop aggregations of historical information. For example, there are numerous lists of able-bodied paupers applying for relief for themselves and their families in the first half of 1842.¹⁴ In December 1848 the Axminster Guardians were thought to have taken the relief of able-bodied paupers far beyond what the law prescribed. Following numerous sanctioned requests for relief in kind (usually clothes), Edward Gulson, Poor Law Inspector, received a note from the vice-chairman of the union noting that a large number of applications for footwear were from employees of the guardians. Furthermore, the vice-chairman continued, these requests were no more than an attempt to ‘Eke out Wages at the expense of the Poor Rate’. At the previous guardians’ meeting guardians had brought forward their able-bodied men with large families to make out a list of special cases. Gulson condemned this as a raid on the poor rates and hoped that the Centre would deny the applications.¹⁵

There are also numerous enquiries from unions when events outside of their immediate experience occurred. They might ask, for example, how to deal with allegations of irregularities in the elections of guardians, or what they should do if their own officers were found defrauding the union or if malpractice or neglect had been reported to them locally. Ratepayers too wrote to report matters which they wished to raise, such as the treatment of individual paupers, the misuse of local rates, or the favouritism shown towards some local tradesmen. There is a significant smattering too of letters from individual paupers, or potential paupers, complaining of conditions in the workhouse, how they or other paupers were treated by local union officers, or their difficulty in making a claim for relief from what they consider to be ‘their’ union.

It should be clear from what we have said so far that the material coming into the Centre from the unions took many forms: letters, summary statistical returns, completed appointment forms, inspection reports etc. In addition, some accounts of events in the union might be supplemented by newspaper reports. So when Arthur Brown Steele, Medical Officer, wrote to the Centre concerning the Liverpool Select Vestry's decision to dismiss him in 1852 he enclosed (among other things) a newspaper report of the Select Vestry meeting. Newspaper reports were often sent by correspondents from areas with thriving provincial newspapers, perhaps for convenience: why write page after page of text when a printed account could be cut out and enclosed with a covering letter? A newspaper account might also be expected to carry weight with the Centre. In the case of Steele, the dismissed Medical Officer hoping to keep his job, the cutting from the Liverpool Courier indicated that only two thirds of the members had been present when the resolution to dismiss him was passed, and that moreover one third had voted against the resolution, thus showing that the decision was far from unanimous.¹⁶

As well as all of this ‘incoming’ material, from simple letters to detailed reports and various enclosures, the MH 12 series also contains the draft responses of the Centre. The letters sent from the Centre to the unions, had they survived, would now be with the other union records in local-studies libraries or borough or county record offices across the country, but this scattered ‘outgoing’ correspondence has a poor survival rate. Thus although the correspondence to the Centre survives in great bulk the correspondence from the Centre might seem to be largely lacking. Fortunately this lack is mitigated by the existence of draft responses contained in the relevant MH 12 volumes. Some such drafts are just brief annotations setting out the proposed response. But acknowledgment forms or ‘draft letter’ proformas were retained as the official reminder of what information had been sent to a particular union and in the vast majority of cases these still exist. The survival of both incoming and (in draft) outgoing material means that we have both sides of the conversation, which provides us with an incredibly rich resource from which to study the workings of the Poor Law Unions and the lives of the nineteenth-century poor.

This basic account of the papers belies their complexity. A single letter of grievance regarding a pauper's treatment might prompt several letters from the union – the assistant commissioner, the Centre and others all looking to discover (or perhaps to cover up) what was happening. Such a complaint might be quickly dealt with when the relevant union or union officer protested innocence, perhaps questioning the credibility of the writer (‘only a pauper’, it may have been said), and a letter from the assistant commissioner may be found in the volume to that effect. Sometimes, however, a further letter from a guardian, workhouse inmate or ratepayer, may show that the issue was raised again, and a draft letter may indicate that the assistant commissioner was instructed to conduct an investigation. Letters and draft letters then establish the scope and timings of the investigation and a letter from the assistant commissioner may enclose a report to the Centre, with witnesses’ statements, appendices and recommendation for action. Finally letters and draft letters may record the outcome, whether dismissal, other punitive action or the exoneration of the individual accused.

Case histories can therefore be extensive. For example, as a result of Dinah Hembury's death after alleged neglect at Southampton a mass of correspondence was created during 1851 and 1852 through which we can follow developments. In January 1851 a letter to the Centre from Thomas Firmin, Clerk to the Southampton Incorporation, referred to an account of the recent coroner's inquest into her death. This was deemed to be from natural causes (liver and kidney disease) but ‘had she received that nourishment and support her case required’ her life could have been prolonged.¹⁷ A deputation form then shows that several members of the Southampton Incorporation travelled to London to meet members of the Poor Law Board and discuss the disputed cause of Hembury's death. The same day a letter was sent from the Centre to Lord Courtney, Poor Law Inspector, stating that an inquiry was to be held into Hembury's death and the criticisms made at the inquest of the relief (or lack of) given to her; and another letter went to Edward Coxwell, Coroner, asking for copies of the depositions of the inquest witnesses. Coxwell responded enclosing the depositions of Ann Nelder, widow who lived in the same lodging house as Hembury, and Ann Davis, landlady for both women; of Francis Cooper, Henry Clark, John Wiblin, James Richardson Ware, variously described as Medical Officers or surgeons; of Thomas Leader Harman, Caleb Wood, Edward Mayes and Charles Keele, all Guardians; of William Cheesman, deputy chairman, Thomas Firmin, Clerk; of Henry Pike, relieving officer and of Daniel Davidson, workhouse master. These were passed to Lord Courtney, and his later report on the case – a full forty-five folios or ninety pages – follows. Various related correspondence ensues; the final letter concerning Hembury is from October 1852 and relates to the law charges including the prosecution with respect to her case.¹⁸

With a case of this kind researchers should not expect to find all of the relevant letters, draft letters and replies bundled together. Researchers following their particular topics (such as neglect, fraud or unemployment) will find that material spans numerous volumes. The record series itself is arranged alphabetically by county (the English counties followed by the Welsh), and then within each county alphabetically by union. In each volume the various letters, memos, reports etc are bound together in a ‘rough’ chronological order. As each piece of correspondence came into the Centre it was allocated a ‘paper number’: the same paper number would appear on any draft response and therefore also on any surviving outgoing correspondence. It appears that in the initial stages of the Poor Law Commission, before the individual unions were established, paper numbers were based on the parish. As unions were set up a more consistent registry system was established. Each piece of correspondence on entering the Centre would be given a running number by one of the office clerks, starting with ‘one’ at the beginning of the year.¹⁹ This number has nothing to do with where the correspondence came from or the content of the letter, report, etc.²⁰ The paper number is simply written (usually) at the top of the correspondence. In the period of the Commission the paper number is followed by a letter (A, B or C) and the abbreviated year is written below it. In the period of the Board the letter is overwhelmingly no longer used on the incoming correspondence. In some instances the clerk will write the paper number on the covering letter only and omit it from any enclosures. On other occasions every part of the correspondence, covering letter and enclosures, will have the paper number written upon it. Although the clerks may appear to be treating the correspondence differently in these two cases this is an appearance only as the Centre recognize in both instances that the paper number of enclosures is taken from that of the covering letter. There are two key points to keep in mind with regard to paper numbers. The first point is that a researcher may find reference to a subject matter of interest through a speculative search in MH 12 not at the beginning of a case but rather at the end. As administrators in the Centre and individual unions became more adept at ‘using’ paper numbers they would often refer to earlier correspondence of the same case by paper number. Researchers can therefore easily track cases by looking for those earlier paper numbers, moving back weeks, months and even years. The second point is that researchers working in local archives will often find the same paper numbers on locally held poor law records such as the guardians’ minute books. This will allow researchers to move from locally held records to the specific relevant pieces of correspondence held in the MH 12 series. Once armed with the name of the union, the year being researched and any paper number found locally, the researcher now only needs to look at the volume for that particular union and that particular year and by browsing the volume by paper number will arrive at the relevant correspondence.²¹

THEMATIC RANGE

We now turn to the content or subject matter of the records and what they offer for a variety of research topics. The twenty-two Poor Law Unions in the TNA ‘Living the Poor Life’ project were selected to provide researchers with the opportunity to work across very different unions – rural or urban, agricultural or industrial, or simply small or large. Thus the records from Liverpool, Cardiff, Tynemouth and Southampton will illuminate the particular problems of large, growing, busy port centres with transient populations. A rural union such as sparsely populated Reeth in the North Riding of Yorkshire would be quite different in terms of occupational opportunities, transport facilities and physical or population size. How those differences were manifested in poor relief practices can now be investigated by researchers.²² The richness of the various subject matters contained within the MH 12 records demonstrates the importance of these records for historians of nineteenth-century England and Wales. In what follows we present sample cases which are not fully worked-out micro-histories but which will illustrate the depth and range of subject matter in the records and thus indicate the potential of this particular historical resource. It is no understatement to say that for the domestic historian of nineteenth-century England and Wales, over a range of specialist subject areas, these records are as essential a collection as the census.

OPPOSITION TO THE NEW POOR LAW

The records made digitally available through ‘Living the Poor Life’ include much information on the opposition to the New Poor Law. The following cases demonstrate the breadth of that opposition and the nature of relevant records in the official correspondence. In October 1834 Robert Hall and Christopher Robinson, Overseers, North Shields (which would later be part of the Tynemouth Poor Law Union), wrote to the Centre, stating that a petition against the clauses of the New Poor Law which would do away with out-relief had been presented to parliament. Abolition of outdoor relief was impossible, they claimed, because of the immense number of outdoor poor. Costs per pauper being higher for indoor than for outdoor paupers, the township could not support the overall number of paupers under the new workhouse system.²³

In December 1835 Frederick Chaplin wrote from the Bishop's Stortford Poor Law Union to the Centre informing them of an arson attack on the mill in the workhouse. The fire had been discovered by the governor before any serious damage was done, and the premises were secured. There was to be a meeting of the guardians the following day and meanwhile they were writing to ask that a police officer be sent from London to investigate the fire.²⁴ On 10 February 1837 Henry Saunders, Clerk to Kidderminster Poor Law Union, told Robert Weale, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, about a meeting against the New Poor Law in the town. He provided the names of those who organized and spoke at it, with details of their occupations and any previous activities in labour and trade-union matters, and referred to a petition against the introduction of the New Poor Law. The petition, signed by almost 4,000 people, was reportedly some fourteen yards long. This correspondence also provides an outline of the means by which activists were seeking further signatories.²⁵ In December 1838 the Reverend Stephen Clissold, Rector of Wrentham, in Suffolk, informed the Centre that he had recently attended a magistrates’ meeting at Gosford where concern was expressed about the probable consequences of a Chartist and anti-Poor Law meeting to be held at Carlton Green near Saxmundham, and about a possible attack on the Blything Workhouse. A placard advocating an attack had been forwarded to the Home Office. Clissold suggested that the coast-guard could be deployed, with permission from the Secretary of State, until enough local constabulary could be assembled.²⁶

In August 1842, Joseph Lowndes, Clerk to Wolstanton and Burslem Poor Law Union, wrote to the Centre, concerning recent disturbances in the district. Over 400 able-bodied persons were being relieved daily and the workhouse was full. The guardians complained that many applicants had been prompted to apply for relief by Chartists and others opposed to the ‘Poor Law Acts’. Earlier the same month, Robert Weale, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, wrote to the Centre having received a letter from Lowndes, reporting that one able-bodied applicant, Hamlet Booth, a Chartist, had been haranguing the men in the workhouse grounds and condemning the ‘Poor Law’ in very strong language, creating dissent. Lowndes was instructed to collect evidence against Booth and submit it to the stipendiary magistrate of the district for advice.²⁷

Opposition sometimes took more unexpected forms. In 1847 John Collyer, Overseer at All Saints, Southampton, wrote to the Centre acknowledging their previous request to him for information on rental returns and the annual value of property rates but refusing to disclose the information on the basis that it was confidential. He went so far as to question the authority granted by parliament to the newly constituted Poor Law Board, and referred to recent disclosures before a parliamentary committee that had shown, in his opinion, the Poor Law Board as a shameful and irresponsible body.²⁸

Not only parish authorities but the unions themselves could and did express their unhappiness at a national body thought to have inordinate powers. At Keighley in 1842 the Board of Guardians themselves discussed and voted on whether they should support the continuation of the Centre. The result was a resounding ‘Glorious Defeat of the Friends of the New Poor Law in the Keighley Union. The Board of Guardians have this Day decided to Petition Parliament for the Repeal of this unjust and tyrannical Law by a Majority 10 to 5’. Posters detailing the votes cast by individual guardians were produced for distribution around the town.²⁹

STRIKES AND TRADE UNIONISM

Strikes and trade unionism also figure in the records. In July 1842 Robert Weale, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, recommended the suspension of the Prohibitory Order due to the situation in the Wolstanton and Burslem Poor Law Union. He reported that at least 500 applications for poor relief had been made there that day. Most were from able-bodied potters, but about twenty were from colliers who stated that they were forced to leave their work by disaffected colliers from other parts of the district. Two collieries had resumed work under protection of the military; and he expected that work would be resumed within a few days.³⁰

At Tynemouth in May 1844 William Henry Toovey Hawley, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, expressed concern about the additional demand for poor relief from seamen. The seamen had taken strike action and the ship-owners had retaliated by employing other men to replace them. In the same month James L. Barker, Clerk to Tynemouth Poor Law Union, wrote to Hawley that between 300 and 400 seamen had made application for relief, claiming that their unemployment resulted from a miners’ strike. Barker attributed it, however, to their refusal to work for the wages offered by the ship-owners who had since hired other men.³¹

Disputes in the Yorkshire worsted trade had similar effects, as George Spencer, Clerk to Keighley Poor Law Union, wrote in October 1846. In the district around Keighley, principally occupied by worsted manufacturers, many of the workpeople were employed in this trade and the woolcombers had for some time been formed into a trade union. A few weeks earlier, seeking a general increase in wages, they had cast lots as to whose factory they should first turn out. Once this was decided upon the workers there struck for an advance of wages, and, when their request was not complied with, immediately ceased to work for their master. They were then supported by the trade union in the area. At this point the manufacturers of the town dismissed all their woolcombers to prevent them from contributing to the support of those who had turned out. In consequence, some applied to the guardians for relief. In many instances such applicants were given orders to break stones, which a few accepted. The local master manufacturers offered to take the woolcombers back into their employment but the woolcombers declined to do so without an increase in wages, saying that their former wages were too little for their support. A small number applied to the guardians for relief but were refused and directed to apply to their former employers who would let them have work on application. The woolcombers decided on a public meeting to discuss the employers’ offer (to end the lock-out and take employees back on pre-strike wages) and the issue of poor relief claims. Spencer believed that applications would be made to the guardians, who presumed that as the woolcombers were able to get employment with their former masters they (as guardians) could no longer relieve them, and further that they were to have no role in any dispute there might be regarding wages or terms of employment.³²

ILL-TREATMENT OF WORKHOUSE CHILDREN

The records include numerous reports of ill-treatment suffered by the poor at the hands of the authorities. The Centre was responsible for the investigation of such cases and the resulting letters and reports can be voluminous, with individual cases running to thirty, forty or sometimes well over fifty folios. For example, in September 1840 Henry Saunders, Clerk to Kidderminster Poor Law Union, wrote regarding the misconduct of John Stokes the workhouse porter. The complaint was that Stokes tied a six-year-old inmate called James Perks in a bag because he had wet the bed. Another inmate, Charlotte Guest, deposed that she found him, in a room off the hall where she saw a sack with something in it suspended about a yard off the floor, and reported the matter to Joseph Stevens, Workhouse Master. Stevens, released Perks and spoke to Stokes who said he had put the boy in there because he had wet the bed. Saunders took out a summons against Stokes for assault on Perks which resulted in a fine and the man was duly dismissed.³³

Records of another child case can be found from the Wolstanton and Burslem Poor Law Union. Joseph Lowndes, Clerk, informed the Centre in January 1851 that it had come to light that William Carr, their previous schoolmaster who was about to take up a position in Oldham, had ‘excessively and cruelly’ punished Peter Lyth, a thirteen-year-old orphan. The records report that Carr had beaten Lyth on a number of occasions, placing the boy's head between his legs and leaving his thighs and bottom badly beaten. After the boy, with his arm bleeding from the breaking of scrofulous ulcers and his shirt soaked with blood, had been ordered by Carr to scour the floor (work which was inappropriate in view of the state of his arms, and which was usually done by two boys), he had tried to hang himself. Following further investigations and representations the Centre decided not to declare Carr ineligible for appointment; they only informed him that his conduct merited their severe disapprobation and warned him in regard to his future conduct.³⁴

In June 1845 William Willoby and Edward Willoby, Clerks to Berwick-upon-Tweed Poor Law Union, also reported an accusation of severe punishment. This related to the beating of John Sanderson, an eight-year-old inmate, by the schoolmaster, George Logan. It was reported that as a result the boy suffered ulcerated hands. Logan was thought to have held the boy's wrists and beaten the back of his hands and fingers with a cane causing the sores. Logan had beaten Sanderson and other boys in this way before. Once again the records contain a series of letters and reports for an individual case. In this instance we have the witness statement of William Bennett, aged eleven, who claimed that he had seen the master hold Sanderson by the wrists and hit him on the back of the hands with the cane. He was not in the class at the time, but had heard him ‘roar’ and looked that way. The schoolmaster had ‘licked’ him in the same way, and also Joseph Atkinson, another inmate, aged twelve. He further stated that Logan had turned round his hand so that he was hit on the backs of the hands; he hit him wherever he could and he used the tawse [strap]. The record shows that William Golden Lumley, Assistant Secretary to the Poor Law Commission, requested the preparation of a letter noting the enquiry and resolution of the guardians and calling upon Logan to resign his office; if he did not then letters were to be prepared to issue an order for his dismissal.³⁵

MEDICAL TREATMENT

Ill-treatment is to be distinguished from neglect and the records include many reports of cases of medical neglect. In early 1842 an investigation was made into the death of Henry Cartwright, a young boy in the Bromsgrove Poor Law Union workhouse. Nineteen people had been afflicted with the ‘itch’ (scabies) and the surgeon, Dr Fletcher, had directed that they should be washed in a solution of potassium sulphate as treatment. Unfortunately Cartwright died due to his being immersed in the solution. The resultant enquiry concluded that Dr Fletcher was to blame for having delegated the task of applying this powerful remedy to the nurse. However, due to his recorded zeal in the earlier performance of his duties, his kind attention to the patients and his previously unblemished character it was resolved that he should retain his office.³⁶

Another tragic case can be found in Liverpool in January 1852. Mary Ann Bass was experiencing an extremely difficult labour and her husband, Henry Bass, called on John Callan, Medical Officer, to attend to her. Callan refused to speak to Bass and it seems that both Henry, and his son Joseph Bass, called on Callan a number of times with no success early the following morning. Although Callan did eventually call on Bass later that night he was drunk – he ‘could not stand steady, or speak distinctly’. The child was delivered but was ‘hurt from the want of proper assistance at the time of the birth’. It appears that a neighbour had attempted to ‘put the child's head into form as well as she could’, but the child died the following week. This case shows the difficulty in bringing complaints of neglect and also the power relations within the poor law system. Callan sought to buy Henry's silence, offering him £5 not to give evidence against him when the Liverpool authorities sought to investigate the case. Initially his attempt at bribery was successful. However Henry later provided damning evidence in the case, which saw Callan suspended from office. In his own defence Henry stated ‘I had only had 2/- Relief from the Parish and this bribe has been a temptation to me’.³⁷

The records do also include evidence of the positive effects of a system which provided, in theory, a national coverage of medical districts and access to medical care for all in need. Poor Law Medical Officers were often looked down on within the medical profession and a number of cases illustrate desire to enhance their professional status. In November 1846 Joseph Lowndes, Clerk, Wolstanton and Burslem, described an operation on Elizabeth Bailey a widow of fifty-two who had been suffering with an ‘Enormously Enlarged diseased Breast’. The operation was carried out by one of the union's medical officers in the presence, and with the assistance, of three other qualified medical practitioners. They had given ‘their opinion as to the propriety of the operation, which was a very dangerous one’, the substance removed weighing more than 12lbs. Bailey was described as ‘going on well and fast recovering’.³⁸ A similar example of surgical activity occurred in Somerset in July 1849, when John Rees-Mogg and William Rees-Mogg, Clerks to the Clutton Poor Law Union, requested sanction to pay a gratuity to John Hawker Jackman, Medical Officer, for removing a tumour from the back of a pauper child. The child had previously been discharged from the Bristol Infirmary as ‘incurable’; the operation was effectual, and prevented the child from becoming a permanent pauper. The Centre later approved the payment.³⁹

HEALTH AND MORALS

Not surprisingly the records often turn on moral as well as economic issues, often bringing the two together. Mention of prostitutes, women of ‘low character’ or ‘bad character’, and houses of ‘ill fame’ can be found throughout the catalogued MH 12 volumes. Such keywords cover those who were working as prostitutes but may also refer to mothers of illegitimate children, or women who were simply deemed to be badly behaved, that is to say prone to drinking and swearing. Whatever the reason for these women's bad reputations there was usually a concern to separate them from other inmates (particularly children) for fear that their bad habits and behaviour would be picked up. At the Southampton Incorporation in 1855 the concern appears to have been less with the moral impact of their contact with other inmates than with the potential risk to health that these women could represent. S. M. Emanuel, Guardian, wrote to complain that prostitutes were compelled to go into the workhouse as there was no lock hospital. A ‘wall of separation’ had been erected to prevent communication between them and the other inmates ‘either by word or sight’. His main concern was that these women were sometimes released before the diseases they suffered from were ‘cured’. They often demanded to leave when ‘only half cured’, especially ‘on the arrival of a ship from foreign parts’, only to return after a few days in a worse state than when they left. Emanuel felt these women should promise not to leave until cured, not so much for their own benefit but to help ‘protect the health and constitution of the rate payers and inhabitants’ of Southampton. The response from the Centre appreciates his motives in writing to them on the subject but notes that by law the guardians have no power to detain any adult inmate of sound mind.⁴⁰

The question of sexual health is again raised in a letter from Henry Saunders, Clerk to Kidderminster Poor Law Union, in December 1846, concerning Ann Tyler, a twenty-year-old inmate who had worked as a prostitute and was in the workhouse ‘labouring under venereal disease’. She is reported to have tried to commit suicide twice and wished to be sent to the penitentiary at Birmingham. A copy of a report from Thomas Thursfield, Medical Officer, states that she was being treated for a recurrence of syphilis. She was described as ‘sulky and stubborn, aware of her wretched condition and anxious to better it’.⁴¹ In other workhouses however there might be less concern for the well-being of these women or those who might come into contact with them. A letter to the Poor Law Commission from Anthony Percy, a pauper from the Berwick-upon-Tweed workhouse, complains that the workhouse ‘is a complete Brothel and every sort of vice is encouraged here by the Master and Doctor’.⁴²

MIGRATION

There is much evidence in the records for the movement of people across the country in pursuit of work, particularly from the rural to the industrial areas. A letter from Frederick Chaplin, Guardian, Bishop's Stortford Poor Law Union, to Alfred Power, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, stated that ‘several men in the Union are anxious to work in the new manufacturing areas’. However, he noted, men whose children are too young to work in the factories had difficulty finding work. He cites the case of four men with fifteen children between them, ranging from one to eleven years old. Chaplin's view was that unless the men could find a wage better than nine shillings per week it would be unwise to send them as their circumstances would not improve for the first two to three years, until the children could work. ‘The consequent dissatisfaction’ would be reported back to the parishes and ‘do mischief’: the slight improvement in wages would not compensate for ‘the loss of old connections here’.⁴³ The desire to move abandoned, illegitimate or orphan children from the workhouse to the manufacturing districts is again a common feature within the records. John Dobede Taylor, Clerk, again at Bishop's Stortford, wrote that Messrs Walmsley of the ‘Cotton Mills’ in Marple near Stockport, in Cheshire, offered to take some children from the workhouse to be employed spinning cotton into yarn in their factory. The Walmsleys’ agent selected five children, described as being anxious to go. They were to be bound until the age of twenty-one, and provided with board, lodging and clothing. All the children chosen were deserted by their parents, illegitimate or orphans.⁴⁴ Another letter regarding the employment of children comes from the Saxon Brothers, Silk Throwers of Bruton in Somerset. They informed the Centre that they would take six children from the Blything Poor Law Union on trial but the superintendent of the union should choose the most healthy, cleanly, intelligent and honest children: ‘dull Clumsy Children are of no Service to us’.⁴⁵

Even if families did leave their union for the promise of work elsewhere the records provide evidence that they were not guaranteed to obtain permanent positions. John Cross of Reydon, near Southwold, in the Blything Poor Law Union, migrated with his family to Lichfield in Staffordshire to work in the factory of Hitchcock and Sultzer. However, he wrote to the parish officers of Reydon in May 1837 to say that his employment had been shortened to four days per week for the last month and this was likely to get worse. He asked for money for relief or to return to Reydon, although preferring to stay. Harry White, Clerk, asked the Centre if this letter could be drawn to the attention of Mr Muggeridge, the agent for migration so that the circumstances could be investigated.⁴⁶ The resulting letter from Muggeridge to the Centre encloses a letter from the employers of Cross. He advised the centre that as Cross's wages were still averaging 20s per week, there was no necessity for him to be returned to his parish. Muggeridge left it open to the parish to send him money for relief. The letter from Hitchcock and Sultzer stated that Cross and his family worked throughout their first year. They said that trade was difficult and whereas they had hitherto kept their labourers in work, they could not continue to do so. They had accumulated much stock at great risk to themselves. They commenced short-time working on 15 April 1837 but had given preference to the migrant families. They commented that Cross was ‘naturally’ dissatisfied and would never be otherwise, and noted that 90% of the agricultural population of Lichfield were not as well paid as him.⁴⁷

Union officers were often keen to see families migrate to other areas and cease to be a burden on the poor rates. In 1836 a letter from Henry Mason, Clerk, Rye Poor Law Union, to Edwin Chadwick, Secretary to the Poor Law Commission, asked for sanction to send two paupers, under the supervision of a guardian, to Manchester with the aim of showing ‘the labouring people through two of their own class, the benefits which would result from some of them migrating to the manufacturing districts’;⁴⁸ a proposal to which the Centre did not object.⁴⁹

FRAUD

Poor Law authorities in the mid nineteenth century were significantly large financial institutions and the project unearthed several cases of fraud involving union officers. One of the biggest fraud cases discovered in the course of the project was in Liverpool where the Medical Officers, George Gill, Arthur Brown Steele, Henry Emett, Mr Hyams and James Edward Donlevy defrauded the local vestry in regard to their duties as public vaccinators by claiming monies for unsuccessful vaccination cases and for other vaccinations which were not even carried out.⁵⁰ Harry Burrard Farnall, Poor Law Inspector, wrote to the Centre in July 1852 ordering that Emett, Gill and Steele should be severely reprimanded and required to refund any fraudulent payments. He stated they ‘placed themselves in a very dishonourable position’, but felt that the critical publicity which the case has generated would be a just punishment. Donlevy's case is considered separately. Donlevy frequently employed a deputy in vaccination cases, but signed and verified his weekly bills of cases himself. However no such cases were vaccinated, either by himself or his deputy. Farnall concluded that the Centre had no option but to call for Donlevy's resignation. His deputy, Mr Graham, was then in Australia.⁵¹

It was not always clear whether a case was purposely fraudulent or the result of mismanagement or neglect. In the Cardiff Poor Law Union in 1837 it was noted that there was a discrepancy between the amount of food brought for the workhouse and the amount consumed. Edmund W. Head, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, asserted that Mr Davies, Workhouse Master, was guilty of either neglect or fraud, and that the Clerk had been pretending to check the various workhouse books and did not point out the discrepancies to the guardians. Davis explained the difference in weight of food as due to the loss of weight when it was cut up. Despite the fact that some of the guardians spoke very favourably of Davis and attributed the case to carelessness Head felt Davis should resign, or face dismissal.⁵²

In 1840 Richard Michell Hodge, Clerk, Truro Poor Law Union, reported that Benjamin Adams, the late governor of the Probus Workhouse, had been appointed at a salary of £50 and was supposed to provide his own provisions. It transpired that he used provisions supplied for the pauper inmates and was also accused of obtaining other articles of food which he then charged to the union.⁵³ In the Bromsgrove Poor Law Union a letter from an anonymous ratepayer to the Centre complained of a case of potential fraud in which Mr Dipple, one of the guardians, was supplying ironmongery to the union and was paid £17 12s 3d during the last quarter. Dipple's son was the auditor and also in partnership with his father and it was claimed that he could audit an account for which he had half the profit. As such, stated the unknown writer, he was free to charge an exorbitant amount. It was also claimed that William Greening, another guardian, was supplying the union with groceries in the name of Joseph Greening, his brother, to avoid being liable to a penalty. It was stated that Mr Daniels, a grocer and a considerable contributor to the poor rates, sent in a lower tender but that Greening was chosen. Perhaps unsurprisingly the writer of the letter wished to keep his name from the parties involved, but he did state that the clerk to the union would confirm all that had been said.⁵⁴

It was perhaps a fear of fraud that saw an anonymous letter arrive at the Centre in 1843. The letter stated that James Meallin, then recently appointed as schoolmaster to the ‘Poor House’ of the Southampton Incorporation, had been previously convicted of embezzling money from Mr Nichols, wine merchant, who had been his employer about five or six years previously. Meallin had been sentenced to seven years and confined on board the York Hulk at Portsmouth. He was discharged after three years.⁵⁵ The Centre wrote to George Pocock, the Southampton Incorporation Clerk, asking if this information was true and if the guardians were aware of this when they appointed him.⁵⁶ Despite a letter giving the opinion of Sir James Graham, Home Secretary, that Meallin, having served his sentence, should not be dismissed on account of his past conduct,⁵⁷ Edwin Chadwick, Secretary to the Poor Law Commission, insisted that Meallin's appointment was void as the law prevented anyone convicted of fraud from holding office.⁵⁸ As well as illustrating the concerns over potential fraud within the new poor law authorities this also shows how senior government and poor law figures, Graham and Chadwick, might involve themselves in something as routine as the recruitment of a poor law schoolmaster.

CONCLUSION

The examples above are a small selection from the data to be found in the MH 12 series uncovered by the ‘Living the Poor Life’ project. Most of the cases run to several pages; some to substantially more. We could have easily chosen other subject matters to illustrate their worth for historians of the nineteenth century: law and order, disability history, medical professionalization, the family or the growth of local government agencies, and so on.

The online search and free downloading of the images will be a boon to teachers, researchers, leisure and family historians alike. It will also be a testament to the 200 volunteer editors who have between them spent thousands of hours downloading the document images, reading the letters and reports and providing the detailed record descriptions that collectively amount to an estimated 4.6 million words. This research community has created a fantastic resource which historians will mine for many years to come. As archivists we have seen our email box filled with remarks from the editors commenting strongly on the interesting nature and importance of the content of the material, whose significance and fascination we have only had the space to touch on here.

The authors wish to acknowledge the time and patience of Anna Davin for her kind comments and suggestions in regard to initial drafts of this article.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

APPENDIX 1: ‘LIVING THE POOR LIFE’ PROJECT, POOR LAW UNION VOLUMES

The MH 12 volumes are not of standard size or length. So unions are not all catalogued for the same period. Blything's eight volumes only reach 1840 while Reeth's four complete the periods of both the Poor Law Commission and the Poor Law Board and so finish in 1871.

APPENDIX 2: COMMON RETURNS FROM UNIONS TO CENTRE, LATE 1830s–1850s

This list is not exhaustive and the forms changed over time with the Centre's requirements. These are the forms which the project has most commonly encountered and which researchers will be likely to find.

• Annual returns of pauper lunatics, giving their names, age, gender, parishes to which chargeable, and where each is maintained along with costs and mental category.

• Reports on visits by the Commissioners in Lunacy, giving their names, with general details of inmates’ diet, accommodation and treatment, and details of selected cases.

• ‘Vaccination Extension Act’ forms, listing the names or districts of the public vaccinators and the numbers and ages of people vaccinated for the year (which is calculated from the end of each September). Also noted are the number of births in the union during the year and any observations.

• ‘Extension of vaccination’ forms, from named vaccinators, detailing cases vaccinated for a specific period and providing notes on vaccination practices in the union, e.g. difficulty of securing lymph, frequency of vaccination, attitudes of parents, objections of patients etc.

• Summarized statements of the salaries of named medical officers, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses.

• Summaries of the number of children apprenticed, giving gender, age and trade.

• Statements of the number of children in the union workhouse by gender and age.

• Statistical forms or tables showing the number of children in the workhouse, categorized by parental circumstances: deserted, dead, unmarried, mentally infirm, imprisoned or transported etc.

• Inspection of Parochial Union Schools Form XXII: teaching certificate from the Committee of the Council on Education awarded to workhouse schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, based on the report of an Inspector of parochial schools. The certificates show the Board's estimate of their qualifications and the sums allowed from the parliamentary grant for teachers.

• Various ‘statements of the auditor’ forms and other audit report forms. These are summaries of the books held by named union officers, audited to see if they are being kept correctly. Other forms refer to bonds (securities) of the union officers, or show any sums disallowed and so due to the union treasurer by union or parish officials.

• Dietary forms giving details of drink and foodstuffs for each meal for different classes of paupers.

• Printed schedule of Guardian elections. The schedule usually contains the proposed and elected Poor Law Guardians for the union and a list of their names, parishes and trades or professions.

• Emigration forms A, B and C, relating to notices of meeting to consent to raising or borrowing money for emigration purposes, to resolutions entered in the Vestry book and to a certificate from minister, churchwardens and overseers that the forms of the [Emigration] Act had been complied with. Details of parish officer signatories are given. In addition is the ‘List and Description’ of persons seeking to emigrate. This gives their names, ages and occupation as well as their parish and the place they wish to emigrate from.

• Workhouse Inspection Report Form, compiled by the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner (from 1848 onwards the Poor Law Inspector) after his inspection of the union workhouse; covers medical provision, management of the school, the vagrant wards, numbers of inmates.

• Statistical form comparing number of paupers relieved, the amount spent on outdoor relief and the numbers relieved as vagrant poor (usually for two consecutive years).

• Statistical form providing the numbers of vagrants given entry to the workhouse for a set period (comparing a specified date over two or more years). Vagrants are categorized by gender and age.

• Workhouse Form: Task of Work form regarding work at the union workhouse. This describes the work required of ‘an occasional poor person' in exchange for relief. It includes details of the tasks, for instance turning a crank handle, picking oakum, breaking stones etc.

• Sale of Parish Property Forms 1–10 (the earlier numbers are far more common). These record the selling of named parish property and parish debts and can give details of land, buildings, their previous use and their current or late occupation.