The Poor Relief Act of 1601 determined
that every individual parish of England and Wales was responsible for the
provision and administration of poor relief to those in need and resident in that parish.[1] The
Act included provisions concerning ‘necessary places of habitation’ for ‘poor
impotent people’ and recommended that the able-bodied poor should be ‘set to
work’. In order to deal with concerns about abuse of the poor relief system, whereby
some itinerant poor sought relief from the more generous parishes, the
Settlement Act of 1662 laid down rules for determining a person’s lawful place
of settlement, from which they might apply for relief.[2]
Knatchbull’s Act of 1723 authorised individual
parishes, or combinations of neighbouring parishes, to rent or buy
accommodation to house their poor, and allowed for the running of each
workhouse to be sub-contracted to a third-party who would feed, clothe and
house the poor from the weekly parish rate.[3]
The same Act introduced the ‘workhouse
test’, whereby anyone who applied for relief could be compelled to enter
the workhouse (where one had been established for that parish) and would be
obliged to undertake work in return for relief. It is
estimated that by 1732 about 700 workhouses had been established in England and Wales,[4]
rising to 1,912 by 1776,
each with between 20 and 50 inmates.[5]
In order to deter
any casual claims on the poor rates, the Act further provided that any person
who refused to enter the workhouse would be denied outdoor relief. By a self-determining
act of destitution, only the desperate would seek to enter the workhouse. The
workhouse test in this form continued until Gilbert’s Act of 1782, following
which poor houses were restricted to the care of the old, the sick and the
infirm.[6]
Some advocates of the workhouse
believed that they could be run at a profit for the parish through the industry
of the residents, although there is little evidence of success in that respect.
Others considered that the compulsory residence requirement in the workhouse would
act as a deterrent, forcing the idle poor to
seek work. Concerns with unemployment and poor relied are reflected in
contemporary works throughout the century, such as Daniel Defoe’s, Proposals for imploying the poor in and
about the city of London without any charge to the publick, (1713) and G.
Thomas MP’s, A scheme for the better
relief and employment of the poor; humbly submitted to the consideration of the
Members of both Houses of Parliament (1765).
Children and the Workhouse.
Two specific policies were set out
in the 1601 Act concerning parents who were unable to support their
children. Firstly, overseers were obliged to set the children to work so that
they might contribute to their own maintenance; and secondly they were to be
put out as apprentices when old enough to be taught a useful trade or craft.
The vestry of Thames Ditton were slow to open a workhouse and during the first
half of the century provided outdoor relief for its adult poor and made
separate provisions for pauper children. Between October 1725 and April 1728, the
overseers’ accounts for the parish record payments of 10 shillings to ‘old
Archer for taking care of the boys in the Gallery’. Accounts for May 1736
record payments to Mr Keel and his wife (later to Mr Howard) for the care of children.
Entries in the overseers’ accounts for October 1750 name fourteen children living
at Mr Keel’s, some of whom appear to have had at least one living parent who
was also in receipt of outdoor relief. Table 1 below records the movement from outdoor
to indoor relief between April and October 1750, and back to outdoor relief
five years later. In April 1750 it appears that families were kept together and
supported in the community by the payment of pensions. Six months later pauper
children were separated from their parents and housed with Mr Keel. Five years
on half the number of children were housed with Keel and the remained appear to
be supported in the community, possibly under terms of an apprenticeship with
the individuals caring for them.
Table 1: Children and poor relief, Thames Ditton.
Weekly pensions,
April 1750
|
Child support in the
community,
April 1755
| |
7 children at Keels 10s
6d
| ||
Purton’s family 3s 6d
| ||
Weal’s girl 1s
| ||
John Hart’s family 3s 6d
|
Mr Holland for Henry Hart 4s
| |
Abraham Marling 1s 6d
| ||
Butler’s family
1s 6d
|
Mr Brooks 26 weeks £1 6s
for Butler’s boy
| |
Abraham Bignolds family 1s 6d
|
Mr Gardiner for Bignolds
boy
5 weeks 5s
| |
John Hambleton 1s
6d
Mary Hambleton 1s
|
John Humbleton 2s
| |
Rusts family 3s 6d
|
Widow Rust and child 2s
6d
|
The articles of agreement
concerning the appointment of Mr Keel as workhouse master in 1760 included the
provision that the churchwardens and overseers of the poor would pay ‘the sum
of twenty and five shillings for every poor child that shall be putt and placed
out as an Apprentice’. Although only thirteen examples extant for Thames Ditton
between 1725 and 1782, there are indications of apprenticeships and boarding
out, particularly of young boys.
The parish workhouse.
Save for the occasional bad harvest,
as occurred in 1740, the cost of poor relief remained relatively stable between
1720 and 1750 in parishes both with and without a workhouse. While stable levels of poor relief were probably
the result of low prices and full employment nationally, rather than good parish
management, it created a false impression of the success of the new workhouses.
The Thames Ditton workhouse opened
in August 1760, based in rented premises at a cost £8 per annum in 1760, rising
to £12 per annum in 1770. The workhouse is estimated to have housed about
fifteen people, based on an extant schedule of fixtures and fittings from 1781:
13 bedsteads and 13 featherbeds in various chambers; 10 chairs and 2
forms in the kitchen; 6 benches in the brew house. However, it cannot be
presumed that every resident would have a bed to themselves, particularly if
they were children.[7]
The immediate result of opening the
workhouse was that the number of poor in receipt of a weekly pension ceased and
few others continued to receive any other form of outdoor relief. Table 2
maps the rising cost of the poor to the parish, which may explain the decision of
the vestry to establish a workhouse in 1760 in an attempt to reduce the cost of
the poor through economies of scale. After bearing the initial costs of
establishing the workhouse in 1760, the assessment for poor rates fell
dramatically in the following year. Nevertheless, the cost of supporting the
poor fluctuated from year to year in an upward trend, reaching its highest
level by the end of 1784.
Table 2: Extracts from the poor rate books for
Thames Ditton at intervals of five years.
Year
|
Rate in the £
|
½ Year Assessment
|
Total Annual Assessment
|
May/
Oct 1730
|
9d
1s
|
£ 96 8s 10d
£128 18s
|
£225 6s 10d
|
May/
Oct 1735
|
9d
9d
|
£ 94 0s 6d
£ 94 14s
|
£188 14s 6d
|
May/
Oct 1740
|
1s
1s
|
£126 14s
£115 19s
|
£242 13s
|
May/
Oct 1741*
|
1s 6d
1s 6d
|
£185 9s 3d
£185 0s 6d
|
£370 9s 9d
|
May/
Oct 1745
|
1s
1s 6d
|
£130 7s 6d
£170 10s 3d
|
£300 18s
|
May/
Oct 1750
|
9d
9d
|
£112 2s 11d
£114 13s 1d
|
£226 16s
|
May/
Oct 1755
|
9d
1s
|
£113 11s 5d
£149 14s
|
£263 5s 5d
|
May/
Oct 1759
|
1s
1s
|
£151 4s 1d
£190 9s 9d
|
£341 13s 10d
|
May/
Oct 1760**
|
1s
1s
|
£157 2s
£156 7s 3d
|
£313 9s 3d
|
May/
Oct 1761
|
9d
6d
|
£117 9s 7d
£ 77 12s 0d
|
£195 1s 7d
|
May/
Oct 1765
|
9d
1s
|
£109 15s 4d
£149 11s 1d
|
£259 6s 5d
|
May/
Oct 1770
|
9d
9d
|
£122 8s 10d
£ 81 19s 9d
|
£204 8s 7d
|
May/
Oct 1775
|
9d
1s
|
£128 3s 10d
£174 8s 9d
|
£302 12s 7d
|
May/
Oct 1780
|
9d
1s
|
£132 10s 3d
£179 7s 6d
|
£311 17s 9d
|
Oct 1784
May 1785
|
1s
1s
|
£188 16s
£183 7s 6d
|
£372 3s 6d
|
**Workhouse opened in August 1760.
No records survive regarding individual
residents in the workhouse. Prior to the opening of the workhouse thirty poor
people were in receipt of a weekly pension in Thames Ditton and, for reasons
already given, it is likely that the workhouse accommodated only half that number,
some of which would have been the children formerly resident with Mr Keel. Maybe
a sufficient number of the poor preferred to support themselves in the
community rather than face the indignity of entering the workhouse. However, as
time went on that the overseers for the parish were inclined to provide outdoor
relief to some, rather than increase the capacity of the workhouse. The accounts
for 1785 record an average of fifteen people in receipt of a weekly pension and
another twenty people receiving a one-off payment.
There is little evidence of any employment
undertaken by residents in the Thames Ditton workhouse. The premises leased in
1768 included an orchard and out buildings and an inventory of the premises
used in 1781 contained a ‘Brew House’ (probably for the benefit of the inmates)
but there is no mention of any tools or equipment which could have been used
for their employment. The terms of Keel’s contract as master of the workhouse required
him to keep the poor in the same manner as Mr Plummer, master of the Kingston
workhouse. Plummer was a tailor and it is possible that he provided work for
the paupers in Thames Ditton’s workhouse in combing and spinning wool.[8]
There
was a fairly high turnover of workhouse masters in Thames Ditton (see Table 3
below) which seems to provide evidence of the difficulty in managing the
workhouse within the annual budget and the failure of any master to generate a
profit through workhouse industry.
Table 3: Workhouse masters in Thames Ditton.
Workhouse
masters
|
Payments
|
Period
|
Thomas
Keel
|
£180
p.a.
|
1760
|
Mr
Wilsher
|
£180
p.a.
|
1764
|
Mr
Wilsher
|
£75
(or £300p.a.)
|
1765 ¼ year April to Sept
|
Thomas White
|
£83.6.8 (or £200p.a.)
|
1766 for 5 months
|
Mr Collyer
|
£50 (or £200p.a.)
|
1766 for 1/4 yr
|
Wm Collyer
|
£66.13.4 (or £200p.a.)
|
1767 4 months to April
|
Wm Collyer
|
£195 p.a.
|
1769
|
Wm Collier
|
£150
(or £200p.a.)
|
1770 ¾ year
|
Christopher Collier
|
£40
(or £160p.a.)
|
1770
1/4yr
|
Christopher
Collier
|
£190
p.a.
|
1774
|
Thomas
Jones
|
1775
– 1776
| |
Christopher
Collier
|
£180
p.a.
|
1777
|
Thomas
Jones
|
£180
p.a.
|
1779
and 1780
|
Richard
Parkhurst
|
£180
p.a.
|
1780
|
John
Summers
|
1781-
1783
| |
James
Collins
|
£180
p.a.
|
1784
|
James
Collins
|
£52
10s (or
£210p.a.)
|
1785
per 1/4yr
|
For a
fixed rate of £180 per annum, the1760 articles of agreement required Keel to provide
fuel, candles and soap; clothes and shoes; meals in accordance with a bill of
fare; bedding; and all medicines and doctors as necessary. He was required to
take any pauper to hospital as might need it, whether they lived in the parish
or workhouse, and to bury any pauper who died either within or outside the
workhouse. Further he was expected to provide any pauper placed as apprentice
with 25 shillings or a set of clothes, pay all fees and expenses of taking a
pauper in the parish before the justices for examination and any subsequent
removal of the pauper up to a distance of 30 miles. The articles appointing
John Summers as workhouse master in 1781 were almost identical, but without the
reference to Kingston, and allowed Summers to set the poor to work and retain
the benefit of any work done by them.
It must
have been difficult to find a workhouse master of the right calibre who was willing
and able to work within the monetary constraints set out in the contract of
employment. It appears from the vestry minutes that workhouse master, Thomas
Jones, appointed in 1776 and again in 1779 was unable to sign his name. When a
master left with little notice an interim appointment became necessary and at
greater expense than the vestry would have liked. Thomas White’s 5 months
appointment cost the parish the equivalent of £300 per annum, whereas the rate
of the master who succeeded him was £200 per annum.
In reality, the overheads of small scale workhouses tended to be greater than the costs of providing outdoor relief. Despite efforts of parish vestries to save costs through the establishment of a workhouse, the need for additional outdoor relief was a continuing problem. In 1782 the annual cost for maintaining the workhouse in Thames Ditton was £228, plus another £41 by way of outdoor relief, and £79 for administering parish business. As pensions and casual payments increased across the country, anxiety about the cost of the parish rate resulted in the passing of Thomas Gilbert’s Act in 1782. The Act allowed groups of parishes to form unions and build joint poorhouses for the totally destitute, in order to share the cost of poor relief. However, this time workhouses were only to be for the old, the sick and the infirm. Able-bodied men and women were explicitly excluded in order that they should be free to take up employment or subsidised by outdoor relief when necessary.
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[1] 43 Eliz., I
c.2 (1601) The Poor Relief Act;
http://c18thgirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/part-2-administration-of-old-poor-law.html.
[2] 13&14 Car. II c.12 (1662) Act for the Better Relief of the Poor of
this Kingdom;
http://c18thgirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/part-3-right-to-settlement-in-parish-of.html.
[3] Sir
Edward Knatchbull 's Act , 9 Geo.,
I, c.7 (1723), For Amending the Laws relating to the Settlement, Imployment and
Relief of the Poor.
[4] Slack,
Paul (1990) The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
[5] Parliamentary survey of poor-relief
expenditure in England and Wales (1776-7) The Abstract of Returns made by the Overseers of
the Poor. There were about 8,545 separate parishes in England and Wales
in 1851, Kain, Roger , Richard Oliver (2006) ‘Historic parishes of England and Wales: an electronic map of boundaries
before 1850 with a gazetteer and metadata’, Colchester, Arts and Humanities Data Service, in http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/542,
accessed 27 July 2013.
[6] Thomas
Gilbert’s Act, 22 Geo III c.83 (1782) Relief of the Poor Act.
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