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On January 19, 1819, three American sailors were walking through Cheshire toward Chester, presumably to go from there to Liverpool for a ship home. As they passed through the small rural parish of Duckington some 10 miles south of Chester (still there and still small), they were broke and sought financial assistance from the parish official in charge of providing relief for the indigent. They were successful in their request for we read in the parish records: “To three American sailors with a pass 1s 0d.” The sum of money was small1 but sufficient to send them on their way along with a pass to indicate that they were not vagrants.
This brief record tells us something about the way assistance was administered under the “old” poor law in England and Wales. The sailors were low on cash – we know that much – they needed something to eat and official permission to pass through the parish and move on toward Chester. We do not know why they were there in the first place, nor do we know whether they were wastrels prone to drink. They could have been pressganged by the Royal Navy or taken prisoner on the high seas during the brief but violent war of 1812 between the young US republic and Britain, but if the parish official in charge of providing assistance knew of their circumstances he makes no mention of it as judging claimant’s character to ascertain whether she or he was ‘worthy’ of relief was not part of his remit.
They were not the only sailors helped by the parish that year for we find in the same parish record the later entry: “To relieving 5 sailors with a pass 0s 10d on 18th of August.” (Note that they received 10 old pence, less than a shilling for the five sailors, and a good deal less than the three Americans.) Parish “overseers” – the officials, who oversaw the distribution of poor relief in the locality – were only too glad to help sailors, or any other travellers, to move through their small parish; should travellers find some reason to stay – for example fall ill or injure themselves – they could become “chargeable” to the parish. For the same reason we read: “To a vagrant in the rode -2s; To a man with a pass 0/6d To a sick woman found in the road – 2s.”2
The office of parish overseer was voluntary, chosen annually to raise local taxes (“poor rates”) from those owning or renting property above a certain value threshold. Most claimants were actually long-term resident (or “settled”) in the parish which was the legal status that determined a claimant’s right to apply for assistance from the parish in the first place. Broadly, a person was settled through birth in the parish, by holding a job for a number of years or through marriage to a “settled” inhabitant. The overseer’s job was to decide which claimants would receive assistance and whether it would be in cash or in kind. He was the front end of the “old poor law” established as a system of national assistance in 1601, in the last years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign – An Act for the Better Relief of the Poor. Under that statute and others that followed every parish in England had a legal duty to raise local taxes from those above a set value of property to maintain the poor. Although designed for a largely rural economy the principles of the old poor law endured for over two centuries.
The law embodied two critical principles for destitute residents legally settled in a parish: 1) a right to work: if the claimant could not find work and was an able-bodied male, the parish would set him to work maintaining roads or bridges and pay him for it; and 2) if a person was destitute he or she had a right to assistance (referred to as “relief”) for those settled in the parish. The law embedded something of immense value: a moral commitment to support the poor. Their needs were assessed and provided for on a no-fault basis. No formal judgement was made between those “deserving” assistance and those who did not. All decisions regarding assistance were made within this legal framework and not a matter for charity. In short, the “old poor law” was law, based on parliamentary statute and common law.
Help under the old poor law “was not directed to a separate underclass but was an established part of the social system to which a large number of people might have recourse.”3 Assistance responded to primary needs – clothes for warmth and for work, food for sustenance, medical assistance, coal for heating, bedding and funeral expenses. By the early 1800s an estimated 10 per cent of the population of England received some form of income support from the old poor law.4
Rights under the old poor law were well established in the popular mind – part of the “moral economy of the poor”5 – a conviction that the right to claim overrode free market concepts which paid no heed to ideals of fairness and justice. This conviction survived well into the 19th century with roots in common law. Surveying this history, Professor Lorie Charlesworth commented that welfare “is not simply the brave new world of Beveridge, but a fundamental cultural and legal norm long embedded within our society,” which she traces back to the old poor law.6 The sheer volume of poor relief paid out through the old poor law demonstrates the broad acceptance of this right. Charlsworth concludes:
The ordinary every day payments are recorded because they represent the performance of parochial legal duties and obligation to the poor and must be accounted for annually to the justices. … historians miss their significance: that the settled poor possess a legal right to relief7.
Local administration of poor relief in England and Wales (Scotland had a different poor law system explained below) was decentralized with civil authority largely embodied in the local parish. Those in need of assistance and the ratepayers who would pay for that assistance were known to one another in the mostly rural parishes, usually of no more than several hundred persons. Assistance to the destitute was relational, face-to-face work. The theme of reciprocity is evident during the early 19th century between the better off and those living near or at the subsistence level.
Duties lay heavily on the overseer, who after all served only in a voluntary capacity. He was responsible for judging the validity of claims – potentially a difficult, stressful job. Ultimately the overseer was personally liable in law – the claimant/pauper who felt unjustly served could appeal his or her case before local Justices of the Peace; if a destitute person had been refused relief and subsequently died, the overseer could be indicted for manslaughter.
An entry in the Duckington records indicates the lengths that overseers would go to ensure that timely assistance arrived: “To a journey [of 17 miles] taking widow Buckley’s rent to Wem 5s/0d.”8.
The Duckington accounts from May 1815 to May 1816 also record the help provided to a woman at the birth of her child:
“18th July To Margaret Nevitt child 13 weeks pay at 2/6 per week - £1.12.6d;” and continues, “Paid Mrs Phillips for attending Margaret Nevitt £1.1s.0d” (to be attendant at the birth).
In the following month we read: “10th June To Widow Nield while ill 12s2d” and a few days later: “To Widow Nield burial fees, coffins and a person coming over £2.4s.0d.”
Payment for funerals is frequently found in parish records; to be laid to rest with respect and dignity was of the greatest importance but the expense of even a modest funeral was beyond the means of some families. So we read the accounts of Ebeneezer Allwood, overseer and an eccentric speller if there ever was one, covering the cost of Breeley Cote’s funeral in 1818:
- To Breeley Cote 10s 7d; [presumably to cover cost of a medical officer]
- To Breeley coffin £1.14s.0d; to Breeley burial fees – 5s/6d;
- To Breeley a poors ley (levy?)
- To paid for Breeley borrad money 6s 0d. [covering a debt of hers?]
- To a man cuming to tel us no[w] Breely being Ded 3s/0d.9
Clothing for work and warmth were necessary items and providing them a form of prevention, staving off destitution. One of the ways parishes reduced costs was by placing the children of families who were being supported by the parish, into service – allocating them to local farmers and ratepayers to get them off the parish lists. In 1822, for example, the parish officers at Hungerford “Ordered that James Woodley have 1 pr. of shoes & a jacket and if he does not continue in his situation the jacket and shoes to be returned to the parish officer.”10
Claimants define their own needs
The needs that people had and the kind of assistance they were asking for survive in the letters they wrote – or had written for them – to their parish authorities in various parts of England. Many were from those who had recently left their home parish in search of work elsewhere but were still reliant on assistance from their home parish.
The “pauper letters” from claimants in Essex describe the personal circumstances such as unemployment or illness, that made them destitute. Often, they are very direct in asking for the assistance they need – and reveal the lengths that they expected overseers would go to in assessing and providing relief.11
Among the most frequent problems they wrote about were: 1) coping with infirmity in old age or disability (particularly with numbness and uselessness of hands and legs – a critical impairment in an economy dominated by manual labour), 2) parents with children that they are unable to feed and clothe; 3) the plight of widows; 4) paying for funeral expenses.
Other needs were also prominent: young women who could not afford to buy the clothes they needed before going into service; low wages that had to be supplemented during periods of “slack trade” (what we would call short-term unemployment or underemployment); compensation for accident and injury, often at work, and assistance for the family where the “breadwinner” either had gone to or was returning from prison. There were also appeals for help from undernourished families, for doctor’s services and medicines and for supporting a mother on her own with children for whom the father refuses to pay maintenance.
From these letters we can also draw a list of the items deemed necessary to live, a “necessities”-based definition of poverty similar to that used by researchers in the late 20th century. There are no luxuries here – to be deprived of any of these necessities would mean life and livelihood were at stake. The tone of the letters is always respectful but written in the context of reciprocity that underpinned the poor law. (I have left the spellings, capitalizations, grammar and syntax as they are in the originals – and have reproduced the layout as closely as possible.)
Letter No 140: From Lucy Nevill [in St Botolph, Colchester], January 15, 1825
Jany 15 1825
Sir
this is to certify that my Son Abraham is alive and well and is as four Years Old the 17th of last Jany I would have come over with him but being in service I can not leave my place hope therefore you will send the money by the Carrier and you will oblige your Humble Sert
signd
Lucy Nevill12
Comment: Lucy Nevill is in the service of a household, perhaps a farmer’s family, committed to a round of domestic chores, with a four-year-old son for whom she receives cash support. It is impossible for her to appear before the parish authorities in person because she is working but it is notable that she is quite at ease in asking for the overseer to send her money by a carrier to her workplace. She also has basic confidence that her explanation, short as it is, will be read with some understanding on the part of the decision-makers and that they will meet her request to send her the money via a third-party carrier.
Letter No 142: From...
