THE POOR
Harrison says that there are “four kinds of poor: the poor by
impotence, as the fatherless child, the blind man, and the incurably
sick man; the poor by casualty, as the wounded soldier; the thriftless
poor, as the rioter that hath consumed all; the vagabond that will
abide nowhere; and, finally, the rogues and strumpet which are not
possible to be divided in sunder.”
As regards the last sort. Harrison’s description tells everything that
is wanted.
“Such as are idle beggars through their owne default are of two sorts,
and continue their estates either by casuall or meere voluntarie
meanes: those that are such by casuall means, are in the beginning
justlie to be referred either to the first or second sort of poore
afore mentioned; but degenerating into the thriftlesse sort, they doo
what they can to continue their miserie, and with such impediments as
they have to straie and wander about, as creatures abhorring all labour
and every honest exercise. Certes I call these casuall meanes, not in
respect of the originall of their povertie, but of the continuance of
the same, from whence they will not be delivered, such is their owne
ungratious lewdnesse and froward disposition. The voluntarie meanes
proceed from outward causes, as by making of corosives, and applieng
the same to the more fleshie parts of their bodies; and also laieng
of ratsbane, sperewort, crowfoot, and such like unto their whole
members, thereby to raise pitifull and odious sores and moove the
harts of the goers by such places where they lie, to yerne at their
miserie and bestow large almesse upon them. How artificiallie they
beg, what forcible speech, and how they select and choose out words of
vehemencie, whereby they doo in maner conjure or adjure the goer by to
pitie their cases, I passe over to remember, as judging the name of
God and Christ to be more conversant in the mouths of none; and yet
the presence of the heavenlie majestie further off from no men than
from this ungracious companie. Which maketh me to think that punishment
is farre meeter for them than liberalitie or almesse, and sith Christ
willeth us cheeflie to have a regard to Himselfe and His poore members.
Unto this nest is another sort to be referred, more sturdie than the
rest, which having sound and perfect limbs, doo yet, notwithstanding,
sometime counterfeit the possession of all sorts of diseases. Divers
times in their apparell also they will be like serving-men or laborers;
oftentimes they can plaie the mariners, and seeke for ships which they
never lost. But in fine, they are thieves and caterpillars in the
common-wealth, and by the word of God not permitted to eat, sith they
doo but lick the sweat from the true labourers’ browes, and beereve
the godly poore of that whiche is due unto them, to mainteine their
excesse, consuming the charitie of well-disposed people bestowed upon
them, after a most wicked and detestable manner.
It is not yet full threescore yeares since this trade began; but how it
hath prospered since that time, it is easie to judge, for they are now
supposed, of one sex and another, to amount unto about 10,000 persons;
as I have heard reported. Moreover, in counterfeiting the Egyptian
rogues, they have devised a language among themselves, which they name
Canting, but other pedlers French, a speech compact thirtie years since
of English, and a great number of od words of their own devising,
without all order or reason; and yet such is it as none but themselves
are able to understand. The first deviser thereof was hanged by the
necke, a just reward no doubt for his deserts, and a common end to all
of that profession....
The punishment that is ordeined for this kind of people is verie sharpe
and yet it can not restreine them from their gadding; wherefore the end
must needs be martiall law, to be exercised upon them, as upon theeves,
robbers, despisers of all lawes, and enimies to the common-wealth and
welfare of the land. What notable roberies, pilferies, murders, rapes,
and stealings of yoong children, burning, breaking and disfiguring
their lims to make them pitifull in the sight of the people, I need
not to rehearse; but for their idle roging about the countrie, the
law ordeineth this manner of correction. The roge being apprehended,
committed to prison, and tried in the next assises (whether they be of
gaole diliverie or sessions of the peace), if he happen to be convicted
for a vagabond either by inquest of office, or the testimonie of two
honest and credible witnesses upon their oths, he is then immediately
adjudged to be greeviously whipped and burned through the gristle of
the right eare, with a hot iron of the compasse of an inch about, as a
manifestation of his wicked life, and due punishment received for the
same. And this judgment is to be excuted upon him, except some honest
person woorth five pounds in the queenes books in goods, or twentie
shillings in lands, or some rich housholder to be allowed by the
justices will be bound in recognisance to reteine him in his service
for one whole yeare. If he be taken the second time, and proved to
have forsaken his said service, he shall then be whipped againe, bored
likewise through the other eare and set to service; from when if he
depart before a yeare be expired, and happen afterwards to be attached
againe, he is condemned to suffer paines of death as a fellon (except
before excepted), without benefit of clergy or sanctuarie, as by the
statute doth appeare. Among roges and idle persons finallie, we find to
be comprised all proctors that go up and down with conterfeit licenses,
coosiners, and such as gad about the countrie, using unlawfull games,
practisers of physiognomie and palmestrie, tellers of fortunes,
fensers, plaiers, minstrels, jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, pretensed
scholars, shipmen, prisoners gathering for fees, and others so oft as
they be taken without sufficient licence. From among which companie our
bearewards are not excepted and just cause; for I have read that they
have either voluntarilie, or for want of power to master their savege
beasts, beene occasion of the death and devoration of manie children in
sundrie countries by which they have passed, whose parents never knew
what was become of them.” (Holinshed, vol. i.)
The great increase of rogues and vagabonds of all kinds led in the year
1561 to a proposition for a House of Correction. The plan or scheme of
which was drawn out at full length, is published in _Archæologia_ (vol.
xxi. p. 451).
The House was to be strong and in two divisions: one for the men and
the other for the women. It was to be built and furnished by the
alms of the people where it was put up—in this case Westminster was
proposed. In furnishing, care must be taken that everything should
be simple, because “it is to be considered beforehand that ye shall
have to do with the most desperatest people of the earth, geven to all
spoyle and robbery and soch as will break from you and steale.”
For work, it must be of a kind that they cannot steal or destroy. A
Mill, therefore, for the men, or a Lime Kiln; and for the women a Wheel
for cotton wool or woollen yarn. Of officers there must be six Masters:
a clerk; a porter and keeper; two beadles, and a miller.
The rations for the inmates were to be as follows:—To every four women,
at every meal, one pound of beef, potage, bread and drink. To every two
men working in the mill, double this allowance. The allowance of bread
was to be sixteen ounces a day. The allowance of beer was to every
four women one “pottell” of single beer a day, but to the men double
that quantity. On fast days an equivalent of butter, cheese, herrings,
“pescodes,” and such like.
There were to be two pairs of stocks and shackles for the refractory.
The Matron was to be a strong woman—the Elizabethan female of the baser
kind did not weaken her muscles and her nerves with tea; and, which is
very significant, it is added, “ye must be careful of fyer, for the
people are desperate and care not what mischief they do.”
I do not know whether this proposed House of Correction was erected or
not.
The present seems the best place and time to speak of systematic
attempts at Poor Relief.
The relief of the poor was a duty enjoined on all men. Almsgiving
was considered especially a virtue becoming to kings and princes.
Alfred gave alms continually. The Monastic Houses never turned away a
beggar without a meal to speed him on his way. Rich and noble persons
kept open house at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. Already the
custom was commenced of leaving lands or money to the church or to the
monastery saddled with the condition of alms to be bestowed on the
anniversary of the donor. By the laws of Ethelred, which probably only
confirmed a custom, the third part of the tithe due to the Church was
to be set aside for the use of the poor. In the Canons of Ælfric the
same proportion is enjoined to be so reserved. And in all the Monastic
Houses a certain part of the revenues was expended on the Almonry or
the Infirmary.
The custom of giving indiscriminately to any vagrant who demanded
alms, created a class of “masterless” men who would do no work and
wandered about the country. It took some centuries of this growing evil
before men could be brought to connect vagrancy with indiscriminate
almsgiving. At first the efforts made to repress vagrancy were directed
towards compulsory work. No one dared to maintain, perhaps no one dared
to think, that it was wrong to give alms to a beggar merely because he
was a beggar; but every one understood that the labourer must somehow
be made to work. Had the Clergy and the Monastic Houses perceived the
truth, vagrancy might have been reduced to a few companies of outlaws
and marauders. But we cannot blame the clergy of the thirteenth century
for failing to understand what the clergy of the present century are
still unable to understand. When the law interfered, the situation was
wellnigh desperate. The Black Death of 1348–50 had made labour scarce
and wages high. The necessity of suppressing able-bodied begging and of
sending the able-bodied beggar back to his native place and his proper
work was forced upon the Government. The Labour Statutes endeavoured to
force men to work and to keep down wages. In the fourteenth century,
just as to-day, there was a natural limit imposed upon wages by the
price of grain and food. The rustic who understood nothing about this
limit, naturally desired higher and still higher wages; if he could not
get this increase in his own parish, he went elsewhere: he begged his
way; he found food at the monastery; he tasted the joys of food which
was got without any work for it; he therefore easily dropped into the
condition of the masterless man and the able-bodied beggar.
In 1349 the law stepped in. No one must give alms, money, or food to
the able-bodied, so that for lack of bread they might be compelled to
work. The rustics, in order to escape the terrors of this law, ran
about the country from place to place. They pretended to be lame,
blind, dumb, paralysed; in this disguise they wandered about begging
with impunity unless they were detected. They pretended (case of
impostor—Riley) to go on pilgrimage: they joined companies of pilgrims,
begging by the way, and so got along for a time without working.
Therefore in 1388 other laws were framed. Nobody was allowed to beg at
all without a letter granting him a license; nobody was allowed to go
on pilgrimage without a license; nobody was to go anywhere outside his
own part of the country without a license. If any were found without
such warrant or permission they were clapped into the stocks. The Act
endeavoured to put a stop not only to able-bodied vagrancy, but also to
beggars who were crippled or afflicted, for they, too, were forbidden
to roam.
The citizens of London were especially severe on masterless men.
The law, at the same time, recognised the duty of relieving the
impotent, and the deserving poor, and the right of these to demand
relief. Wherever they were found they were compelled to go back to the
place to which they belonged by birth.
Nothing could be better or more effectual than these laws if they could
have been enforced. But how were they to be enforced? Where were the
police who might patrol the roads? How were the villagers disposed
towards laws which made them accept whatever wages the Lord of the
Manor chose to give them? In the City of London what were the opinions
of the working class, of the craftsmen? And how could the Alderman in
his ward ascertain that every man was following his own craft? No doubt
the power of arresting, punishing, and sending to their own villages
the wandering rustic, had the effect of keeping down the number of the
beggars. In a short time, too, the natural increase of the population
relieved the scarcity of labour. Moreover the relief of the poor by
each parish was ordered by the setting aside of a portion of the tithe
for their benefit (a revival of the Saxon law); and in those cases
where the tithes went to a monastic house, the same portion should be
payable by the monks or nuns. The jealousy with which the religious
Orders were already regarded is shown by the enactment of this
provision by Richard II. and its confirmation by Henry IV.
If the laws against grants of the fourteenth century had been enforced
there would have been an end of the evil. Unfortunately, they could
not be enforced. In the country there was no kind of Police; in London
the City had outgrown the old government by Aldermen and Ward, and
the people were overflowing the City boundaries and were beyond the
jurisdiction of the Mayor. Now the control of the county would not
be very effective, say, at Wapping or at Bermondsey, when the people
began to settle there. During the whole of the fifteenth century the
demand for able-bodied men for the war in France first, and the Civil
wars next, was so great that there seem to have been few vagrants
in the country. Indications, however, are by no means wanting of a
“masterless” element in London.
The cessation of the wars threw a large number of men out of
employment; worse than this, it found them unwilling or unable to
settle down again to steady work. Other causes also operated to produce
the same result. The English nobles had ceased to maintain their large
retinues: no longer did an Earl of Warwick ride into London with seven
hundred gentlemen and men-at-arms; Sir Thomas More says expressly that
the men who formerly had been in this kind of service either starved
or became thieves. Again, the changes in the industrial condition of
the country threw many people out of work: lands formerly arable were
turned into pasture; sheep runs took the place of cornfields; one
shepherd was wanted instead of half-a-dozen labourers. There was again
a great rise in prices, owing to the influx of silver. In fifty years
provisions of all kinds were doubled in price while wages rose only
thirty per cent. Add to these causes the continuance of indiscriminate
almsgiving.
The evil grew continually during the whole of the sixteenth century.
Early in the sixteenth century the City of London began to pass
regulations against vagrants. They forbade able-bodied vagrants
to beg and citizens to give money to unlicensed beggars: in other
words, they revived and enforced the old laws. Great strictness was
ordered. Vagrants had the letter V fastened on their breasts, and
were driven through Cheapside to the music of a basin ringing before
them. Four surveyors were appointed to carry out these instructions.
There was also an officer appointed, called “Master and Chief Avoyder
and Keeper out of this City and the liberties of the same all the
mighty vagabonds and beggars and all other suspected persons, except
such as wear upon them the badge of the City.” The vagrants, when
apprehended, were whipped at the cart’s tail; they also had to wear
collars of iron about their necks. Those who were allowed to beg had
tokens of tin given to them by the Aldermen. As for the relief of
the deserving poor, there were the “Companies’ stores,” granaries of
wheat provided for emergencies; alms were asked for every Sunday at
the church doors; the old hospitals were suppressed at the Reformation
until St. Bartholomew’s and St. Mary of Bethlehem were granted to the
City by Henry VIII. and reopened as hospitals. The City did not show
to advantage in giving money to the poor; we must remember that for
many centuries charity had been understood as indiscriminate alms given
by the Church and by rich men. What private persons gave was for the
advantage of their souls. Latimer and Lever thundered in vain. Latimer
says:—
“Now what shall we say of these rich citizens of London? What shall
I say of them? Shall I call them proud men of London, malicious
men of London, merciless men of London? No, no, I may not say
so; they will be offended with me then. Yet must I speak. For is
there not reigning in London as much pride, as much covetousness,
as much cruelty, as much oppression and as much superstition as
was in Nebo? Yes I think, and much more too.... But London was
never so ill as it is now. In times past men were full of pity and
compassion, but now there is no pity; for in London their brother
shall die in the streets for cold, he shall lie sick at the door
between stock and stock ... and perish there for hunger: was there
ever more unmercifulness in Nebo? I think not. In times past,
when any rich man died in London they were wont to help the poor
scholars of the Universities with exhibitions. When any man died,
they would bequeath great sums of money towards the relief of the
poor. When I was a scholar in Cambridge myself I heard very good
report of London, and knew many that had relief of the rich men of
London; but now I can hear no such good report, and yet I inquire
of it, and hearken for it; but now charity is waxen cold, none
helpeth the scholar, nor yet the poor.”
Lever said:—
“Nowe speakynge in the behalfe of these vile beggars, ... I wyl
tell the(e) that art a noble man, a worshipful man, an honest
welthye man, especially if thou be Maire, Sherif, Alderman, baily,
constable or any such officer, it is to thy great shame afore the
worlde, and to thy utter damnation afore God, to se these begging
as thei use to do in the streates. For there is never a one of
these but he lacketh eyther thy charitable almes to relieve his
neede, or els thy due correction to punysh his faute.... These sely
sols have been neglected throughout al England and especially in
London and Westminster: But now I trust that a good overseer, a
godly Byshop I meane, wyl see that they in these two cyties shall
have their neede releeved, and their faultes corrected, to the good
ensample of al other tounes and cities.”
Then St. Thomas’s Hospital and Bridewell were obtained from the King.
The latter was designed as a House of Instruction and Correction. It
was to receive the child “unapt for learning”; the “sore and sick when
they be cured”; and persons who have lost their character and either
cannot work or cannot find any who will employ them. The children were
to be made to work; the others were to be taught certain trades. They
were to be such as would not interfere with the crafts carried on in
the City.
The treatment of the poor began by being the work of the towns, each
town working out its own experimental methods. This was followed by
legislation in Parliament.
The Act of 1573, of which we have read Harrison’s account, enjoined
boring through the ear and whipping, and at the third offence death.
The Middlesex Sessions Rolls show that these sentences were actually
carried out. Between 6th October and 14th December 1591, 71 vagrants
were sentenced at the Sessions to be branded and whipped.
Who were vagrants? They were defined as proctors or procurators;
persons pretending to knowledge in “Phisnomye, Palmestrye, and other
abused Scyences,” masterless men; “fencers, bearewardes, players,
minstrels,”—not belonging to some noble lord; jugglers, pedlars,
tinkers, chapmen; labourers refusing customary wages; counterfeiters
of passes; scholars of Oxford and Cambridge who beg without license;
sailors not licensed; discharged prisoners without license; impotent
poor. But of these, players, bearwards, and pedlars were allowed to
carry on their calling subject to license.
In every parish the Justices of the Peace were to make a register of
the names of the poor. Every month they were to search for strange poor.
Justices in the country and Mayors in London were to assess and tax
the people for the relief of the poor; and those who refused to pay
were to be imprisoned. Three years later it was ordered that “stock”
of wool, flax, hemp, iron, or other stuff, should be provided for the
work of the poor. Between 1575 and 1597 other statutes were passed for
the prevention of increased settlement of poor families. No more houses
to be built within three miles of London westward except for people
assessed at £5 in goods or £3 in land. No tenement houses to be built,
and no inmates to be received.
In 1597 there was great discussion in the House of Commons on the
whole subject of poor relief. Finally an Act was passed by which the
relief of the poor was placed in the hands of church-wardens and four
overseers of Poor elected every Easter. They had to teach children and
bind them apprentice; they provided work for the adult; they relieved
the impotent; they built hospitals; they levied rates; they made Houses
of Correction; they resorted to more whipping and to banishment, with
death for return.
Next there is the interference of the Privy Council ordering the
Justices of the Peace to look after the vagrants and to report. Here is
a brief summary.
1573. Mayor has received a second letter from the Privy Council on
subject of vagrants.
1579. Common Council considered the work of the poor at Bridewell
and referred to Lords of the Council.
1583. Privy Council recommenced prevention of Irish beggars.
1594. City meets Justices of Middlesex on subject.
_London_—1572. Mayor issued precept to Aldermen to inquire
about poor of every parish. Another precept to use the
church-wardens—thus to assess the whole ward—to make them pay who
had given nothing, and to make them pay more who had given too
little.
In 1573. Assessments proving too little, collections were made in
churches.
1576. Each parish was to elect a surveyor who every night for a
week should help the constable, beadle, and church-wardens in
visiting the houses and sending away vagrants.
Then followed a double method—relief and repression undertaken by the
parish and municipal authorities together. The vagrants were taken to
Bridewell, where the sick were picked out and sent to St. Thomas’s and
St. Bartholomew’s—thence returned to Bridewell—and made to work for
their diet. The parish looked after the rest of the poor. The children
were sent to Christ’s Hospital. The impotent were relieved.
It seems as if so strict a system must have been successful. But it was
not.
In 1601 the Act of 1579 was reconsidered and slightly altered.
1610. An Act for building one or more Houses of Correction in every
county was brought in.
The supply of corn for the markets occupied Parliament a great deal
between 1610 and 1630. There were bad harvests, and general distress.
The Privy Council tried to prevent scarcity, to find work for the poor,
and to regulate trade in the interests of the working classes. Against
times of scarcity of fuel, a coalyard was established in London for the
poor. Watchmen were provided in time of plague. More almshouses existed
then than now for the old and impotent.
It is customary to speak of the time immediately following the
Reformation as especially hard-hearted and uncharitable. For instance,
here is a certain passage, one of many, in Stubbes’s _Anatomie_, which
is certainly strong evidence of a lack of charity. It is as follows:—
“There is a certayne citie in Ailgna (Anglia) called Munidnol
(Londinum) where as the poore lye in the streetes, upon pallets of
strawe, and wel if they have that too, or els in the mire and dirt,
as commonly it is seene, having neither house to put in their heades,
covering to keepe them from the colde, nor yet to hyde their shame
withall, nor a pennie to by them sustenaunce, nor any thing els, but
are suffered to dye in the streetes like dogges or beastes, without any
mercy or compassion shewed to them at all. And if any be sicke of the
plague (as they call it) or any other mortall disease, their maisters
and mistresses are so impudent (having made, it shoulde seeme, a league
with Sathan, a covenant with hell, and an obligation with the devil,
never to have to doe with the workes of mercie) as straight way they
throwe them out of their doores: and so being caried forth, either in
cartes or otherwise, or laied downe eyther in the streetes, or els
conveiyed to some olde house in the fields or gardens, where for want
of due sustentation, they ende their lives most miserably. Truely,
brother, if I had not seene it, I would scarsly have thought that the
like Turkishe crueltie had bene used in all the world.”[14]
I would again call attention, however, to a point which has already
been mentioned in these pages. Before the suppression of the Religious
Houses these places had taken over and held in their own hands the
whole management of the poor, the sick, and the disabled, save those
whom the City Companies took under their own care. For centuries,
therefore, the people had been taught to regard the care of the sick
and old, and in a great manner the feeding of the poor, as belonging
especially to the Religious. It is part of the mediæval mind that the
poor do so belong to the monastic orders and not to the laity. When,
therefore, the Houses were suppressed, the modern spirit of Charity had
to be actually created in the hearts of the people. It was then that
the education in philanthropy began which has been going on ever since.
This outburst of Stubbes is a first lesson in brotherly love. Another
part of the same lesson is his tirade against hard-hearted creditors,
which is quoted here, because it applies especially to the citizens of
London, tender and compassionate in some respects, but flinty-hearted
as regards the poor prisoners who cannot pay their debts:—
“Believe me, it greeveth me to heare (walking in the streetes)
the pitifull cryes and miserable complayntes of poore prisoners
in durance for debte, and like so to continue all their life,
destitute of libertie, meate, drink (though of the meanest sort),
and clothing to their backes, lying in filthie straw and lothsome
dung, worse than anie dogge, voyde of all charitable consolation
and brotherly comfort in this world, wishing and thirsting after
deathe to set them at libertie, and loose them from their shackles,
gives, and iron bandes. Notwithstanding, these merciless tygers
(the usurers) are grown to such barbarous crueltie that they blush
not to say ‘tush, he shall eyther pay me the whole, or else lye
there till his heeles rotte from his buttocks; and, before I will
release him, I will make dice of his bones.’ But, take heed, thou
devil (for I dare not call thee Christian), least the Lord say to
thee, as hee sayd to that wicked servant (who, having great summes
forgiven him, would not forgive his brother his small debt, but,
catching him by the throate, sayd Paie that thou owest), Binde him
handes and feete, and cast him into utter darknesse, where shall
bee weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The charities of London consisted of Hospitals for the sick,
almshouses, schools, and doles for the poor. It was customary for great
men, ecclesiastics, and Religious Houses, to give every day large
quantities of food to the poor, whereby they were encouraged to remain
poor. Stow records many instances of this mischievous and promiscuous
charity. Henry II., for instance, to show his repentance for the death
of the Archbishop, fed every day 10,000 persons from the first of April
till the harvest, a time of year when food is dearest and scarcest.
Let me follow Stow’s list of Foundations in chronological order.
1. In very ancient times the Hospital of St. James for leprous women.
2. In 1197 Domus Dei, or St. Mary Spital, outside Billingsgate.
3. In 1247 the Hospital of St. Mary Bethlehem turned afterwards into a
lunatic asylum.
4. 1322 Elsing Spital for 100 poor men.
5. 1337 The College of St. Laurence Poultney.
6. 1358 The Almshouses of Stodies Lane.
7. 1367 John Lofken’s Hospital at Kingston-on-Thames.
8. 1384 John Philpot’s Almshouses for 13 poor people.
9. 1400 Thomas Knoles bequeathed his house as an almshouse.
10. Whittington’s College (1421), an almshouse for 13 poor men.
11. John Carpenter, almshouse for 4 poor men.
12. Robert Chicheley money for a dinner to 2400 poor men and twopence
each on his “minde day.”
13. Philip Malpas, numerous benefactions to prisoners, poor folk,
girls’ marriage portions, etc.
14. Richard Rawson, girls’ marriage portions.
15. Henry Keble, girls’ marriage portions and seven almshouses.
16. John Colet, St. Paul’s School, 353 poor men’s children.
17. John Tate enlarged and increased St. Anthony’s House and Almshouses.
18. George Monox, almshouses for 13 poor people at Walthamstow.
19. John Milbourne, almshouses for 14 poor people.
20. John Allen left rents for the use of the poor.
21. Andrew Judd, almshouses.
22. Richard Hills, the Merchant Taylors’ School.
23. Sir Thomas Gresham, almshouses.
24. Sir Thomas Rowe, almshouses.
25. Ambrose Nicolas, almshouses.
26. John Fuller, almshouses.
27. Dame Agnes Foster, enlargement of Ludgate Hill Prison.
28. Avice Gibson, almshouses.
29. Margaret Danne, money to be lent to young men beginning as
ironmongers.
30. Dame Mary Ramsay, endowment of Christ’s Hospital.
The following are later endowments. Thus Sir Thomas White, citizen and
Merchant Taylor, Mayor, purchased Gloucester Hall at Oxford; he founded
St. John’s College there; he erected schools at Bristol and Reading;
to Bristol he gave £2000 for the purchase of lands. This would produce
£120 a year, which was to be administered by the Mayor of Bristol. He
gave £800 to be lent to 16 poor Clothiers at £50 apiece as security for
ten years, and after that the money to pass to other towns, _i.e._
1579 Reading
1580 The Merchant Taylors’ Company
1581 Gloucester
1582 Worcester
1583 Exeter
1584 Salisbury
1585 Westchester
1586 Norwich
1587 Southampton
1588 Lincoln
1589 Winchester
1590 Oxford
1591 Hereford
1592 Cambridge
1593 Shrewsbury
1594 Lynn
1595 Bath
1596 Derby
1597 Ipswich
1598 Colchester
1599 Newcastle.
He gave to the City of Coventry £1400 with which to purchase lands to
the annual value of £70. Twelve poor men to have 40s. each free alms;
then four young men were to have loans of £10 for nine years. He did
the same thing for Northampton, for Leicester, and for Warwick. A
worthy benefactor, indeed!
In 1560 Richard Hills gave £500 towards the purchase of a house called
the Manor of the Rose, where the Merchant Taylors founded their
school. At the same time William Lambert, Draper, Justice of the Peace
in Kent, founded an almshouse for the poor in East Greenwich called
Queen Elizabeth’s Almshouses.
In 1568 Sir Thomas Rowe gave the City a new burial-ground by Bethlehem
Hospital; he also endowed a sermon every Whit Monday; gave £100 to be
lent to eight poor men; and founded an endowment for the support of ten
poor men, giving them four pounds a year.
William Lambe was a benefactor to the City in the sixteenth century.
He was a cloth worker by trade. In the year 1543, on the suppression
of the Religious Houses, he obtained possession by purchase of the
smallest of them all, the Chapel or Hermitage standing at the corner
of the wall at the end of Monkwell Street. It was called St. James’s
in the Wall, and was endowed by Henry the Third. Lambe repaired or
rebuilt the Chapel, and placed in the former garden or in the ancient
buildings certain almshouses for bedesmen. In 1577 he died, leaving
this foundation and other sums of money to the Clothworkers. The Great
Fire spared a part of Lambe’s Chapel and Almshouses.
Lambe also drew together several springs of water near the present
Foundling Hospital to a head, called after him Lamb’s Conduit, though
the name is now spelt without the “e.” He then conveyed the water by
leaden pipes to Snow Hill, where he rebuilt a ruinous conduit and laid
in the water.
“He also founded a Free Grammar School at _Sutton Valens_, the Place of
his Nativity, in _Kent_, with a master at £20, and an Usher at £10 per
Ann. and an Alms-house for six poor people, endowed with £10 yearly.
He gave £10 per Ann. to the Free School at _Maidstone_ in _Kent_, for
the Education of needy Men’s Children; three hundred pounds to the poor
Clothiers in _Suffolk_, _Bridgnorth_ and _Ludlow_ in _Shropshire_. He
left to the Clothworkers’ Company his Dwelling-House, a little to the
South-West of _Cripplegate_, with Lands and Tenements to the value of
£30 per Ann. for paying a Minister to read Divine Service on _Sundays_,
_Wednesdays_, and _Fridays_, every week, in the Chapel adjoining to
his House, called St. _James_, in the Wall by _Cripplegate_; and for
Clothing twelve Men with a Frize Gown, one Lockram Shirt, and a good
strong pair of Winter Shoes; and twelve Women with a Frize Gown, a
Lockram Smock, and a good pair of Winter Shoes, all ready made for
wearing; to be given to such as are poor and honest, on the first of
October. He also gave £15 towards the Bells and Chimes of St. Giles’s
Without _Cripplegate_; £6:13:4 yearly to the Company of Stationers,
for the relief of twelve poor People of the Parish of St. _Faith_,
under _Paul’s_, at the rate of 12d. in Money, and 12d. in Bread, to
each of them, on every Friday through the year; £6 per Ann. and £100
to purchase Land, for the Relief of Children in _Christ’s_ Hospital;
£4 to St. _Thomas’s_ Hospital in _Southwark_; besides some other
Charities to the Prisons, and for portioning poor Maids.” (Maitland,
vol. i. p. 264.)
It will be seen that the building of almshouses was the favourite
method of charitable endowment. Schools were occasionally endowed
but not so commonly as almshouses. The sight of an old man broken
down, unable to earn his bread, is one which appeals to the most
hard-hearted. The necessity of educating the young was less understood,
for the simple reason that the children of the working class were
regarded as simply growing machines for labour, just as their fathers
were regarded as machines in active working order whose opinions or
wishes were never so much as asked, while any effort on their part
to express an opinion was put down at once. This view of the working
classes, which lasted till the middle of the nineteenth century,
explains a great deal of what we now consider apathy on the part of
those who should have known better; it explains among other things the
opposition to reform, and the jealousy and dread of the working class;
and it explains why so few schools were endowed in comparison with the
number of almshouses.