[326] _Ibid._ pp. xxxii-xxxiii, 9-30.
[327] Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. 32-93.
_D._--_Children_
It was with regard to children that the policy of the Central Authority
in this period made the greatest advance. This, however, applies chiefly
to the 40,000 children who were being relieved in institutions. With
regard to the children being maintained on outdoor relief--who were at
least five times as numerous--we do not find that the Central Authority
in this period took any cognisance of their condition,[328] except to
some small extent with regard to their schooling. Even this was a new
feature. In 1844, as already mentioned, the Central Authority had
expressly refused to allow 2d. a week to be paid for the schooling of
such a child, or even to permit that sum to be added to the outdoor
relief to the parent with the same object.[329] This decision was
emphasised by a Circular in 1847, laying down that pauper children
living at home were not to be educated at the expense of the poor
rate.[330] For years the Manchester Board of Guardians, under the
leadership of Mr. Hodgson, had tried to get some of their outdoor pauper
children to school, the guardians actually maintaining a primitive day
school of their own for this purpose. The Central Authority refused to
sanction this experiment, forbade its extension, questioned the
lawfulness of the guardians' action, and between 1850 and 1855 seems
always to have been complaining about it.[331] In 1855, however,
Parliament reversed the policy of non-responsibility for outdoor pauper
children, so far as to allow the boards of guardians, if they chose, to
pay for the schooling of such children between the ages of four and
sixteen.[332] They were, however, expressly forbidden to make it a
condition of relief that the child should attend school, for fear of
exciting religious jealousies, all schools being then denominational.
The Central Authority, in transmitting this statute ("Denison's Act") to
the boards of guardians, laid stress on its permissive character. No
instructions or suggestions were given as to the kind of school to be
chosen, though if the guardians in their exercise of their discretion
did pay the fees of any children, they were to satisfy themselves of
their due attendance.[333] But it trusted that "it will be soon brought
into extensive operation," and presently 3986 out of the 200,000 outdoor
pauper children were at school.[334] Special efforts were made during
the Lancashire cotton famine to get the Act carried out,[335] and
gradually more of the boards of guardians adopted the policy.[336] In
1870 the Elementary Education Act made education compulsory over a large
part of the country, and authorised boards of guardians not only to pay
fees, but also to make attendance at school a condition of relief. This,
however, came as part of the educational policy of Parliament, not as
part of the Poor Law policy of the Central Authority. So far as these
children were concerned (though nominal fees continued to be paid out of
the poor rate until 1891), the provision of schooling became merged in
the general communistic provision of schooling for the whole population.
By this beginning of communistic provision of education for the whole
population (completed by the Free Education Act of 1891), the Poor Law
authorities were enabled to escape--so far as education was
concerned--from the embarrassing dilemma of either placing the pauper
child in a position of vantage, or of deliberately bringing up the
quarter of a million pauper children in a state of ignorance similar to
that of the children of the poorest independent labourer prior to 1870.
In respect of everything but education the problem remained. So far as
regards the couple of hundred thousand children maintained on outdoor
relief, the Central Authority left the boards of guardians without
advice on this dilemma.
[328] The Central Authority observed in 1858 that "more than
one-third of the paupers are children under sixteen." The numbers
at that date were 44,989 indoors, and 263,994 out of doors, or
37·4 per cent of the whole (Eleventh Annual Report, 1858, p. 166).
It is not clear to us whether this total of children on outdoor
relief includes in all cases the children of men in receipt of
medical relief only.
In 1869, in answer to Mr. Goschen's Minute, the Holborn Board of
Guardians forced on the attention of the Central Authority the
fact that they, like the other Metropolitan guardians, were
allowing for each child on outdoor relief 1s. and one loaf of
bread. "No one can pretend," they said, "that this amount is of
itself adequate support" (Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p.
20). The Holborn Board of Guardians practically defied the Central
Authority to find any other policy. The Central Authority did not
reply to this challenge.
[329] _Official Circular_, 31st January 1844, No. 31, pp. 178-9.
[330] _Ibid._ 1st September 1847, No. 9, N.S. p. 131.
[331] MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 1850-5.
[332] 18 & 19 Vic. c. 34 (Education of Poor Children Act 1855).
"An enactment involving the important admission that want of
education was a form of destitution, which ought to be adequately
relieved" (_History of the English Poor Law_, by T. Mackay, 1899,
vol. iii. p. 428).
[333] Circular of 9th January 1856, in Ninth Annual Report, 1857,
pp. 13, 15. In 1856 it was reported that there were in Lancashire
and the West Riding 48,412 children on outdoor relief, of whom
about 30,000 ought to be at school. Yet down to December 1855, the
boards of guardians had taken no steps to get them to school, in
spite of the inspector's protests (Eighth Annual Report, 1855, p.
63).
[334] House of Commons Return, No. 437 of 1856; Ninth Annual
Report, p. 8. Newcastle-on-Tyne adopted it at once (MS. Minutes,
Newcastle Board of Guardians, 10th October 1855).
[335] Fifteenth Annual Report, 1862-3, p. 18; Circular of 29th
September 1862.
[336] MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 9th October
1862. The Manchester Guardians, whose early school experiment we
have already mentioned, largely nullified their own action (and
apparently contravened the spirit, if not the letter of the law),
by insisting on the attendance of the outdoor paupers exclusively
at the guardians' own school, which gave "undenominational"
religious instruction, and refusing to pay fees for children to go
to any other schools (except for a short time in 1862-3 when their
own schools were over-full). In vain did the Roman Catholics and
the Manchester and Salford Education Aid Society protest, pointing
out that the children were in consequence growing up untaught
(_ibid._ 26th May, 23rd and 30th June, and 10th November 1864;
19th June 1865). The Central Authority does not appear to have
intervened.
Passing now to the 40,000 children in Poor Law institutions, we have
described how, between 1834 and 1847, the Central Authority, in
disregard of the recommendations of the 1834 Report,[337] had adopted
the policy of having one common workhouse for each union, under a single
head, and with an almost identical regimen for all classes of inmates.
It was necessarily incidental to the policy of the Outdoor Relief
Prohibitory Order which was then widely prevalent, that the wife and
children of the destitute man should be relieved only in the workhouse.
These institutions came, therefore, to be the homes and places of
education of not only orphans and foundlings, but also of tens of
thousands of other children, who were often immured in them from birth
until they could be placed out in service. Apparently the idea of one
general workhouse for each union, under one uniform discipline, was too
deeply rooted in the Poor Law Commissioners to allow of any provision
being made for children in the Orders concerning workhouse management.
No provision was made for the children going out for walks or games or
play.[338] No Order required the guardians to appoint a qualified
schoolmaster, or, indeed, any teacher at all, or to buy any
school-books. Year after year the returns from many unions continue to
state "No teachers in workhouse," without evoking from the Central
Authority any compulsory Order.[339]
[337] That the children should be accommodated in a separate
building, under a separate superintendent, and educated by "a
person properly qualified to act as a schoolmaster" (page 307 of
Report of 1834, reprint of 1905).
[338] The children in the Bakewell Workhouse were found, in 1855,
to be in a dreadful state of health, owing to the literal
application throughout the workhouse of the principles of the
General Consolidated Order of 1847. The inspector protested at
last, and recommended special arrangements for the children in the
way of more nourishing diet and outdoor exercise. The guardians
framed a new dietary, ordered "the swings, etc. recommended by the
inspector," and directed the schoolmistress "to take the girls out
for a walk every day when the weather is fine" (MS. Minutes,
Bakewell Board of Guardians, 1st October 1855 and 29th September
1856.)
[339] From 1846 onwards the Committee of the Privy Council on
Education had, as part of the nation's educational policy,
actually made grants to the boards of guardians to pay the
salaries of qualified workhouse schoolmasters and
schoolmistresses. In 1848 it was announced to the boards of
guardians that, whereas "no comprehensive effort has hitherto been
made" to raise the standard of efficiency, henceforth the
inspector of pauper schools will examine the schools and the
qualifications of the teachers as part of the conditions for
sharing in the grant (MS. Minutes, Newcastle Board of Guardians,
31st March 1848).
It is to the credit of the new Poor Law Board that it at once admitted
that the much-vaunted general workhouse system was, so far as the
children were concerned, simply manufacturing paupers. "Too many of
those brought up in the workhouse," said Mr. Charles Buller in 1848,
"were marked by a tendency to regard the workhouse as their natural and
proper home.... They had been accustomed to the workhouse from their
earliest infancy and ... to the confinement, ... and when they became
adults there was nothing to deter them from entering it."[340] The
remedy now proposed was the removal of all children from the workhouses
to separate Poor Law schools, and their education, irrespective of cost,
in such a way "as may best tend to raise them from the class of paupers
to that of independent labourers _and artisans_."[341] To attain this
end the Central Authority secured another statute in amendment of the
hitherto abortive Act of 1844, permitting the establishment of "district
schools" by combinations of unions.[342] But what enabled this policy
to be begun in the teeth of persistent opposition was a terrible
outbreak of cholera at Mr. Drouet's establishment at Tooting, where the
pauper children of many parishes had continued (as a survival of the old
Poor Law, not yet interfered with by the Central Authority) to be
"farmed out."[343]
[340] Hansard, vol. 100, p. 1217 (8th August 1848).
[341] Third Annual Report, 1850, p. 6. Few children of independent
labourers' families could at that date rise to be artisans.
[342] Poor Law (Schools) Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vic. c. 82).
[343] Second Annual Report, 1849, p. 13. The Central Authority,
which had for fourteen years let the establishments alone, now
used its influence against them. Mr. Drouet's was closed. Another
similar contractor's establishment (Mr. Aubin's at Norwood) was
presently taken over by the Committee of the Central London School
District and continued as a district school, with Mr. Aubin as
salaried superintendent. Three or four other small places were
discontinued. Two others at Margate, used for sick and
convalescent young paupers, continued with the approval of the
Central Authority. An act of Parliament (12 & 13 Vic. c. 13) was
passed for their regulation (Second Annual Report, 1849, pp.
16-17).
In the course of the same year the Central Authority succeeded in
forming half-a-dozen school districts, and approved the establishment of
a gigantic boarding-school for each of them, accommodating 800, and even
1000 children. The General Order issued in 1849 for the government of
these "district schools" did not prescribe the details of administration
so precisely as did the General Consolidated Order of 1847; and much
latitude was left to the enterprise of the governing body. Against the
formation of these school districts the boards of guardians successfully
rebelled, much preferring to have a separate school for each union, and
outside London this was the system generally adopted by the more
populous unions. These separate schools, which were in all cases
distinct from the workhouse, were regulated by special Orders, providing
in similar general terms for the elements of good administration, but
also leaving much to the discretion of the guardians.[344] The Central
Authority now pressed the policy of separate schools on the boards of
guardians at every opportunity.[345] In 1856, for instance, we find it
saying to the Holborn Guardians that it cannot "too strongly urge upon
the guardians the importance of the children being so brought up as to
preserve them, as far as possible, free from the habits and associations
contracted in a workhouse; and of their receiving such instruction as
will fit them to earn their own livelihood. These objects will be best
secured by the removal of the children to a separate school."[346] The
Central Authority made useful suggestions, and it also encouraged
improvements by laudatory description of the best schools in the
_Official Circular_ and the Annual Reports.[347] When it was objected by
some boards of guardians that to teach writing and arithmetic to the
pauper children was to give them advantages superior to those of the
children of the independent labourer, the Central Authority replied that
the provision of a good education for the children was not likely to
encourage voluntary pauperism in the parents, and therefore there was no
need to apply the principle of less eligibility in this case.[348]
[344] The Manchester Board of Guardians had had its own
boarding-school at Swinton since 1844, where, on the advice of Mr.
Tufnell (assistant Poor Law inspector), the children were eighteen
hours a week "at school" and eighteen hours "at labour" (MS.
Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 22nd August 1844). For the
next few years we see them taking great pride in this school, and
receiving the highest commendation from the inspectors. But the
district auditor, in 1846, complains bitterly of the "costly
establishment," warning the guardians that the expense of this
school has "already reached an amount that is inconsistent with
the class of children for whom the schools were designed," and is
"creating dissatisfaction amongst the ratepayers" (_ibid._ 25th
June 1846). And in 1861 the Central Authority itself deprecates
the payment of so large a salary as £250 a year with board and
lodging to the headmaster, and urges the great importance of the
industrial as distinguished from the intellectual training of the
children (_ibid._ 10th and 16th January 1861).
[345] In 1849, at the instance of the Committee of Council on
Education, it issued a Circular extending to workhouse schools the
privilege of getting at a low price the school-books of which the
Government had arranged the publication for elementary schools
(Circular of 25th January 1849, in the Second Annual Report, 1849,
p. 25).
[346] House of Commons, No. 50 of 1867, p. 158 (Letter to
Guardians of the Holborn Union).
[347] Thus, in 1850, it is reported with laudation that "there are
workhouses, like that of the Atcham Union, in which the children
receive an education beyond all comparison better than is within
the reach of labourers in any part of the county. In the girls'
school of the Ludlow Union the children now receive an education
in all respects superior to what the humbler ratepayers are able
to purchase for their children. This high standard of workhouse
education is fast ceasing to be exceptional" (Third Annual Report,
1850, p. 7).
[348] _Official Circular_, No. 17, N.S. July and August 1848, p.
264.
On the other hand, it has to be recorded that there were apparently
opposing influences at work, as the Norwich Board of Guardians found to
its cost in 1854. That board had in 1846, apparently of its own accord,
begun a most interesting experiment. As the workhouse was old and
overcrowded, and obviously contaminating to the hundreds of children it
contained, separate "Boys' and Girls' Homes" were established, away from
the workhouse and under separate management. At these early types of
Poor Law schools the children received both scholastic and industrial
training. Their special feature was, however, that the boys of
sufficient age were placed out in situations in the town, continuing to
use the institution as their home, and contributing the wages that they
earned towards the cost of their maintenance. The Norwich Guardians had
found, as others have done since, that the old style of indoor
apprenticeship was nearly extinct. They had resorted to what they called
"outdoor apprenticeship." "In nineteen cases out of twenty the
apprentices bound out ... have been outdoor apprentices and have resided
with their parents, and received certain weekly allowances. Masters will
not consent to take into their houses pauper apprentices."[349] The
Central Authority had objected to this, and had insisted on enforcing
the usual apprenticeship order.[350] Apparently it was not found
possible to place boys out on this obsolete system, and the plan was
adopted of getting the boys situations at wages, low at first, and not
for some years amounting to enough fully to maintain them. This
experiment had been undertaken with the full knowledge of the Poor Law
inspectors, who constantly visited the homes, and who expressed
themselves in high praise of their success, and it had even been
specially described in print, with great commendation, by the inspector
of pauper schools. Indeed, the eighty-seven boys who had already passed
out of the homes (presumably as soon as their wages were big enough to
keep them) were, with fewer than a dozen exceptions, well launched in
the world and doing well. In 1854, however, after eight years, the
Central Authority intimated that the whole expenditure on the homes was
illegal, as being unauthorised, and it was in fact disallowed. It added
that, whilst it was prepared to sanction the continuance of the homes as
mere schools, it could not permit them to be used as homes for the elder
boys who went out to work. The grounds on which this decision was
arrived at are not clear. In one place it is stated that the Poor Law
Board "conceive it to be unjust to the children of the independent
poor," presumably unjust to give the pauper boys such advantages. In
another place it is stated that the Poor Law Board had only been induced
to permit the homes temporarily on the understanding that they were
self-supporting--a contention hardly consistent with that of their
illegality--whereas the boys who went out to work proved to cost
something to the rates, though admittedly less than they would have cost
in the workhouse. In a third place it is pointed out that the projected
new workhouse will amply accommodate all the children, so that the homes
will be unnecessary even as schools--an argument which seems
inconsistent with the general policy of the Poor Law Board, unless we
are to infer that it wanted only district schools by combinations of
unions. We may note, as a final hint of the uncertainty that prevailed,
that, after three years' correspondence, the Poor Law inspector advised
the guardians to ask the Central Authority to sanction temporarily the
continuance of the homes, as "it is quite possible ... that within the
next two years the Legislature may resolve on communicating greater
vitality to the provisions for the establishment of district schools."
He had told the clerk to the guardians verbally that it was probable
that Parliament would make it compulsory to provide for pauper children
in establishments apart from workhouses, but that he saw "with regret
how strongly different views are pressed" in regard to these homes; and
that the guardians would meanwhile do well to delay proceeding with any
but the adults' wards of the new workhouse.[351]
[349] MS. Minutes, Norwich Board of Guardians, 1845.
[350] Special Order of 30th January 1845.
[351] MS. Minutes, Norwich Board of Guardians, 3rd January and 7th
February 1854, 1st April 1856, and 6th January 1857. We gather
that the inspector's prescience was so far justified that the
Norwich Guardians managed to retain their children's homes, which
were in existence a generation later.
No such legislation as was thus foreshadowed took place, but the policy
of removing the children from the workhouses was meanwhile incidentally
promoted by an Act of 1849, which enabled use to be made of any
establishment in which paupers were maintained by contract "for the
education of any poor children therein."[352] Similarly the various
Industrial Schools Acts opened up another class of schools to pauper
children.[353] Finally, the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1869 enabled training
ships to be established by school districts and the Metropolitan Asylums
Board for the education of pauper boys for the sea service.[354] Already
by 1856 it was reported with satisfaction that 78 per cent of the
children under boards of guardians in the Metropolis were in separate
schools--statistics, however, which continued to ignore the much larger
number of children on outdoor relief, of whose existence the Central
Authority only gradually became aware.[355]
[352] 12 & 13 Vic. c. 13, sec. 1 (The Poor Law Relief Act 1849).
Out of this sprang the Certified Schools Act of 1862 (25 & 26 Vic.
c. 43), and the provision in the Poor Law Amendment Acts of 1866
and 1868 (29 & 30 Vic. c. 113, sec. 14, and 31 & 32 Vic. c. 122,
sec. 23), enabling the Central Authority peremptorily to order the
removal to a certified school of a child of non-Anglican parents,
when the board of guardians refused to allow religious freedom.
[353] 20 & 21 Vic. c. 48 of 1857; 24 & 25 Vic. c. 113 of 1861; 29
& 30 Vic. c. 118 of 1866.
[354] 32 & 33 Vic. c. 63, sec. 11 (Metropolitan Poor Act of 1869);
these ships were regulated by Special Orders.
[355] "The vast number of the (outdoor) pauper children in London
is as melancholy as it is remarkable" (Twenty-second Annual
Report, 1869-70, p. xxii).
During the next twenty years we see this policy of separate boarding
schools for such of the Poor Law children as were on indoor relief being
constantly pressed on boards of guardians. The erection of these costly
barrack schools, which were each regulated by a separate Special Order,
differing slightly from school to school,[356] the steady improvement in
their accommodation and diet, and the continuous rise in the educational
standard attained, which is the great feature of the ensuing period
(though in accordance with the recommendations of the 1834 Report),
marks a definite abandonment, as regards the children, of the principle
that the condition of the pauper should always be less eligible than
that of the lowest class of independent labourer. But although in the
course of the period 1847-71, in the Metropolis and various large towns,
the greater number of the boys and girls between five and fourteen were
removed from the workhouses to these "barrack schools" and similar
institutions, such schools were not made compulsory; the retention of
children in the workhouse was not forbidden, and in hundreds of
unions[357] they remained unaffected by the new policy of the Central
Authority, which apparently felt unable to require the boards of
guardians to adopt it. Even when the bulk of the children were placed in
separate schools, there were always some in the workhouse itself; and it
is remarkable that the Central Authority made no attempt to modify for
these the provisions of the General Consolidated Order of 1847, the
effect of which upon the workhouse administration of the period we have
already described.[358]
[356] _See_, for instance, as to the Swinton school of the
Manchester Board of Guardians, Special Order of 6th July 1852; as
to the Cowley school of the Oxford Board of Guardians, Special
Order of 24th November 1854; as to the Kirkdale School of the
Liverpool Select Vestry, Special Order of 7th August 1856.
[357] Even so populous a town as Newcastle-on-Tyne refused to
remove its children from the workhouse. We see the Poor Law
inspector arranging a special visit to inspect them, and to confer
with the guardians to urge a district school (MS. Minutes,
Newcastle Board of Guardians, 10th August and 21st September
1849). He then presses for a joint conference, which does nothing
but adjourn (_ibid._ 17th January and 14th March 1850). Nothing is
done. Six years after he finds the education is still in a
deplorable state (_ibid._ 29th August and 3rd October 1856), and
gets the infants into a separate building. The guardians will not
appoint a resident schoolmaster (_ibid._ 12th December 1856; 23rd
January, 29th May, 18th August, 4th September 1857). It takes
three months and three urgent appeals to get them to appoint an
additional infants' mistress (_ibid._ 19th November 1858; 21st
January, 11th February, 25th February 1859).
[358] The disfavour with which, as we have noted, the Central
Authority regarded apprenticeship, seems to have continued. The
Special Orders of 31st December 1844, and 29th January 1845
(issued to several hundred unions), severely restricting
apprenticeship, and the amending Special Orders of 15th and 22nd
August 1845, which slightly mitigated these restrictions, were
continued in force. Some of the provisions were relaxed in special
cases (_e.g._ Special Order of 11th August 1855, to Leicester
Union for a deaf and dumb girl). No General Order seems to have
been issued on the subject between 1847 and 1871; nor do we trace
any instructions or advice to boards of guardians as to the steps
to be taken to place boys and girls out in advantageous callings.
A few decisions on legal points tended rather to restrict
apprenticeship. The Central Authority held that a child could not
be apprenticed to domestic service as it was not a "trade or
business"; nor bound to a married woman, nor beyond the age of
twenty-one (_Official Circular_, No. 54, N.S., 1856, p. 38;
_ibid._ No. 46, N.S., February 1851, p. 17; _ibid._ No. 34, N.S.,
February 1850, pp. 17-18). In 1851, Parliament passed the Poor Law
(Apprentices) Act (14 & 15 Vic. c. 11), for preventing cruelty to
apprentices; and the Central Authority, in transmitting this
statute to the boards of guardians, carefully abstained from any
indication of policy, as to how pauper children should be placed
out in life (Circular Letter, 26th June 1851, in Fourth Annual
Report, 1851, pp. 19-21). As a minor instance of the merging of
branches of the Poor Law into the general treatment of all classes
of the community, it may be noted that this Act was repealed in
1861, its provisions being practically embodied in the Offences
against the Person Act (24 & 25 Vic. c. 100, sec. 26).
Meanwhile the "workhouse schools" continued to improve very slowly in
educational efficiency. The policy of the Central Authority was
apparently to develop industrial training--agricultural work, the
simpler handicrafts, and domestic service--on the model of the "Quatt
School" in Shropshire. Whether or not this industrial work militated
against more intellectual accomplishments is a moot point, but we hear
of "the reports of 'the stagnant dulness of workhouse education' which
annually proceed from Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools."[359]
[359] Eighth Annual Report, 1855, p. 58.
Whether or not from a certain divergence of aim between the departments,
the connection was in 1863 severed,[360] and the Poor Law Board
thenceforward had its own inspectors of Poor Law Schools, whose
criticisms and complaints, all in favour of the large district schools
as compared with the single union school, appear from 1867 onward in the
Annual Reports.[361]
[360] Circular of 5th September 1863; in Sixteenth Annual Report,
1863-4, pp. 19, 34.
[361] _See_ the first set, in Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, pp.
128-58.
At the very end of the period we may note the beginning of a reaction
against the "barrack schools." It was pointed out by those acquainted
with the Scottish system of boarding-out, as well as by persons
experienced in English Poor Law administration, that these expensive
boarding schools were not answering so well as their admirers claimed,
especially as regards the girls. During 1866-9 the alternative of
"boarding-out" children in private families at 4s. a week (now 5s.) was
warmly discussed, and experimentally adopted in a few places.[362] In
1869 the Central Authority so far yielded to the criticisms made upon
these institutions as to permit, under elaborate restrictions and
safeguards, the "boarding-out," in families beyond the limits of the
union, of the comparatively small class of children who were actually or
practically orphans.[363] In these cases all idea of making the
condition of the pauper child less eligible than that of the lowest
independent labourer was definitely abandoned. The whole concern of the
Central Authority was to see that the provision for the boarded-out
child was good and complete. Far from being assimilated to the children
of the lowest independent labourers, the boarded-out children were only
to be entrusted to specially selected families superior to the lowest,
who undertook to bring them up as their own, to provide proper food,
clothing and washing, to train them in good habits as well as in
suitable domestic and industrial work, and to make them regularly attend
school and place of worship. For all this the foster parents were to
receive with each child a sum three or four times as great as was, with
the sanction of the Central Authority, commonly allowed for the
maintenance of each of the couple of hundred thousand children at that
date on outdoor relief; and which (as Professor Fawcett vainly objected)
was far in excess of what the ordinary labourer could afford to expend
on his own children.[364] "A plan," observed Mr. Fowle, "which cannot be
defended on any sound principles of Poor Law."[365] "It is indeed
impossible," says Mr. Mackay in this connection, "to deny that
apparently every provision for pauper children may be regarded as a
contravention of this rule.... Professor Fawcett's ... argument has been
tacitly neglected."[366]
[362] _Home Training for Pauper Children_, 1866; _Children of the
State_, by Miss F. Hill, 1869; _The Advantages of the Boarding-out
System_, by Col. C. W. Grant, 1869; _Pall Mall Gazette_, 10th
April 1869; debate in House of Commons, 10th May 1869.
[363] Poor Law Board to Evesham Union, 3rd April 1869; House of
Commons, No. 176 of 1869; Circular of 30th October 1869;
Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 25-6; House of Commons,
No. 176 of 1870, pp. 123-189; Twenty-second Annual Report,
1869-70, pp. lii-lv and 2-8. It was explained to boards of
guardians that they were at liberty to board-out children within
the area of the union at their own discretion, "no orders or
regulations to the contrary having been issued" (Poor Law Board to
Newcastle Union, 17th March 1871).
[364] _Pauperism_, by H. Fawcett, 1871, pp. 79-91.
[365] _The Poor Law_, by Rev. T. Fowle, 1881, p. 144.
[366] _History of the English Poor Law_, by T. Mackay, 1899, vol.
iii. p. 434.
_E._--_The Sick_
We have shown that, between 1834 and 1847, it was not contemplated that
persons actually sick would be received in the workhouse, and that there
was no trace in the documents of any desire on the part of the Central
Authority to interfere with the usual practice of granting to them
outdoor relief, which had not been in any way condemned or discredited
by the 1834 Report. The same may be said of the Statutes, Orders, and
Circulars of 1847-71. We find no suggestion that the boards of guardians
ought not to grant outdoor relief in cases of sickness, or that sick
paupers ought to be relieved in the workhouse. On the contrary, the
exceptions specifically made in favour of sick persons seem to be even
widened in scope. Thus, in 1848, the Central Authority laid it down that
widows with illegitimate children were not to be refused outdoor relief,
if the children were sick.[367] By the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order
of December 1852, it was definitely provided that outdoor relief might
be given in case of sickness in the family, even if the head of the
family was simultaneously earning wages.[368] The same policy was
embodied in the corresponding General Order issued on 1st January 1869,
to certain Metropolitan unions.[369] Further, in the panic about cholera
in 1866, the Central Authority informed the boards of guardians by
circular that in cases of emergency they might call in any medical and
other assistance that was needed, and even provide whatever sustenance,
clothing, etc., was required,[370] apparently irrespective of
"destitution" and of all General Orders, etc., to the contrary.
Moreover, early in this period we note the beginning of the special
definition of "destitution" as regards medical relief which has since
been acted upon, that is to say, the inability to pay for the medical
attendance that the nature of the case requires. Thus it was declared by
the Central Authority in 1848 that the parish doctor might attend sick
servants living in their master's household, who were plainly not
destitute in the ordinary sense, as not being without food and lodging,
but who, if there were no wages due to them, might be unable to pay for
medical attendance.[371] A similar line of thought may be traced in that
provision of the Act of 1851 which authorised boards of guardians to
make annual subscriptions out of the poor rate to public hospitals and
infirmaries, to enable these non-pauper institutions the better to
provide "for the poor."[372] "The sick wards of the workhouses," as the
Central Authority explained in 1869, "were originally provided for the
cases of paupers in the workhouse who might be attacked by illness; and
not as State hospitals into which all the sick poor of the country might
be received for medical treatment and care. So far is this, indeed, from
being the case that at least two-thirds of the sick poor receive medical
attendance and treatment in their own homes."[373] When in 1869-71, the
Central Authority obtained elaborate reports showing, for all parts of
England, the practice that prevailed of normally giving outdoor relief
to the sick, and of taking them into the workhouse infirmaries only
when this was called for by (_a_) the nature of the disease, (_b_) the
wishes of the patient, or (_c_) the nature of the home, and then only
where suitable infirmary accommodation was available, there is no
indication that any objection was entertained to the policy of outdoor
relief to this large class.[374]
[367] _Official Circular_, Nos. 14 and 15, N.S. April and May
1848, p. 228.
[368] Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 14th December, 1852.
[369] General Order of 1st January 1869, in Twenty-first Annual
Report, 1868-9, pp. 28, 79-82.
[370] Circular of 27th July 1866, in Nineteenth Annual Report,
1866-7, p. 39.
[371] _Official Circular_, No. 20, N.S. Nov. and Dec. 1848, p.
297.
[372] Fourth Annual Report, 1851, p. 15; 14 & 15 Vic. c. 105, sec.
4.
[373] Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, pp. 27-8.
[374] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxiv-xxvii,
38-108; Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. xliv-lii, 173-188.
What is new in this period is the appearance, as a positive policy, of
bringing pressure to bear on the boards of guardians to improve the
quality of the medical attendance and medicine supplied. This led to an
explicit disavowal, so far as regards the sick paupers, of any
application to them of the principle of making the pauper's condition
less eligible than that of the lowest grade of independent labourers. It
is noteworthy that this new departure applied to outdoor medical relief
quite as much as to institutional medical treatment, in which it has
subsequently been sometimes excused on the ground that the superior
treatment is accompanied by a loss of liberty. The new departure took
three directions. It was definitely laid down that the medical
attendance afforded to the outdoor paupers was to be of good quality,
and thus necessarily above that obtained by the poorest independent
labourer, or even by "the poor" generally. This was the outcome of a
long campaign on behalf of the poorer members of the medical profession,
of which Wakley was the leader in the House of Commons, and the _Lancet_
the efficient organ.[375] In 1853 the Poor Law Board considered that the
qualifications of the Poor Law medical officers "ought to be such as to
ensure _for the poor_ a degree of skill in their medical attendants
equal to that which can be commanded by the more fortunate classes of
the community."[376] On the suggestion of the House of Commons Committee
on Poor Relief[377] it was authoritatively enjoined on boards of
guardians in 1865 by a special circular that they were to supply freely
quinine, cod-liver oil, and "other expensive medicines" to the sick
poor;[378] although it must have been plain that such things were beyond
the reach of the independent labourers consulting the "sixpenny doctor,"
and even beyond the usual resources of the provident dispensaries of the
period.[379] Finally, in 1867, the Metropolitan Poor Act authorised the
establishment throughout London of Poor Law dispensaries. These
institutions were consistently pressed on the Metropolitan boards of
guardians by the Central Authority, as having been successful in Ireland
in reducing the amount of sickness among the poor, and as ensuring, not
only regular and more successful medical attention, but also a
sufficient supply of medicines and medical appliances of standard
quality.[380] By this elaborate systematisation of outdoor medical
relief, the Central Authority not only put within the reach of the sick
paupers medical attendance far superior to that accessible to the lowest
grade of independent labourers, but even placed the sick pauper in the
Metropolis, without loss of liberty, in a position equal to that of the
superior artisan subscribing to a good provident dispensary.
[375] _See_, for instance, _The Administration of Medical Relief
to the Poor--Reports by the Poor Law Committee of the Provincial
Medical and Surgical Association_, 1842; _Life and Times of Thomas
Wakley_, by S. Squire Sprigge, 1897.
[376] Mr. Baines (President of the Poor Law Board), 12th July
1853; _Hansard_, vol. 129, p. 138.
[377] Sixteenth Annual Report, 1863-4, p. 108.
[378] Circular of 12th April 1865, in Eighteenth Annual Report,
1865-6, pp. 23-24.
[379] Some boards of guardians rebelled in this connection against
a departure from the principle of "less eligibility" that they did
not understand. When the circular of the Central Authority
inviting compliance with the recommendation of the House of
Commons Committee reached the Manchester Board of Guardians, it
was referred to a committee. When the committee, after eighteen
months' delay, recommended compliance, its report was rejected
(MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 20th April 1865, and
25th October 1866).
[380] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xliv-lii.
The most remarkable change of front was, however, that relating to the
institutional treatment of the sick. Down to 1847, it is not too much to
say that "what may be called the hospital branch of Poor Law
administration"[381] was ignored alike by Parliament, public opinion,
and the Central Authority. We have shown that the institutional
provision for the sick was not so much as mentioned in the Report of
1834, and that it remained practically ignored in all the Orders,
Circulars, and Reports of the Poor Law Commissioners. The same is true
of the first eighteen years of the Poor Law Board. Few and far between
are the incidental references to the "sick wards" of the workhouses.
There is not even a hint of a suggestion that relief to the sick poor
could most advantageously take the form of an offer of "the House." On
the contrary, it was held in 1848 that applicants for admission
suffering from "fever" might even be refused admission, the relieving
officer being enjoined to find lodging elsewhere for them,[382] though
how this was to be done the Central Authority did not, in 1848, say. In
1857, the Metropolitan Boards of Guardians were recommended to send such
cases to the London Fever Hospital[383] (involving a payment by the
guardians of 7s. weekly). Finally, in 1864-5, we have an outburst of
public indignation, at the condition into which the sick wards of the
workhouses had been allowed to drift. The death of a pauper in Holborn
workhouse, and of another in St. Giles's workhouse, under conditions
which seemed to point to inhumanity and neglect, led to an enquiry by
three doctors (Anstie, Carr, and Ernest Hart), commissioned by the
_Lancet_ newspaper, the formation of an "Association for improving the
condition of the sick poor," and a deputation to the Poor Law
Board.[384] The publication of various reports on the workhouse
infirmaries, in which terrible deficiencies were revealed,[385] led to
public discussion and Parliamentary debates. The Central Authority at
once accepted the new standpoint. It made no attempt to resist the
provision of the necessarily costly institutional treatment for the sick
poor, whether or not their ailments were infectious or otherwise
dangerous to the public. The progressive improvement of "the hospital
branch of Poor Law administration," to use the phrase of the Central
Authority itself, which had in the preceding thirty years grown up
unawares, was now definitely accepted as an important feature of its
policy. Statutory powers were obtained for the provision of hospitals in
the Metropolis by combinations of boards of guardians. Urgent letters
were written pressing the boards of guardians to embark on the
expenditure required to enable them to provide efficiently for the sick
paupers.[386] From 1865 onward, we see the Central Authority, on the
public-spirited initiative of Mr. W. Rathbone and the Liverpool Select
Vestry, pressing on the boards of guardians the employment of salaried
and qualified nurses to attend to the sick paupers, whatever their
complaints.[387] We have even in 1867, so far as the sick are concerned,
the explicit disavowal by the Central Authority of the very idea of the
deterrent workhouse, which had formed so prominent a part of the policy
of 1834-1847. Mr. Gathorne Hardy, speaking as President of the Poor Law
Board, said "there is one thing ... which we must peremptorily insist
on, namely, the treatment of the sick in the infirmaries being conducted
on an entirely separate system, because the evils complained of have
mainly arisen from the workhouse management--which must to a great
degree be of a deterrent character--having been applied to the sick,
_who are not proper objects for such a system_."[388]
[381] _Ibid._ p. x.
[382] _Official Circular_, Nos. 14 and 15, N.S., April and May
1848, p. 237.
[383] Circular of 1st August 1857, in Tenth Annual Report, 1857,
p. 37. The Central Authority did not, prior to 1867, face the
responsibility of deciding to require boards of guardians to
provide hospital accommodation even for infectious diseases. In
1863, indeed, under fear of small-pox, it got so far as to
transmit to Metropolitan boards of guardians an alarmist letter by
Dr. Buchanan, and to permit the taking of temporary premises for
"the destitute poor attacked by contagious or infectious disease"
(Circular of 30th April 1863, in Fifteenth Annual Report, 1862-3,
pp. 37-9). We believe that practically nothing was done upon this.
In 1866, when cholera was imminent, another Circular was sent
which, significantly enough, makes no mention of temporary
hospitals, but points to an increase of the outdoor medical
relief, disinfectants, sustenance and clothing to meet the "great
increase of destitution" to be apprehended. "As far as practicable
... the admission of cholera patients into the workhouse should be
prevented" (Circular of 27th July 1866, in Nineteenth Annual
Report, 1866-7, pp. 39-40).
[384] _See_ for all this the Eighteenth Annual Report, 1865-6, pp.
15-16; Nineteenth Annual Report, 1866-7, pp. 15-18, 39; Twentieth
Annual Report, 1867-8, pp. 25-28; Report of Dr. E. Smith on
Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Wards, in House of
Commons, No. 372 of 1866; _The Condition of the Sick in London
Workhouse Infirmaries_ (Association for the Improvement of the
London Workhouse Infirmaries, 1867); _Opinions of the Press upon
the Conditions of the Sick Poor in London Workhouses_ (_ibid._
1867); _The Management of the Infirmaries of the Strand Union, the
Rotherhithe and the Paddington Workhouses_ (1867?).
[385] The provincial newspapers took up the work that the _Lancet_
had begun. On 31st January 1865, a long report appeared in the
_Manchester Examiner_ revealing serious deficiencies in the
Manchester Workhouse sick wards.
[386] Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, pp. 17-21. This new
departure of the Central Authority was long strenuously resisted
by many of the boards of guardians who prided themselves on the
purity of their Poor Law policy. Thus, the published complaints of
the Manchester Workhouse Infirmary led to an inquiry by the
inspector, who made various suggestions for improvement. The board
of guardians, on the advice of their own medical officer, held
that the existing conditions were sufficiently satisfactory.
Finally, after fifteen months, the Central Authority censured the
master, asked for more nurses and (while avoiding any censure of
the guardians for their past policy) practically invited them to
adopt the new standpoint (MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of
Guardians, 1st February 1865; 22nd February and 3rd May 1866). Two
years later, Manchester was still objecting. When a conference of
important North Country boards of guardians in 1862 (W. Rathbone
presiding) had recommended a national grant-in-aid to improve the
"pauper hospitals," the Manchester Board of Guardians formally
dissented (though now only by a majority of one), protesting:
"That the much higher system of medical treatment and nursing and
the other advantages sought to be introduced into workhouse
hospitals by the proposed measures would tend to discourage the
provident habits and self-reliance of the industrious poor by
providing for them therein far better accommodation and treatment
than they can usually secure for themselves in cases of sickness"
(MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 20th February 1868).
[387] Circular of 5th May 1865; Eighteenth Annual Report, 1865-6,
pp. 16, 24-5, 62-8; _Nurses in Workhouses and Workhouse
Infirmaries_, by Miss Wilson, 1890.
[388] _Hansard_, 8th February 1867, vol. 185, p. 163.
At first the new policy of the Central Authority for the institutional
treatment of the sick took the form of the erection of special hospitals
by "Sick Asylum Districts."[389] Presently, however, it came to the
conclusion that this involved an unnecessary expense, and that it would
be cheaper to revert to the idea of the Report of 1834, and use the
existing workhouse buildings by a system of classification by
institutions.[390] So definitely was this recognised as a reversion to
1834 that the Central Authority actually quoted the passage of the 1834
Report in justification of its plan.[391] From this point may be dated
the adoption of the policy of the provision, in connection with the
workhouse, but practically as a separate institution, of what is now
called the Poor Law Infirmary.[392] In 1870 the Central Authority took
pains to collect special statistics as to the extent to which this
recently developed provision for the sick was being taken advantage of.
It observes (and, significantly enough, without expression of
disapproval) that "the numbers on the lists of relieving officers may be
swollen by poor persons who in previous years, though really poor,
refrained from coming on the rates, but whom changes in the law or in
the mode of its administration have since attracted."[393] "Workhouses,"
it notes, "originally designed mainly as a test for the able-bodied,
have, especially in the large towns, been _of necessity_ gradually
transformed in to infirmaries for the sick. The higher standard for
hospital accommodation has had a material effect upon the expenditure.
So again it has been considered necessary to attach to workhouses
separate fever wards; and wherever it was possible, these wards have
been isolated by the erection of a separate building."[394] The extent
to which the Poor Law had become the public doctor was indeed
remarkable. The number of persons on outdoor relief who were "actually
sick," apart from mere old age infirmity, and without their families,
was found to be 13 per cent of the whole, equal to about 119,000. The
number in the workhouses who were "actually sick," irrespective of "the
vast number of old people disabled by old age, but not actually upon the
sick list," varied in different unions from 14 to 39 per cent in the
provinces, and up to nearly 50 per cent in some Metropolitan Unions;
amounting, for the whole country, to about 60,000 actual sick-bed
cases.[395] Taking indoor and outdoor patients together, the total
simultaneously under medical treatment in the twelfth week of the
half-year ending Lady Day 1870, was estimated at 173,000, being three
quarters of one per cent of the population, and perhaps one out of four
of all the persons under medical treatment in the whole population. The
story from this date is one continuous record, on the one hand of an
ever-increasing number of patients treated, and, on the other, of never
slackening pressure by the Central Authority to induce apathetic or
parsimonious boards of guardians to expend money in making both the
outdoor medical service and the workhouse infirmaries as efficient and
as well adapted and as well equipped for the alleviation and cure of
their patients--without the least notion of "the principle of less
eligibility"--as the most scientifically efficient hospitals and State
medical service in any part of the world. After 1867, indeed, there was
developed, for the Metropolitan paupers suffering from infectious
diseases, the splendid hospital system of the Metropolitan Asylums
Board.[396] At the very end of the existence of the Poor Law Board, Mr.
Goschen seems almost to have been contemplating a yet further extension.
"The economical and social advantages," he observed, "of _free medicine
to the poorer classes generally as distinguished from actual paupers,
and perfect accessibility to medical advice at all times under thorough
organisation_, may be considered as so important in themselves as to
render it necessary to weigh with the greatest care all the reasons
which may be adduced in their favour."[397]
[389] _See_, for instance, the Special Orders for the Poplar and
Stepney Sick Asylum District, 23rd April and 16th May 1868, and
7th March 1871; and that for the Central London Sick Asylum
District of 2nd May 1868.
[390] Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 16-18; Circular of
30th October 1869; Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp.
xxxvii-xli.
[391] The "policy of providing workhouses for separate classes of
the poor was fully recognised by the Commissioners of Inquiry into
the operation of the Poor Law in 1834, who in their Report
recommended 'that the Central Board should be empowered to cause
any number of parishes to be incorporated for the purpose of
workhouse management, and for providing new workhouses where
necessary, and to assign to those workhouses separate classes of
poor though composed of the poor of distinct parishes.' And in
another part of the same Report they say that it appears to them
'that both the requisite classification and the requisite
superintendence may be better obtained in separate buildings than
under a single roof. Each class then might receive an appropriate
treatment; the old might enjoy their indulgences without torment
from the boisterous, the children be educated, and the able-bodied
subjected to such courses of labour and of discipline as will
repel the idle and vicious'" (Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9,
pp. 16-17).
[392] For a Special Order for such an Infirmary, _see_ that of
27th June 1871.
[393] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p. xi.
[394] _Ibid._ p. x.
[395] _See_ the statistical inquiries summarised in the
Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxiv-xxviii; House of
Commons, No. 312 of 1865; No. 372 of 1866; No. 4 of 1867-8; No.
445 of 1868; House of Lords, No. 216 of 1866.
[396] _See_ the Special Orders of 15th May, 18th June, and 17th
July 1867; and 23rd December 1870.
[397] Twenty-second Annual Report of Poor Law Board (G. S.
Goschen, president), 1869-70, p. lii. Already in 1846 and again in
1853 the Central Authority had expressed its "decided opinion ...
that money judiciously expended ... in the improvement of the
sanitary condition of the poorer classes, and in the prevention or
removal of causes of disease, has a direct tendency to diminish or
prevent future destitution and pauperism; and will thus be found
to be most profitably expended, even in reference to the more
direct object of the duties of the guardians" (Circular of 21st
September 1853; in Sixth Annual Report, 1853, p. 36).
_F._--_Persons of Unsound Mind_
It is difficult to discover what was the policy of the Central Authority
during this period with regard to lunatics, idiots, and the mentally
defective. Lunacy had always been, and remained, a ground of exception
from the prohibition to grant outdoor relief. The provision of a lodging
for a lunatic was, moreover, an exception to the prohibition of the
payment of rent for a pauper. As a result of these exceptions, there
were on 1st January 1852, 4107 lunatics and idiots on outdoor
relief,[398] and this number had increased by 1859 to 4892[399] and by
1870 to 6199.[400] The Central Authority took no steps to require or
persuade boards of guardians not to grant outdoor relief to lunatics,
nor yet to get any appropriate provision made for them in the great
general workhouses on which it had insisted. Parliament in 1862 (in
order to relieve the pressure on lunatic asylums) expressly authorised
arrangements to be made for chronic lunatics to be permanently
maintained in workhouses, under elaborate provisions for their proper
care.[401] These arrangements would have amounted, in fact, to the
creation, within the workhouse, of wards which were to be in every
respect as well equipped, as highly staffed, and as liberally supplied
as a regular lunatic asylum.[402] The Central Authority transmitted the
Act to the boards of guardians, observing, with what almost seems like
sarcasm, that it was not "aware of any workhouse in which any such
arrangements could conveniently be made";[403] and the provisions of
this Act were, we believe, never acted upon. Whilst consistently
objecting to the retention in workhouses of lunatics who were dangerous,
or who were deemed curable, we do not find that the Central Authority
ever insisted on there being a proper lunatic ward for the persons of
unsound mind who were necessarily received, for a longer or shorter
period, in every workhouse.[404] Moreover, the Central Authority took no
steps to get such persons removed to lunatic asylums. In 1845 it had
agreed with the Manchester Board of Guardians (who did not want to make
any more use of the county asylum than they could help) that they were
justified in retaining in the workhouse any lunatics whom their own
medical officer did not consider "proper to be confined" in a lunatic
asylum.[405] In 1849 it expressly laid it down that a weak-minded pauper
or, as we now say, a mentally defective, must either be a lunatic, and
be certified and treated as such, or not a lunatic, in which case no
special treatment could be provided for him or her in the one general
workhouse to which the Central Authority still adhered.[406] We can find
no indication of policy as to whether it was recommended that such
mentally defectives should be granted outdoor relief, or (as one can
scarcely believe) required to inhabit a workhouse which made no
provision for them.[407]
[398] Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 7, 152.
[399] Twelfth Annual Report, 1859-60, p. 17.
[400] Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-71, p. xxiii.
[401] 25 & 26 Vic. c. 111, secs. 8, 20, 31 (Lunacy Acts Amendment
Act, 1862).
[402] Sixteenth Annual Report, 1863-4, pp. 21, 38-9.
[403] Circular of 15th December 1862, in Fifteenth Annual Report,
1862-3, pp. 35-7.
[404] On 1st January 1859, the number of persons of unsound mind
in the workhouses was 7963 (Twelfth Annual Report, 1859-60, p.
17). This had risen by 1870 to 11,243 (Twenty-third Annual Report,
1870-71, p. xxiii).
[405] Poor Law Commissioners, 24th December 1845; in MS. records,
Manchester Board of Guardians.
[406] _Official Circular_, No. 25, N.S., May 1849, pp. 70-1.
[407] In 1868 visiting committees were recommended to see that
weak-minded inmates were not entrusted with the care of young
children (Circular of 6th July 1868 in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, p. 53).
The explanation of this paralysis of the Central Authority, as regards
the policy to be pursued with persons of unsound mind, is to be found,
we believe, in the existence and growth during this period of the rival
authority of the Lunacy Commissioners, who had authority over all
persons of unsound mind, whether paupers or not. The Lunacy
Commissioners had not habitually in their minds the principle of "less
eligibility"; and they were already, between 1848 and 1871, making
requirements with regard to the accommodation and treatment of pauper
lunatics that the Poor Law authorities regarded as preposterously
extravagant. The records of the boards of guardians show visits of the
inspectors of the Lunacy Commissioners, and their perpetual complaints
of the presence of lunatics and idiots in the workhouses without proper
accommodation; mixed up with the sane inmates to the great discomfort of
both;[408] living in rooms which the Lunacy Commissioners considered too
low and unventilated, with yards too small and depressing, amid too much
confusion and disorder, for the section of the paupers for whom they
were responsible.[409] Such reports, officially communicated to the Poor
Law Board, seem to have been merely forwarded for the consideration of
the board of guardians concerned. But other action was not altogether
wanting. Under pressure from the Lunacy Commissioners, the Central
Authority asked, in 1857, for more care in the conveyance of
lunatics;[410] urged, in 1863, a more liberal dietary for lunatics in
workhouses;[411] in 1867 it reminded the boards of guardians that
lunatics required much food, especially milk and meat;[412] it was
thought "very desirable that the insane inmates ... should have the
opportunity of taking exercise";[413] it concurred "with the Visiting
Commissioner in deeming it desirable that a competent paid nurse should
be appointed for the lunatic ward," in a certain workhouse;[414] it
suggested the provision of leaning chairs in another workhouse;[415]
and, in yet another, the desirability of not excluding the persons of
unsound mind from religious services.[416] In 1870 it issued a circular,
transmitting the rules made by the Lunacy Commissioners as to the method
of bathing lunatics, for the careful consideration of the boards of
guardians.[417] But we do not find that the Central Authority issued any
Order amending the General Consolidated Order of 1847, which, it will be
remembered, did not include among its categories for classification
either lunatics, idiots, or the mentally defective; and the Central
Authority did not require any special provision to be made for them.
[408] MS. Minutes, Plymouth Board of Guardians, 28th January 1846.
[409] _Ibid._ 5th November 1847. Some of the rooms were only 3-1/4
feet long and 7 feet wide, in fact, mere cupboards, which the
Lunacy Commissioners said were unfit for any one. Yet nothing was
done, and the "rooms" were still occupied in 1854 when the
district auditor mildly commented on the fact (Letter Book,
Plymouth Board of Guardians, August 1854).
[410] Circular of 27th February 1857, in Tenth Annual Report,
1857, p. 34.
[411] House of Commons, No. 50, Session 1 of 1867, p. 247.
[412] Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, p. 60.
[413] House of Commons, No. 50, Session 1 of 1867, p. 444.
[414] _Ibid._ p. 426.
[415] _Ibid._ p. 407.
[416] _Ibid._ p. 114.
[417] Circular of 21st March 1870, in Twenty-third Annual Report,
1870-71, p. 3.
The policy of the Lunacy Commissioners was to get provision made in
every county for all the persons of unsound mind, whatever their means,
in specially organised lunatic asylums in which the best possible
arrangements should be made for their treatment and cure irrespective of
cost, and altogether regardless of making the condition of the pauper
lunatic less eligible than that of the poorest independent labourer.
Unlike the provision for education, and that for infectious disease, the
cost of this national (and as we may say communistic) provision for
lunatics was a charge upon the poor rate. Under the older statutes, the
expense of maintaining the inmates of the county lunatic asylums was
charged to the Poor Law authorities of the parishes in which they were
respectively settled; and the boards of guardians were entitled to
recover it, or part of it, from any relatives liable to maintain such
paupers, even in cases in which the removal to the asylum was compulsory
and insisted on in the public interest.[418] The great cost to the poor
rate of lunatics sent to the county lunatic asylums, and the difficulty
of recovering the amount from their relatives, prevented the
whole-hearted adoption, either by the boards of guardians, or the
Central Authority, of the policy of insisting on the removal of persons
of unsound mind to the county asylums. For the imbeciles and idiots of
the Metropolitan Unions, provision was made after 1867 in the asylums of
the Metropolitan Asylums Board.[419] But no analogous provision for
those of other unions was made. The result was that, amid a great
increase of pauper lunacy, the proportion of the paupers of unsound mind
who were in lunatic asylums did not increase.[420] On the other hand the
indisposition of the Central Authority to so amend the General
Consolidated Order of 1847 as to put lunatics in a separate category,
and require suitable accommodation and treatment for them--an
indisposition perhaps strengthened by the very high requirements on
which the Lunacy Commissioners would have insisted--stood in the way of
any candid recognition of the fact that for thousands of lunatics,
idiots, and mentally defectives, the workhouse had, without suitable
provision for them, and often to the unspeakable discomfort of the other
inmates, become a permanent home.
[418] There had apparently been a doubt as to whether a husband
was legally bound to contribute towards the maintenance of a wife
who had been removed under legal authority to a lunatic asylum. In
1850 the Central Authority got an Act passed to require him to pay
(13 and 14 Vic. c. 101, sec. 4) on the ground that "great hardship
has been frequently occasioned to parishes, who have been
burthened with the heavy expense of such maintenance without the
means of recovering from the husband even a partial reimbursement"
(Third Annual Report, 1850, p. 16).
[419] Special Orders of 18th June 1867, 6th October 1870, 23rd
December 1870, 17th June 1871, etc. It may be noted that in 1862
the Guardians of St. George's, Southwark, provided a separate
establishment at Mitcham for their idiotic and imbecile paupers,
which was regulated by Special Order of 30th April 1862.
[420] On 1st January 1852, the number in the county or borough
asylums was 9412, and in licensed houses 2584; making a total of
11,996 out of 21,158 paupers of unsound mind (Fifth Annual Report,
1852, p. 152). On 1st January 1870, the number in asylums had
risen to 26,634, and that in licensed houses had fallen to 1589,
making a total of 28,223 out of 46,548 paupers of unsound mind
(Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-71, p. xxiii).
_G._--_Defectives_
During this period, the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the lame and
deformed were increasingly recognised by Parliament as classes for whom
the Poor Law authorities might, if they chose, provide expensive
treatment. This was done by authorising boards of guardians, if they
chose, to pay for their maintenance, whether children or adults, in
special institutions.[421] We do not find that the Central Authority
suggested the adoption of this or any other policy or gave any lead to
the boards of guardians with regard to these cases.[422]
[421] 25 & 26 Vic. c. 43, sec. 10 (Poor Law Certified Schools Act
of 1862); 30 & 31 Vic. c. 106, sec. 21 (1867); 31 & 32 Vic. c.
122, sec. 42 (1868).
[422] In 1849 the expenses of conveying a blind pauper to hospital
were allowed to be paid under the head of non-resident relief in
case of sickness (_Official Circular_, No. 24, N.S., April 1849,
p. 64).
_H._--_The Aged and Infirm_
We have shown that neither the Report of 1834 nor the Central Authority
between 1834 and 1847 even suggested any departure from the common
practice of granting outdoor relief to the aged and infirm. This
continued, so far as the official documents show, to be the policy of
the Central Authority during the whole of the period 1847-1871.[423] The
only two references to the subject in the Orders and Circulars of this
period assume that the aged and infirm will normally be relieved in
their own homes. Thus, in 1852, in commenting on the provision requiring
the weekly payment of relief, the Central Authority said, "as to the
cases in which the pauper is too infirm to come every week for the
relief, it is on many accounts advantageous that the relieving officer
should, as far as possible, himself visit the pauper, and give the
relief at least weekly."[424] And in the first edition of the Out-relief
Regulation Order of 1852 (that of 25th August 1852) the Central
Authority, far from prohibiting outdoor relief to persons "indigent and
helpless from age, sickness, accident, or bodily or mental infirmity,"
formally sanctioned this practice, by ordering that "one third at least
of such relief" should be given in kind (viz., "in articles of food or
fuel, or in other articles of absolute necessity"),[425] the object
being expressly explained to be, not, as might nowadays have been
imagined, the discouragement of such relief, but the prevention of its
misappropriation.[426] This provision was objected to by boards of
guardians up and down the country, on the ground that it would be a
hardship to the aged and infirm poor. The Poplar Board of Guardians, for
instance, stated "that there are a large number of persons under the
denomination of aged and infirm whom the guardians have, in their long
practical experience, found it expedient and not objectionable to
relieve wholly in money, feeling assured that it would be beneficially
expended for their use, and that in consequence of their infirmity the
relieving officer or his assistant, if necessary, is thereby enabled to
conveniently relieve them at their own house."[427] The Norwich
Guardians stated that it would be difficult "to determine (especially
for the aged and sick poor) what kind of food or articles should be
given." They also communicated with forty other unions, summoning them
to concerted resistance.[428] A deputation "from most of the large and
populous unions in the north of England ... and from several
Metropolitan parishes, representing in the aggregate upwards of
2,000,000 of population,"[429] assembled in London, and objected to
nearly all the provisions of the Order.
[423] For instance, in 1861, the Central Authority, in reply to a
request from the Guardians of St. James's, Westminster,
recommended the application of the workhouse test for the
able-bodied males, but as regards the aged and infirm, warmly
approved the policy of the guardians, to "cheerfully supply all
that their necessities and infirmities require" (Poor Law Board,
19th January 1861, in Thirteenth Annual Report, 1860-1, p. 36).
[424] Letter to Board of Guardians, Barnsley Union, 26th October
1852, in House of Commons, No. 111 of 1852-3, p. 17.
[425] General Order of 25th August 1852, art. 1 (in Fifth Annual
Report, 1852, p. 17).
[426] Circular of 25th August 1852, in Fifth Annual Report 1853,
p. 22.
[427] MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 18th October 1852.
[428] _Ibid._ Norwich Board of Guardians, 5th October 1852.
[429] _Ibid._ 7th December 1852.
Accompanied by about twenty-five members of Parliament, the deputation
waited on the Poor Law Board, and specially urged their objection to
being compelled to give a third of all outdoor relief in kind. After two
hours' argumentative discussion, Sir John Trollope said that the board
would reconsider the whole Order, which need not in the meantime be
acted upon; and he hinted at a probable modification of the Article
relating to relief in kind.[430] In response to these objections, the
Central Authority does not seem even to have suggested that outdoor
relief to the aged and infirm was contrary to its principles. It first
intimated its willingness to modify the Order if its working proved to
be "accompanied with hardship to the aged or helpless poor"[431] and
then within a few weeks withdrew the provision altogether as regards any
but the able-bodied.[432] It was expressly explained that the Order, as
re-issued, was intended as a precaution "against the injurious
consequences of maintaining out of the poor rate _able-bodied labourers
and their families_ in a state of idleness," and that the Central
Authority left to the boards of guardians "full discretion as to the
description of relief to be given to indigent poor of every other
class."[433] From that date down to the abolition of the Poor Law Board
in 1871, we can find in the documents no hint or suggestion that it
disapproved of outdoor relief to the aged and infirm. On 1st January
1871, nearly half the outdoor relief was due to this cause.[434]
[430] _Ibid._; also Circular of 14th December 1852, in Fifth
Annual Report, 1852, pp. 28-31. The Salford Union took part in a
meeting of Lancashire Guardians on the subject (Salford Union to
Poor Law Board, 26th October 1855, in Eighth Annual Report, 1855,
p. 50).
[431] Letter to Board of Guardians, Ashton-under-Lyne Union, 8th
October 1852; in House of Commons, No. 111 of 1852-3, p. 14.
[432] General Order, 14th December 1852, and Circular of same
date, in Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 24, 29.
[433] Circular of 14th December 1852, in Fifth Annual Report,
1852, p. 29.
[434] Out of a total of outdoor paupers on 1st January 1871
(exclusive of vagrants and the insane) of 880,709, the destitution
was "caused by old age or permanent disability" in the case of
423,206, viz. 117,681 men, 265,638 women, and 39,887 children
dependent on them (Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, p. 378).
_I._--_Non-Residents_
There was no change in the policy of preventing relief to paupers not
resident within the union. The Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852
embodied the prohibition with the same exceptions as had been contained
in the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844, omitting, however, that
of widows without children during the first six months of their
widowhood. But, as has been already mentioned, at the very end of the
period the Boarding-Out Orders of 1869, etc., permitted children to be
maintained outside the union.
_J._--_The Workhouse_
We have seen that between 1834 and 1847 the Central Authority turned
directly away from the express recommendations of the 1834 Report with
regard to the institutional accommodation of the paupers. Instead of a
series of separate institutions appropriately organised and equipped
for the several classes of the pauper population--the aged and infirm,
the children, and the adult able-bodied--the Central Authority had got
established, in nearly every union, one general workhouse; nearly
everywhere "the same cheap, homely building," with one common regimen,
under one management, for all classes of paupers.
The justification for the policy which, as we have seen, Sir Francis
Head induced the Central Authority to substitute for the recommendations
of the 1834 Report, may have been his confident expectation, in 1835,
that the use of the workhouse was only to serve as a "test," which the
applicants would not pass, and that there was accordingly no need to
regard the workhouse building as a continuing home.[435] This was the
view taken by Harriet Martineau, who, in her _Poor Law Tales_, describes
the overseer of the de-pauperised parish as locking the door of the empty
workhouse when it had completely fulfilled its purpose of a test by
having made all the applicants prefer and contrive to be independent of
poor relief. By 1847, however, it must have been clear that, even in the
most strictly administered parishes, under the most rigid application of
the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, there would be permanently
residing in the workhouse a motley crowd of the aged and infirm unable
to live independently; the destitute chronic sick in like case; the
orphans and foundlings; such afflicted persons as the village idiot, the
senile imbecile, the deaf and dumb, and what we now call the mentally
defective; together with a perpetually floating population of acutely
sick persons of all ages; vagrants; girls with illegitimate babies;
wives whose husbands had deserted them, or were in prison, in hospital,
or in the Army or Navy; widows beyond the first months of their
widowhood and other women unable to earn a livelihood; all sorts of "ins
and outs"; and the children dragging at the skirts of all these classes.
The workhouse population in 590 unions of England and Wales on 1st
January 1849, was, in fact, 121,331.[436] The condition of these
workhouse inmates, and the character of the regimen to which they were
subjected, had been brought to public notice in 1847 in the notorious
Andover case. The insanitary condition of the workhouses of the period
as places of residence, and, in particular, their excessive death-rate,
was repeatedly brought to notice not only by irresponsible agitators,
but also by such competent statistical and medical critics as McCulloch
and Wakley.[437] But the very idea of the general workhouse was now
subjected to severe criticism. "During the last ten years," said the
author of an able book in 1852, "I have visited many prisons and lunatic
asylums, not only in England, but in France and Germany. A single
English workhouse contains more that justly calls for condemnation in
the principle on which it is established than is found in the very worst
prisons or public lunatic asylums that I have seen. The workhouse as now
organised is a reproach and disgrace peculiar to England; nothing
corresponding to it is found throughout the whole continent of Europe.
In France the medical patients of our workhouses would be found in
'hopitaux'; the infirm aged poor would be in hospices; and the blind,
the idiot, the lunatic, the bastard child and the vagrant would
similarly be placed each in an appropriate but separate establishment.
With us a common _Malebolge_ is provided for them all; and in some parts
of the country the confusion is worse confounded by the effect of
Prohibitory Orders, which, enforcing the application of the notable
workhouse-test, drive into the same common sink of so many kinds of vice
and misfortune the poor man whose only crime is his poverty, and whose
want of work alone makes him chargeable. Each of the buildings which we
so absurdly call a workhouse is, in truth (1) a general hospital; (2) an
almshouse; (3) a foundling house; (4) a lying-in hospital; (5) a school
house; (6) a lunatic asylum; (7) an idiot house; (8) a blind asylum; (9)
a deaf and dumb asylum; (10) a workhouse; but this part of the
establishment is generally a _lucus a non lucendo_, omitting to find
work even for able-bodied paupers. Such and so varied are the
destinations of these common receptacles of sin and misfortune, of
sorrow and suffering of the most different kinds, each tending to
aggravate the others with which it is unnecessarily and injuriously
brought into contact. It is at once equally shocking to every principle
of reason and every feeling of humanity, that all these varied forms of
wretchedness should be thus crowded together into one common abode, that
no attempt should be made by law to classify them, and to provide
appropriate places for the relief of each."[438]
[435] It must be remembered that, as already mentioned, it was no
part of the policy of the Central Authority to relieve in the
workhouse any of the aged and infirm or of the sick who preferred
to remain outside, and who were (so far as the published documents
show) to continue to receive outdoor relief.
[436] Second Annual Report, 1849, p. 159.
[437] _Life and Times of Thomas Wakley_, by S. Squire Sprigge,
1897. _See_, for a contemporary indictment, _The Russell
Predictions on the Working Classes, the National Debt and the New
Poor Law Dissected_, by John Bowen, 1850.
[438] _Pauperism and Poor Laws_, by Robert Pashley, Q.C., 1852,
pp. 364-5.
During the period now under review, 1847-71, we see the Central
Authority becoming gradually alive to the drawbacks of this mixture of
classes. At first its remedy seems to have been to take particular
classes out of the workhouse. We have already described the constant
attempts, made from the very establishment of the Poor Law Board, to
have the children removed to separate institutions and to get the
vagrants segregated into distinct casual wards. It was the resistance
and apathy of the boards of guardians that prevented these attempts
being particularly successful,[439] and the Central Authority appears
not to have felt able to issue peremptory orders on the subject. The
policy of the Lunacy Commissioners drew many lunatics out of the
workhouses, but this was more than made up by the increasing tendency to
seclude the village idiot, so that the workhouse population of unsound
mind actually increased.
[439] On 1st January 1871 we estimate that of the 55,832 children
on indoor relief, only 4979 were in district schools, and some
9000 in union boarding schools, leaving about 40,000 living in the
workhouses.
We do not find that there was during the whole period any alteration of
the General Consolidated Order of 1847, upon which the regimen of the
workhouse depended. In spite of the increasing number of the sick and
the persons of unsound mind, the seven classes of workhouse inmates
determined by that Order were adhered to, and received no addition,
though the Poor Law Board favoured the sub-division of these classes so
far as it was reasonably possible in the existing buildings, especially
in the case of women. In a letter of 1854[440] it lamented the evil which
arose "from the association of girls, when removed from workhouse union
schools, with women of bad character in the able-bodied women's ward,"
and wished that it could be prevented. At the same time it stated that
in the smaller workhouses it was "often impracticable to provide the
accommodation" which would be necessary in order to maintain a complete
separation; and while pointing out that it was legally competent for the
guardians (with its approval) to erect extra accommodation, by means of
which this contamination could be avoided, the Central Authority did not
even remotely suggest that it was the guardians' duty so to do. By 1860
it "had given instructions that every new workhouse should be so
constructed as to allow of the requisite classification."[441]
[440] Regulations relating to the Classification of Workhouse
Inmates, in House of Commons, No. 485 of 1854.
[441] Mr. C. P. Villiers, _Hansard_, 4th May 1860, vol. clviii. p.
694.
From about 1865 onwards we note a new spirit in all the circulars and
letters relating to the workhouse. The public scandal caused by the
_Lancet_ inquiry into the conditions of the sick poor in the workhouses,
and the official reports and Parliamentary discussions that ensued, seem
to have enabled the Central Authority to take up a new attitude with
regard both to workhouse construction and workhouse regimen. From this
time forth the workhouse is recognised as being, not merely a "test of
destitution" for the able-bodied, which they were not expected long to
endure, but also the continuing home of large classes of helpless and
not otherwise than innocent persons. "Able-bodied people," reported the
Medical Officer in 1867, "are now scarcely at all found in them during
the greater part of the year.... Those who enjoy the advantages of these
institutions are almost solely such as may fittingly receive them, viz.
the aged and infirm, the destitute sick and children. Workhouses are now
asylums and infirmaries."[442]
[442] Dr. E. Smith, Medical Officer to Poor Law Board, in
Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, p. 43.
From now onwards we see the Central Authority always striving to improve
the workhouse. In the Circulars of 1868 much attention was paid to the
sufficiency of space and ventilation. It was required that parallel
blocks of building should be so far apart as to allow free access to
light and air; blocks connected at a right or acute angle were to be
avoided.
Ordinary wards were to be at least ten feet high and eighteen feet wide,
the length depending on the number of inmates; 300 cubic feet of space
were required for each healthy person in a dormitory, 500 for infirm
persons able to leave the dormitory during the day, and 700 in a day and
night room.[443] The Visiting Committee was to "ascertain not merely
whether the total number for which the workhouse is certified has been
exceeded, but whether the number of any one class exceeds the
accommodation available for it."[444] No wards were to be placed side by
side without a corridor between them; the corridors were to be six feet
wide, and ordinary dormitories were to have windows into them. Windows
and fanlights into internal spaces were to be made to open to be used as
ventilators, and ventilation was also to be "effected by special means,
apart from the usual means of doors, windows, and fire-places,"
air-bricks being recommended as a simple method.[445] No rooms occupied
by the inmates as sleeping-rooms were to be on the boundary of the
workhouse site. Hot and cold water was to be distributed to the
bath-rooms and sick wards. Airing yards for the inmates were to be "of
sufficient size"--with a rider that "if partially or wholly paved with
stone or brick or asphalted or gas-tarred they are often better than if
covered with gravel."[446] Yards for the children, sick, and aged were
to be enclosed with dwarf walls and palisades where practicable,
presumably with the object of giving a look-out, and making the yard
slightly less prison-like.[447] "Small yards, and a work-room, and a
covered shed for working in in bad weather," were to be provided for
vagrants.[448] For workhouses having a large number of children the Poor
Law Board recommended, "in addition to the school-rooms, day-rooms,
covered play-sheds in their yards, and industrial work-rooms."[449] The
staircases were to be of stone; the timber, Baltic fir and English oak;
fire escapes were to be provided; these and many other details were laid
down, all tending to make the building solid and capacious.[450] There
was no mention of ornament, no regard to appearance, no hint that
anything might be done to relieve the dead ugliness of the place; but it
must be recognised that the Central Authority had, by 1868, travelled
far from the "low, cheap, homely building" which it was recommending
thirty years before.[451]
[443] Circular of 15th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, pp. 48-9; Circular of 29th September 1870, in Twenty-third
Annual Report, 1870-1, p. 9. This was the more important as Dr.
Smith held that "_during the night at all seasons_, and during a
large part of the day in cold and wet weather, the windows cannot
be opened with propriety" (Report of Dr. E. Smith on Metropolitan
Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Wards, in House of Commons, No. 372
of 1866, p. 53).
[444] Circular Letter of 6th July 1868, in Twenty-first Annual
Report, 1868-9, p. 55.
[445] Circular of 15th June 1868, in _ibid._ pp. 48-50.
[446] _Ibid._ p. 50.
[447] _Ibid._
[448] _Ibid._ p. 51.
[449] _Ibid._ p. 49.
[450] Circular of 15th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, p. 51.
[451] We soon see the effect of this action by the Central
Authority in the rapid growth of the capital expenditure of the
boards of guardians. The annual reports of the next few years
record extensive new buildings. In the thirty-one years down to
1864-5, the total sum authorised for the building, altering, and
enlarging of workhouses and schools had reached £6,059,571, or an
average of £195,541 a year (Seventeenth Annual Report, 1864-5, pp.
328-9). Within six years this had risen to £8,406,215
(Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. 446-53). Of the new
capital outlay in these six years of no less than £2,346,644 or
£391,108 a year, half had taken place in the Metropolis, and a
quarter in Lancashire.
Separate dormitories, day-rooms, and yards (apparently not dining-rooms)
were required for the aged, able-bodied, children, and sick of each sex,
and these were the only divisions laid down as fundamental, but the
Circular went on to recommend provision (1) "so far as practicable for
the sub-division of the able-bodied women into two or three classes with
reference to moral character, or behaviour, the previous habits of the
inmates, or such other grounds as might seem expedient," and (2) "in the
larger workhouses" for the separate accommodation of the following
classes of sick--
Ordinary sick of both sexes.
Lying-in women, with separate labour room.
Itch cases of both sexes.
Dirty and offensive cases of both sexes.
Venereal cases of both sexes.
Fever and small-pox cases of both sexes (to be in a separate building
with detached rooms).
Children (in whose case sex was not mentioned).[452]
[452] Circular of 15th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, pp. 47-8.
In the furnishing of the wards the simplicity of 1868 was equally far
removed from that of 1835. Ordinary dormitories contained beds 2 feet 6
inches wide, chairs, bells, and gas where practicable. Day-rooms were to
have an open fireplace, benches, cupboards (or open shelves, which were
preferred), tables, gas, combs, and hairbrushes. "A proportion of
chairs" were to be provided "for the aged and infirm"; and of the
benches, likewise, "those for the aged and infirm should have backs, and
be of sufficient width for reasonable comfort." In the dining-rooms were
to be benches, tables, a minimum of necessary table utensils, and if
possible gas and an open fireplace. The sick wards were to be furnished
with more care, and with an eye to medical efficiency. It is unnecessary
to go into the long and detailed list of the medical appliances which
were required. There is even some notice of appearances in a suggestion
that "cheerful-looking rugs" should be placed on the beds, and of
comfort in the arm and other chairs "for two-thirds of the number of the
sick." There were also to be short benches with backs, and (but these
only for special cases) even cushions; rocking-chairs for the lying-in
wards, and little armchairs and rocking-chairs for the children's sick
wards.[453] Dr. Smith had further recommended a Bible for each inmate,
entertaining illustrated and religious periodicals, tracts and books,
games, and a foot valance to the bed to "add to the appearance of
comfort,"[454] These suggestions were not specifically taken up by the
Central Authority, but Dr. Smith's report was circulated to the
guardians, without comment.[455] We have the beginning, too, between
1863 and 1867, of the improvement of the food, which was regulated in
each workhouse by a separate Special Order, prescribing a dietary,
differing widely from union to union.[456] In 1866 the report of the
medical officer in favour of skilled cooking, by a professional cook,
instead of by a pauper inmate, really hot meals (even to the use of "hot
water dishes"), and efficient service, so as to increase the comfort of
the inmates, was circulated to the boards of guardians.[457] After many
reports and elaborate inquiries, the Central Authority in 1868 issued a
Circular of very authoritative suggestions for a general improvement in
the workhouse dietaries. After a protest that no cause had been shown
for any fundamental change in the principles which had been hitherto
recommended, it was urged that there were various points which the
guardians should remember in framing dietaries. The first of these
points was the addition of several classes who were to have separate
dietaries, viz.:--
(_a_) The aged and infirm not on the medical officer's book.
(_b_) Inmates on the medical officer's book for diet only and not on
the sick list.
(_c_) Inmates allowed extra diets on account of employment, and
those allowed alcohol for the same reason.
(_d_) Children aged nine to sixteen, if the guardians thought they
should be separately dieted.
(_e_) Sick diets to be framed by the medical officer as before.
(_f_) Imbeciles and suckling women to be dieted as the aged, "with
or without the substitution of milk porridge and bread at
breakfast or supper or at both meals."
[453] Circular of 13th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, pp. 44-6.
[454] Report of Dr. E. Smith on Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries
and Sick Wards, in House of Commons, No. 372 of 1866, pp. 51-2.
[455] Circular of 20th July 1866, in Nineteenth Annual Report,
1866-7, p. 39.
[456] It appears from a Minute of Lord Ebrington that, on entering
the Poor Law Board, he was much struck by there being no
physiological information available in the office as to the proper
amount of food required or as to the physiological equivalents of
different foods. The dietaries had apparently all been sanctioned
without reference to such an inquiry. He called for a report, and,
we believe, had an investigation made by Dr. Lyon (afterwards
Lord) Playfair. The Report (signed Thomas Harries, and dated June
1st 1850) reveals the most astounding differences between the
amounts of food, the proportions and amounts of nitrogenous
materials, and the cost of the dietaries sanctioned for 529
unions. (Eighty-four unions had no dietary sanctioned.) In
Berkshire, for instance, the Central Authority had approved of the
pauper in the Cookham Union getting only 15-9/10 oz. of
nitrogenous ingredients (per day?), whilst the pauper in the
Wokingham Union was allowed 24-1/10 oz. In the Metropolis, the
inmates of the West London Workhouse had been directed to exist on
14-7/10 oz. a day, whilst those in the Bermondsey Workhouse had
been permitted to consume 27-6/10 oz. It was found, contrary to
the common belief, that the dietaries of the workhouses in the
Metropolis and the great towns were, on an average, lower than
those of rural unions. There had, moreover, been a total lack of
quantitative definition of the ingredients of soups, puddings,
etc., with the result of extraordinary diversity. Sometimes
able-bodied women were allowed the same quantities as men;
sometimes much smaller quantities. We cannot trace whether any
action was taken on this Memorandum. No General Order or Circular
was issued on the subject at the time, or, indeed, for more than a
dozen years; and the workhouse dietaries remained extremely
diverse. But the Central Authority doubtless acted on the
information in its possession. In September 1850, for instance, it
demurred to approving a dietary proposed by the Bradfield
Guardians, on the ground that it was "so decidedly less nutritious
than those of other unions, in fact, only half what is given in
some, and more than a quarter less than the general average." The
Bradfield Guardians triumphantly retorted that their proposed
dietary for paupers provided more nourishment than the independent
labouring classes of the neighbourhood got in their own homes!
(MS. Minutes, Bradfield Board of Guardians, 10th September 1850);
which, considering the wages of the Berkshire farm labourers, is
not unlikely to have been true.
[457] Circular of 14th September 1866, in Nineteenth Annual
Report, 1866-7, pp. 395-6.
Then followed various detailed suggestions, some of which dealt with
ingredients and methods of cooking. Soup or broth dinners were not to be
given more than twice a week; nor were bread and cheese or suet pudding
dinners, except to the able-bodied. Fresh vegetables were to be
provided, if possible, five times a week, and boiled rice alone was not
to be made a substitute for them. Rice pudding was not to be given as a
dinner except to children under nine, and to them not more than twice a
week. Children were not to have tea or coffee, except for supper on
Sunday, but milk at breakfast and supper, and they were to be given two
or three ounces of bread at 10 A.M. It was "suggested that tea, coffee,
or cocoa, with milk and sugar, and accompanied by bread and butter or
bread and cheese, should be allowed to all the aged and infirm women at
breakfast and supper, and the same to aged and infirm men, or milk
porridge with bread" might be given at one of those meals. The ordinary
rations were--of meat (cooked, without bone), for men four ounces, for
women three ounces; of soup, one to one and a half pints (containing
three ounces of meat) for an adult; and of bread at breakfast or supper,
six ounces for able-bodied men, for the aged, women, and children over
nine five ounces, and proportionately less for younger children.[458]
[458] Circular of 7th December 1868, in Twenty-first Annual
Report, 1868-9, pp. 41-4. In the different Metropolitan workhouses
the Central Authority sought to obtain absolute uniformity, and to
this end had a model drawn up which was submitted to the guardians
for their adoption. It is strange that this dietary allowed less
bread and more meat than was recommended by the Board in the
circular just described, only a few months later--perhaps because
larger allowances of meat were made in the dietaries already in
force in London unions. This dietary, prepared by Dr. Markham,
contained tables for the able-bodied, the aged, and inmates
engaged on extra labour, in each case of both sexes, but not for
the other classes named in the above-mentioned circular. The
points chiefly dwelt upon were the necessity of good cooking, of
giving reasonable quantities of food, sufficient but not wasteful,
and of obtaining materials of good quality, so as to attain the
greatest possible economy (Circular of 23rd April 1868, in _ibid._
pp. 35-41). It is to be noted that the Central Authority issued no
order on the subject. The result was that in most cases the
guardians practically ignored the suggestions, and continued in
their diversity. Camberwell, for instance, continued to allow the
able-bodied pauper 107 oz. of bread per week, whereas the Poor Law
Board had suggested 76 oz. only. The hated oatmeal porridge and
suet pudding were minimised (Report of Mr. J. H. Bridges, 15th May
1873).
The movement for the improvement of the workhouse thus initiated by the
Central Authority in 1865-70 represents a vast departure, not only from
the policy of the Poor Law Commissioners of 1835-47, but also from that
of the Poor Law Board itself from 1847 to 1865. Unfortunately, in the
absence of any embodiment of the new policy in a General Order, it was
left to the slow and haphazard discretion of the six hundred boards of
guardians how far it was carried into practice.[459] There is, however,
evidence that by 1872, at any rate, the Metropolitan workhouses were
reported to have become "attractive to paupers," and to contain "many
persons ... who could maintain themselves out of doors; and, in short,
that the workhouse furnishes no test of destitution."[460] Moreover,
though the Central Authority sought to improve the physical conditions
of workhouse life, and even to promote the comfort of the classes who
now formed the great bulk of the workhouse population, it does not seem
to have had any idea of remedying the mental deadness of the workhouse,
the starvation of the intellect, the paralysis of the will, and the
extinction of all initiative to which such an existence inevitably
tended. The only hint that we can find during the whole period of any
consciousness that the hundred and fifty thousand workhouse inmates had
minds is a statement by Mr. C. P. Villiers in 1860 that "the board had
readily consented to establish libraries" for the inmates.[461] We
cannot find any order authorising the provision of workhouse libraries,
or any circular suggesting them; nor do we discover their existence from
such local records as we have been able to consult.
[459] The average cost of in-maintenance throughout the Kingdom
(apart from buildings, repairs, rates, salaries, etc.) appears to
have risen between 1863 and 1870 from £4·340 for the half-year to
£4·781, or by over 10 per cent. The 125,368 indoor paupers on 1st
July 1863 cost £521,292 for the half-year ended Michaelmas 1863
(Seventeenth Annual Report, 1864-5, pp. 189 and 198); whereas, the
144,470 indoor paupers on 1st July 1870 cost £690,812 for the
half-year ended Michaelmas 1870 (Twenty-third Annual Report,
1870-1, pp. 349 and 367). In the Metropolitan unions the average
cost for the half-year rose from 5·077 to 5·588, or by slightly
over 10 per cent. We gather that the corresponding amounts for
1905 were not much above £6 for the whole country and £7 for the
Metropolis, which does not seem a great further advance for a
quarter of a century.
[460] Office Minute of 1873. This had been pointed out by Mr.
Corbett in 1868. "In none of these workhouses is it possible to
apply the workhouse as a test of destitution to single able-bodied
men, nor can indoor relief be afforded to those with families in
many instances in which it would be desirable" (Mr. Corbett's
Report, 4th January 1868, in Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, p.
126).
[461] Mr. C. P. Villiers, President of the Poor Law Board, 4th May
1860, _Hansard_, vol. clviii. p. 694.
_K._--_Emigration_
Emigration was not made the subject, during this period, of statute,
order, or circular. At first we find the Central Authority continuing
the favour to it which had been expressed in the 1834 Report and in the
documents and action of the Poor Law Commissioners. In 1849 the Central
Authority got a Bill through Parliament increasing the powers of
promoting and assisting emigration,[462] in support of which the
Manchester Board of Guardians petitioned in characteristic
phraseology.[463] In the same year the Central Authority even approved
the sending out of a convict's family to join him; "the transportation
of the convict is not a voluntary desertion of the family, and when the
Government promotes the sending out of the family ... the expenditure of
the poor rate in furtherance of that object may properly be
sanctioned."[464] By 1852 the number of persons emigrated at the expense
of the poor rate had risen to 3271 in a single year, four-fifths going
to the Australian Colonies.[465] By this time the total number of
persons assisted to emigrate at the expense of the poor rates, between
1834 and 1853, had mounted up to nearly 24,000.[466] The policy then
changes. The number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate
suddenly declines, falling from 3271 in 1852 to 488 in 1853.[467] In
1854 it is recorded that the Central Authority had "declined during the
past year to sanction any expenditure from the poor rate in aid of
emigration to the Australian Colonies (except in ... special
circumstances), on the ground that the condition of those colonies
[appeared] to be such as of itself to attract largely voluntary and
independent emigration"[468]--a reason, we may observe, which does not
seem relevant to a discussion of the advantage or disadvantage of
emigration as a means of reducing pauperism at home. It does not
appear that the change of policy was due, as it might have been, to a
conviction that a colony in a period of excitement over "gold rushes"
was not a suitable place to which to send a young person in whose
welfare one took a personal interest. It may be that the real reason was
a political one, viz. objections expressed by the Australian colonies
themselves. Whatever the motive, however, rate-aided emigration remained
in disfavour. "We must consider," said the Poor Law Board in 1860, "that
at present emigration cannot be considered as any practical remedial
measure for the repression of pauperism."[469] In 1863, Mr. Villiers,
speaking as President of the Poor Law Board, gave a new reason for the
disfavour into which emigration had fallen. "I do not mean to say," he
protested, on a discussion about the distress caused by the Lancashire
Cotton Famine, "that the Government should discourage emigration....
[But] when we know the large amount of capital in the country, and the
great increase of it, and are also cognisant of the demand for labour a
few years since, I do not think it would be wise of the Government to
expend public money in the promotion of emigration."[470] For the next
seven years emigration at the expense of the poor rate practically
ceases, the number of persons so assisted falling in 1866-7 to
eighteen.[471] In the following year, 277 persons were sent from Poplar,
then exceptionally distressed,[472] but there was no general resumption
of the policy, so far as adults were concerned. In 1869 the Central
Authority, whilst disavowing any intention of reviving the policy, tried
to simplify the procedure with regard to emigration, but found the
representatives of the colonies adverse.[473] In 1870 there was,
however, a slight revival, accompanied by the new feature of the
emigration to Canada of orphan or deserted children (Miss Rye's
scheme),[474] destined to become thenceforth a constant feature, though
not in any one year attaining any considerable magnitude. The total
number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate in the
seventeen years between 1853 and 1870 was between three and four
thousand, as contrasted with nearly 24,000 in the preceding nineteen
years.[475]
[462] 12 & 13 Vic. c. 103, sec. 20; Second Annual Report, 1849, p.
12.
[463] "Your petitioners having had practical proof of the tendency
of labour to accumulate beyond the bounds of remunerative
investment for capital, consider that a well-arranged system of
emigration is the present most feasible mode of preserving a
correct equilibrium between the supply and demand for labour" (MS.
Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 12th July 1849).
[464] Second Annual Report, 1849, p. 12.
[465] Fifth Annual Report, 1852, p. 7.
[466] _See_ the total given years later, in Ninth Annual Report,
1856, p. 119.
[467] Sixth Annual Report, 1853, p. 6.
[468] Seventh Annual Report, 1854, p. 8.
[469] Twelfth Annual Report, 1859-60, p. 19.
[470] Mr. C. P. Villiers, President of Poor Law Board, 27th April
1863, _Hansard_, vol. clxx. pp. 814-15.
[471] Nineteenth Annual Report, 1866-7, p. 19.
[472] Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, pp. 33, 398.
[473] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. lvi.-lvii.
[474] Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. xlvi., 441.
[475] _See_ the total in Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, p.
441.
_L._--_Relief on Loan_
We may note that the Central Authority did not advise making use of the
statutory power to grant relief in the form of a loan, as a means of
discouraging applicants, but regarded it solely as a way of saving the
rates. Such relief was to be granted with due consideration and the
_bona fide_ intention of recovering.[476] Relief could not be given on
loan if it would be contrary to Order to grant it not on loan.[477] In
fact, what might not lawfully be given, was not to be lent.[478]
Whatever was granted on loan should always be strictly recovered in due
time. "The power of lending is only to be exercised where the guardians
think fit to do something less than absolutely give the relief applied
for in cases where the application is lawful."[479] As examples of
occasions suitable for relief on loan, the Central Authority adduced
that of a mentally defective person having a regular and sufficient
income, but yet occasionally destitute from incapacity to manage his
expenditure.[480] Other cases are those of wives or children found
destitute, when the relief may be made on loan to the husbands or
parents.[481] A further instance is supplied by relief applied for by
the mother of an illegitimate child who is entitled to periodical
payments from the putative father. The putative father may be asked to
make his payments in such a way as to facilitate the recovery of the
loan from the mother.[482] We find no revival of the idea mooted in 1840
of granting medical relief on loan.
[476] Letter of 8th April 1850, in _Official Circular_, July 1850,
No. 39, N.S. p. 108.
[477] Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, 25th August 1852, and 14th
December 1852, in Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 19, 26; General
Order of 1st January 1869, in Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9,
p. 81.
[478] Circular of 25th August 1852, in Fifth Annual Report, 1853,
p. 23.
[479] _Ibid._
[480] Letter of May 1849, in _Official Circular_, No. 25, N.S.
1849, p. 71.
[481] Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 25th August and 14th
December 1852, in Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 19, 26; General
Order of 1st January 1869, in Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9,
p. 81.
[482] _Official Circular_, September 1850, No. 41, N.S. p. 131.
_M._--_Co-operation with Voluntary Agencies_
A noteworthy feature of the very end of this period was the emphasis
suddenly laid upon the importance of systematic co-operation between the
Poor Law and voluntary charitable agencies. This was the novel feature
of Mr. Goschen's celebrated Minute of 20th November 1869. His object was
"to avoid the double distribution of relief to the same persons, and at
the same time to secure that the most effective use should be made" of
voluntary funds. With this view he sought "to mark out the separate
limits of the Poor Law and of charity respectively, and [to find out]
how it is possible to secure joint action between the two." He suggested
that voluntary agencies should undertake the following:--
(_a_) The necessary supplementing of insufficient incomes--and
he does not here distinguish between earnings,
dividends, pensions, and family contributions--"leaving
to the operation of the [Poor] Law the provision
for the totally destitute."
(_b_) Donations of bedding, clothing, or other similar articles
not provided by the guardians (as distinguished
from food or money)[483] to persons in receipt of outdoor
relief.
(_c_) Services to such persons which are beyond the power
of the guardians (such as the redemption from
pawn or the purchase of tools or clothes, and the
expenses of migration).
It was suggested that charitable agencies and the relieving officers
should bring to each other's notice all cases falling within each
other's spheres, in order that none might be overlooked; systematically
giving each other also information of all cases that were being
relieved, so as to prevent any overlapping. Mr. Goschen seems to have
thought it beyond the power of the Poor Law Board to do anything to set
going any joint action between the Metropolitan boards of guardians and
charitable agencies. He did not convene a conference or initiate a joint
committee, or even circulate his proposal to the Metropolitan charities;
though he had evidently been advised that the services both of the
officers of the Poor Law Board and of those of the guardians could
legally be used "to assist in systematising ... relief operations in
various parts of the Metropolis," and "to facilitate the communication
between the official and private agencies"; and that Poor Law funds
could be drawn on for remuneration for their extra work and for the
necessary printing. He confined himself literally to sending his Minute
to the Metropolitan boards of guardians, with a request for their views
upon it. In reply, he got little beyond a series of expositions of the
apparent impracticability of his proposals. In commenting on these
replies, the Central Authority did not pursue Mr. Goschen's suggestions,
but urged only "increased vigilance and the appointment of more
relieving officers" on the one hand,[484] and on the other the grant of
"more adequate relief."[485] There the matter rested, for though
systematic co-operation between charities and the Poor Law has since
been assumed to be the policy of the Central Authority, we cannot find
that there has ever been any second official statement on the
subject.[486]
[483] The policy of the Central Authority seems, down to this
date, to have contemplated the supplementing of outdoor relief,
not only by charitable gifts in kind, but also by money. At
Poplar, in 1868, a special committee draws attention to the
"instruction" of the Poor Law Board that when relief is given to
persons in receipt of charitable relief, the relief given must be
only so much as, with the assistance of the charitable relief,
will suffice for the relief of such person's actual necessities
(MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 22nd September 1868).
[484] The number of relieving officers in the Metropolis had
already increased from 102 in 1866 to 161 in 1870. It now rose
further to 190 in February, 1873 (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th
August 1871, as reprinted for circulation in 1873). The number is
now (1907) about 205.
[485] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxxii-xxxiv, 9-30.
Mr. Goschen directed an inspector to make a special inquiry into
the administration of outdoor relief in the Metropolis, and this
was followed by similar inquiries in the provinces (Twenty-third
Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. ix-xxi, 32-173; First Annual Report of
the Local Government Board, 1871-2, pp. xv, 88-215; Second Annual
Report, 1872-3, pp. xvi-xviii; Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp.
xx, 66-116, 136-209). The reports that resulted revealed many
defects and some malpractices, but we do not find that there was
any action by the Central Authority.
[486] It should perhaps be mentioned that in the Third Annual
Report, 1873-4 (pp. xvii. and 126-35), reports by Miss Octavia
Hill and Colonel Lynedoch Gardiner, on the Co-operation of Charity
with the Poor Law in Marylebone, are given and commended.
To the historian of Poor Law policy, Mr. Goschen's Minute is important
as the first indication of what we shall see developing in the ensuing
period--an attempt to restrict the range of operations of the Poor Law,
which here began to battle with the opposite tendency to extend the
range of those operations, and to improve their quality, which, as we
have seen, had marked the whole reign of the Poor Law Board with regard
to children and persons of unsound mind; and which had, from 1865, taken
such a stride onwards in the provision of hospitals and dispensaries for
the sick, and improved accommodation for the workhouse inmates.
_N._--_The Position in 1871_
In 1867 the Poor Law Board, which had been continued from time to time
by temporary statutes, was made permanent,[487] and in 1871 it was
merged in a new and permanent department, the Local Government Board,
established to take over not only the Poor Law business, but also the
Local Government Act Department of the Home Office and the growing
public health service, which had, since the abolition of the General
Board of Health, been under the Privy Council. This amalgamation, which
was not brought about by anything to do with the Poor Law side, does not
mark any significant epoch in Poor Law policy. It is therefore
unnecessary to attempt any summary of the whole policy of the Poor Law
Board as such. It need only be noted at this point that the new
establishment of the Central Authority on a permanent basis, no longer
dependent on temporary statutes, but definitely one of the departments
of the national executive, with its President more frequently than not a
member of the Cabinet, greatly strengthened the authority and augmented
the confidence with which it dealt with boards of guardians. And this
authority was in these years being fortified by the growth of an
official staff, on a more permanent basis than the temporarily serving
inspectors and assistant inspectors of a professedly temporary board. We
are already conscious, at the end of this period, of a growing firmness
of touch and an increasing consciousness of there being once more a
deliberate policy, which the new department will strive to carry out and
enforce.
[487] The Liverpool Vestry and various boards of guardians
objected to the Poor Law Board being made permanent, as its very
existence tended to lessen the sense of responsibility of the
local Poor Law authorities (Report of Special Vestry Meeting,
Liverpool, in _Liverpool Mercury_, 27th June 1867).
CHAPTER IV
THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD
As we have already mentioned, the merging of the Poor Law Board in the
newly established Local Government Board came about for reasons
unconnected with the Poor Law, and it coincided with no definite change
in Poor Law Policy. But, as already indicated, the placing of the
Central Authority on a permanent basis coincided with a gradual
improvement in the quality of the inspectorial staff, who, in the
ensuing decades, remind us more of the masterful assistant commissioners
of the 1834-47 period. On the other hand, the development of the office
from a mere specialised authority, concerned only with a single
function, into what became practically a Ministry of the Interior,
charged with the supervision of all the local government of the country
(with the partial exception of police and schools), necessitated both an
increase and a development of the permanent secretariat. To this
secretariat, with its graded hierarchy and multiplicity of departments,
boards of guardians and the administration of the Poor Law tended
inevitably to take their place among municipal corporations, local
boards of health, highway authorities, and the administration of other
statutory powers. There is even a third element to take into account.
The revival of public interest in Poor Law problems, beginning about
1867[488] in the Metropolis and some of the large towns, and spreading
later to the whole country, had its effect in the House of Commons,
especially after the extension of the franchise in London and the
boroughs (1867), and in the counties (1884). We see this manifesting
itself in Poor Law policy in various minor statutes, and, above all, in
sporadic circulars and other declarations of policy by the Parliamentary
President of the Local Government Board.
[488] The sequence in the Metropolis seems to have been, first,
the exceptional distress in the East End during 1866-7; then a
strict administration on deterrent principles, agreed to by
conferences of East End Guardians in 1869, under the influence of
Mr. Corbett, who had become inspector for the Metropolis in 1866;
Mr. Goschen's Circular of 20th November 1869, and the consequent
inquiries into Poor Law practice; Mr. Corbett's powerful Report of
10th August 1871; and then the Circular of 2nd December 1871, with
the conferences resulting therefrom. Mr. Longley was appointed
inspector for the Metropolis in March 1872 (Mr. Longley's Report,
in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp 196-7).
Thus the student who seeks to discover what was the policy of the
Central Authority between 1871 and 1907 finds two distinct influences at
work on Boards of Guardians, each of which carries with it the weight of
the Central Authority, but one of them is seen to be predominant between
1871 and 1885, whilst the other predominates after 1885.
The able, zealous, and somewhat doctrinaire inspectorate, especially
between 1871 and 1885, stands always on the "principles of 1834" in
their strictest interpretation--constantly using language, indeed, which
went beyond any proposals of the 1834 Report, or any policy embodied in
the documents of the Central Authority of 1834-47. On the other hand,
the president (and Parliament with his concurrence) sporadically brought
in (especially after 1885) a note that some might term a sentimental,
others an enlightened humanitarianism, with regard to particular
sections--the unemployed, the decayed members of friendly societies, the
"deserving aged poor" generally. This humanitarianism was certainly in
direct contradiction of the "principles of 1834." How far it may be said
to have embodied, perhaps unconsciously, other principles will
subsequently appear.
The cleavage in policy between the inspectorate and the president did
not at first manifest itself. For the first decade or so, the successive
presidents and the inspectorate seem to be at one in a policy of "strict
administration"--a policy as to which we cannot discover whether it was
due to the influence of such presidents as Mr. Goschen and Mr. Stansfeld
upon such inspectors as Mr. Corbett, Mr. Doyle, Mr. Wodehouse, and Mr.
Longley, or _vice versa_. We may perhaps ascribe to the caution of the
secretariat the confining of this policy to the general terms of
circulars and minutes, thus avoiding alike the necessary precision of
orders and statutes and any explicit extension of the "principles of
1834" to classes other than the able-bodied.
From 1871 to about 1885 the outstanding feature of the policy of the
Central Authority was the steady pressure exercised through the
inspectors with the object of reducing outdoor relief. This arose out of
the inquiries set on foot by Mr. Goschen, which had revealed, not only
the granting of a large amount of outdoor relief to able-bodied men and
women and their families, but also great differences in practice between
one union and another. As we have shown, neither Mr. Goschen nor the
Central Authority under any other president had, down to 1871, so far as
the aged and infirm and cases of sickness were concerned, ever indicated
or advocated, in any official document that we have been able to find,
any alternative policy to that of outdoor relief. The Circular on
Outdoor Relief[489] now issued to the inspectors and widely published,
which set the tone for the ensuing decade, did not explicitly declare
any new policy with regard to these classes, which then made up at least
three-fourths of the total outdoor relief cases. Moreover its
illustrative examples and its specific recommendations related entirely
to the able-bodied. Indeed, except for an important new departure in the
treatment of able-bodied widows with children, the recommendations to be
pressed on Boards of Guardians amounted to no more than the substitution
of the practice of the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order for either that
of the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order or that of the Labour Test Order,
where one or other of these latter was in force. The differences between
these orders, as we have shown, relate only to the able-bodied. Thus, an
acute clerk of a board of guardians would have been warranted in saying
that, so far as concerned the aged and infirm and the sick, the Circular
of 1871 announced no new policy.
[489] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, pp. 63-8.
But the Circular appeared to the casual reader to be against outdoor
relief as such to any class of paupers. The expression "Outdoor Relief"
was nowhere defined or limited. Particular unions were compared one with
another as to the amount and proportion of their total outdoor relief
to all cases, those having a large amount being held to blame, without a
consideration of whether their outdoor relief was to the able-bodied or
to the aged and infirm and the sick; and even without any consideration
of the relative proportion of persons over sixty, or the relative
prevalence of ill-health in their several populations.[490]
[490] The first notice that we have seen of the fact that some
districts contain "a much higher proportion of the weak and old,"
than others, and that some have also a much higher rate of
mortality among husbands than others, which vitiates any simple
comparison of their pauperism, is in a Report by Mr. Culley
(inspector) in 1873 (Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 66, 72-3).
But the hint was not acted on in the tables of statistics used by
the inspectors.
Moreover, some of the other recommendations of the Circular implied,
though they did not express, a suggestion that the "offer of the House"
might be used as a means of preventing the aged and the sick from coming
on the rates at all. Quite a new stress was laid on getting
contributions from relatives, and on the most vigilant inquiry into
circumstances, recommendations which certainly applied to the aged and
infirm and to the sick, and which seemed to carry with them the hint
that, if confronted with the workhouse, even the aged and the sick would
be maintained by their relations.
Whether or not the Central Authority can be held in these years to have
deliberately adopted the new policy of the offer of the workhouse for
the aged and infirm and for the sick, as well as for the able-bodied, it
was this policy which, from 1871 onwards, was increasingly pressed on
boards of guardians by the abler and more energetic of the inspectors.
We cannot find any official document in which any inspector explicitly
committed himself to the statement that the time had come when outdoor
relief should, as a matter of principle, be refused to the aged and
infirm, or to the sick, as had long been the official advice with regard
to the able-bodied.[491] But it was in these years that these inspectors
took to circulating among their boards of guardians the comparative
tables showing their relative position in order of merit according to
the smallness of their out-relief--always without making any distinction
between the out-relief to the aged and the sick on the one hand, and
that to the able-bodied on the other. In their published reports on
their districts we see the inspectors taking the same tone and using the
same unguarded phrases implying the inherent badness of outdoor relief
(without any limitation to the able-bodied), that marked the Circular of
1871. The minutes of the boards of guardians of this period occasionally
preserve a record of, or contain a reference to the inspector's letters
or personal advice to the same effect.[492]
[491] Mr. Longley did definitely recommend that outdoor relief,
even to the widows with families, the sick and the "disabled"--by
which he meant the aged--should be discontinued, except in cases
that might be found to fall outside a series of categories so
defined, and so extensive, as practically to include the whole of
these classes. Moreover, in his view it was to be "regarded as the
next step in the advance towards improved administration that
applicants for out-relief shall be called upon to show special
cause why they should not receive indoor relief" (Mr. Longley's
Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 142).
[492] _E.g._ MS. archives, Newcastle Board of Guardians
(lithographed letter of Mr. Hedley, inspector, drawing attention
to the comparative outdoor pauperism of his unions, and urging
reduction).
It was a feature of this period that the inspectors were in close
personal contact with the president. Mr. Stansfeld inaugurated a system
of occasional dinners at which he met all the inspectors and discussed
with them their difficulties. They had also periodical conferences in
London for a week at a time, at which they formulated a common policy.
In these years began, too, the Poor Law conferences, where the
inspectors (and occasionally also the president) came in contact with
the new school of unofficial Poor Law experts, who were in favour of the
"logical development" of the "principles of 1834." It was, in fact, "now
argued" that, just as under the Act of 1834, the "offer of the
workhouse" had "obliged the able-bodied to assume responsibility for the
able-bodied period of life ... an application of the same principle to
the other responsibilities of life would produce equally advantageous
results."[493] The presidents of the first decade of the Local
Government Board seem, indeed, sometimes to have accepted the view that
all relief ought, strictly speaking, to be given in the workhouse. Mr.
Longley's Report on outdoor relief in the Metropolis was sent officially
to the boards of guardians and commended as laying down "sound lines of
policy."[494] Mr. Dodson, in 1881, declared as president that "the whole
object and system of the Poor Law as established in this country is that
it should be strictly administered, with the aim simply to testing and
relieving absolute destitution; and no effectual means have yet been
devised of so testing the destitution except by offering the house. And
just in proportion as the Poor Law is strictly administered, and in
proportion as entrance into the house is insisted upon as a condition of
relief, so, on the whole, is the Poor Law better administered--better
administered, I do not hesitate to say, not only in the interest of the
poor themselves, but in the interest of the ratepayers at large. Now,
you must remember, in the case of outdoor relief it is impossible
absolutely to test the cases. They cannot be closely watched, and you
cannot tell when a man is receiving outdoor relief that he is not having
aid from other sources, or that he is not to some extent earning
something for himself, and might possibly, if left to his own resources,
earn more. Well, then, it is a system which in that way acts as a check
upon personal exertions and upon providence, and I need not say that
anything which acts as a check upon exertion and providence cannot but
result in an increase of pauperism and the demoralisation of the
labouring classes, and must end in an increased charge to the
ratepayers."[495]
[493] _History of the English Poor Law_, by T. Mackay, 1899, vol.
iii. p. 154.
[494] Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, pp. xix-xx.
[495] Mr. Dodson (President of the Local Government Board) to
deputation from Newington and St. Saviour's, Southwark, November
1881, in _Local Government Chronicle_, 26th November 1881, p. 951.
A notable step towards stricter administration in these years was the
adoption in 1875 by the Manchester Board of Guardians of by-laws for its
own guidance, putting additional restrictions on the grant of outdoor
relief.[496] These by-laws were made much of by the inspectors, and
carried from board to board. Their object was to discourage as much as
possible the grant of outdoor relief as such. Yet it is noteworthy
that they apply primarily to the able-bodied (male and female), and that
they do not mention at all the case of the aged, and that they allude to
the sick only by way of restricting the duration of each order of
outdoor relief to two weeks. But here again we detect the hint that the
"offer of the house" might be used, in the case of the aged, as a means
of extracting contributions from relatives whether or not such
contributions were legally due.
[496] Fifth Annual Report, 1875-6, pp. xvii-xix.