a general order. The Central Poor Law Conference, professing to sum up
all the experience and knowledge both of the inspectors and of the new
school of unofficial Poor Law experts, asked the Central Authority to
issue new orders restricting outdoor relief generally. Even here it is
noteworthy that no explicit suggestion was made that the aged and the
sick ought not to be granted outdoor relief. What was asked for was
practically the "Manchester Rules," with the addition of the suggestion
that all relief should be given on loan. Here, however, the Central
Authority made a stand. It refused to make any new order, specifically
declining to extend the Prohibitory Order to the whole country, to make
all relief recoverable as if granted on loan, to enable all medical
relief to be made on loan, to impose a fixed limit for the grant of
outdoor relief in cases of sickness, or to prohibit outdoor relief to
widows in the first six months of their widowhood.[497]
[497] Letter, signed by Sir John Lambert, to Mr. Albert Pell,
M.P., Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in
Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, pp. 51-7.
Thus, the policy of 1871-85 resulted, not in any alteration of the
classic orders of 1844, 1847, and 1852, or in any explicit reversal of
the policy hitherto pursued with regard to the aged and the sick, but
only in a general "tightening up" of the administration of relief by
boards of guardians all over the country. We shall see this general
"tightening up" more in detail in the examination of the treatment of
various classes. That examination will also reveal the effect of the
reaction against this tightening up, which set in about 1885--a reaction
which showed itself in the relaxation, usually at the instance or with
the encouragement of Parliament and successive presidents, of the
conditions of relief to specific classes.
_A._--THE ABLE-BODIED
(i.) _National Uniformity_
In the absence of new Statutes, and of alterations in the General Orders
relating to the relief by boards of guardians of the able-bodied, there
was, of course, between 1871 and 1907, no step towards national
uniformity. The country continued to be divided up geographically into
three regions, according to whether or not the Central Authority had
permitted the grant of outdoor relief to able-bodied men, subject to a
labour test; and to whether or not it had permitted outdoor relief to
able-bodied women without children. And unlike the period 1847-1871,
that of 1871-1907 did not witness any important alteration in the
geographical extension of these three regions, though the relative
populations altered very considerably. The general policy of the Central
Authority, in issuing the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order to rural
districts, with or without the Labour Test Order when required, and in
issuing to the large towns the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, was
continued throughout the whole period.[498]
[498] It is to be noted that Mr. Longley, in 1873, drew attention
to the uncertainty of practice caused by the lack of definition of
"able-bodied," and the different senses in which it was used in
the official documents. He pointed out that the absence of
definition seriously impaired administration, and urged that
authoritative instructions should be issued (Mr. Longley's Report
in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 174). We do not find that any
action was taken.
(ii.) _The Workhouse Test_
What happened for the first five-and-twenty years of the Local
Government Board was, as we have indicated, a general tightening up in
the administration of all three regions. The Central Authority intimated
that it would not easily give the approval that was necessary for any
departure from the orders. "In unions where the Prohibitory Order is in
force," said the circular to the inspectors of 2nd December 1871, "the
workhouse test should be strictly applied.... The Board will not be
prepared to sanction any cases which are not reported within the time
limited by the order, and in which the reports do not contain a detailed
statement of the paupers to which they refer, showing the number of
their respective families with the ages and number of children employed,
amount of wages of the several members of the family at work, cause of
destitution, period during which they have been without employment,
amount of relief, if any, given previously to the transmission of the
report, and what extent of accommodation for all classes exists in the
workhouse at the time."[499]
[499] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, p. 67. With regard to the 85,386 persons who received
outdoor relief on 1st January 1873, as "able-bodied male paupers"
(including, it must be remembered, 18,037 wives and 45,285
children of such men, 15,133 men relieved on account of their own
sickness, 5572 on account of the sickness of wife or child, and
only 1339 merely for want of work), the Central Authority observed
without discrimination, that: "There would be, in our opinion, no
material difficulty in enforcing, throughout all the unions, the
_salutary provision_ which forbids the allowance of relief to this
class of persons except in a workhouse" (Third Annual Report,
1873-4, p. xiv). But no such "provision" existed, in any Statute
or Order, or even in any official Circular, so far as we can
discover. Mr. Corbett had once suggested that he should "encourage
boards of guardians to abstain far _more than at present_, from
giving out-relief to able-bodied men on account of their own
sickness or accident." But even he did not propose its refusal in
all cases (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871). We cannot
find that the Central Authority had ever before formally seemed to
give its approval, if it really intended to do so by this _obiter
dictum_, to the suggestion that sick persons ought not to receive
outdoor relief.
As times became bad, the Central Authority received "applications ...
for a relaxation of the provisions of the General Out-relief Prohibitory
Order, and for the substitution of an outdoor labour test for the more
effective test of destitution afforded by the offer of relief in the
workhouse." Instead of yielding to these requests, as had formerly
happened, the Central Authority now replied, "that the Supplemental
Outdoor Labour Test Order is not intended to supersede, but to be
subsidiary to the General Out-relief Prohibitory Order, and should not
be brought into operation so long as there is sufficient room in the
workhouse available for able-bodied paupers."[500] "A strict adherence
to the workhouse test," said the Central Authority, "on such occasions
when temporary relief is demanded solely from the state of the weather,
is essentially beneficial to the labouring classes, and conducive to
their real interest. A certainty of obtaining outdoor relief in his own
home, whenever he may demand it, extinguishes in the mind of the
labourer all motive for husbanding his earnings, and induces him to rely
exclusively upon the rates, instead of upon his own savings, for any
momentary relief which he may require from the sudden cessation of his
usual employment. The unfailing application of the workhouse test, on
the other hand, makes him at once aware that the only form in which he
can receive relief is as an ordinary inmate of the workhouse, and the
strongest inducement to support himself and his family is thus held out
to him, an inducement altogether wanting when the guardians, upon his
application, readily grant him outdoor relief."[501]
[500] Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. xvii. It also received
"applications from a few other unions for assent to temporary
out-relief in the case of boatmen or other persons thrown out of
work by the frost." Sanction was not actually refused, but it was
pointed out that the guardians should have offered the workhouse
(_ibid._).
[501] Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. xviii.
But, as already mentioned, the Central Authority, though pressed to do
so, did not consent to make the Out-relief Prohibitory Order co-extensive
with the country. "The Order," it replied, "is now in force in all the
rural unions ... and in many urban unions also, and the Board continue
to apply its provisions from time to time to other unions as often as
the circumstances enable them to do so, but it has never been attempted
to apply the provisions of the Order to the Metropolis, or those centres
of manufacturing industry where large numbers of persons are
periodically thrown out of employment by sudden and extensive
depressions of trade."[502] In such places, as it was explained, it
would certainly be found necessary to abrogate the Order at those
periods, and this would weaken its force generally.
[502] Letter of Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor
Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8,
p. 56.
(iii.) _The Labour Test_
Where the relief of able-bodied men outside the workhouse was not
prohibited, we see the Central Authority in these years not only rigidly
maintaining the rule as to a labour test (whether under the Out-relief
Regulation Order or under a Labour Test Order supplementary to the
Out-relief Prohibitory Order); but also seeking to make the
administration more strict. This rule, it was explained in 1879, "is one
the value of which has been experienced at various times, and in various
parts of the country, as a test of the actual destitution of the
applicant; and to the observance of which, in times of serious pressure,
such as the present, the Board attach very great importance. The Board
are not prepared to suspend the operation of the articles in question
generally; but if while applying its provisions, the guardians should be
of opinion that, in certain special cases which might arise, it would be
proper that the strict application of these provisions should not be
enforced, the Board, on receiving a particular report of the
circumstances under Article 10 of the Order, would be prepared to give
their favourable consideration to the cases."[503] Even in such a severe
crisis of unemployment as that of 1879-81, when the number of men thrown
out of work was probably greater than at any date from 1841 down to the
present day, the Central Authority held to its view of what the labour
test should be. "For this object," it was explained, "the operations of
breaking stone and picking oakum (when performed under proper
superintendence) are in many respects very appropriate, and, having
regard to the objection to employing paupers on work of a productive
character, which may interfere with the ordinary callings or employment
of any portion of the independent population of the district, the Board
are unable to suggest any other kind of work than those named."[504] Nor
was even breaking stone or picking oakum to be paid for as wages, or
regarded as employment. "With regard to the proposal of the [Warrington]
guardians to pay 2s. 6d. for each ton of stones broken," the Central
Authority stated "that the task is intended merely for a test of
destitution, and that the relief granted to each pauper should not be
proportioned to the quantity of stone broken by him, but to the
necessities of his case."[505] The inspectors were instructed to press
the guardians everywhere not to grant even admission to "the stoneyard"
as a matter of course; "orders to able-bodied men for relief in the
labour yard should only be given from week to week"; and the homes of
the men so relieved should be visited by the relieving officer at least
once a fortnight.[506] Moreover, even this relief was intended to be
only temporary; and the conditions were sometimes made more onerous
after the first few weeks. "In the Poplar Union, at the expiration of
the first month, the applicant is required to come to the stoneyard an
hour earlier and to leave an hour later than before, and to break an
additional bushel of stones."[507] Gradually we see it being assumed,
even as regards unions under the Out-relief Regulation Order, that it is
merely "when the workhouse accommodation is insufficient,"[508] or "so
long as they have not adequate workhouse accommodation,"[509] that
relief should be given with a labour test. Right down to February 1886,
the Central Authority declared that it "would not feel justified in
relaxing" the regulations which prohibited relief to able-bodied men,
however temporary and undeserved might be their want of employment,
"without any such test of destitution as is provided by admission to a
properly managed workhouse, or the performance of an adequate task of
work." To cope with the distress caused by unemployment, the Holborn
Guardians on 9th February 1886 were, in fact, expressly told to hire a
stoneyard.[510]
[503] Local Government Board to Bristol Union, 16th January 1879,
_Local Government Chronicle_, 25th January 1879, p. 69.
[504] Local Government Board to Bedminister Union, January 1881;
in _Local Government Chronicle_, 8th January 1881, p. 35.
[505] Letter, Local Government Board to Warrington Union, March
1878; in _Local Government Chronicle_, 30th March 1878, p. 253.
[506] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, p. 67; _see_ Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.
[507] Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.
[508] Instructional letter to inspectors (?) December 1878; cited
by Mr. Culley (inspector), to Newcastle Board of Guardians, _see_
MS. archives, 28th December 1878.
[509] Local Government Board letter to Holborn Union, 9th February
1886, in House of Commons, No. 69 of 1886, p. 40.
[510] _Ibid._ pp. 40-1.
(iv.) _The Modified Workhouse Test Order_
In one union there was an attempt, to which the Central Authority in
1887 gave its approval by Special Order, to substitute for the labour
test provisions of the Out-relief Regulation Order, a special
application of the "Workhouse Test."[511] This Order, limited in
duration to twelve months, permitted outdoor relief to be given to the
wife and family of an able-bodied man, without a labour test, on
condition that the man himself entered the workhouse. This device was
intended to get over the three principal obstacles to the universal
adoption of the "Workhouse Test" for the able-bodied, viz. the lack of
sufficient accommodation in workhouses; the objection to "breaking up
the home"; and the undesirability of bringing the wives, and especially
the children, under workhouse influences. This Order, which was not
renewed on its expiry, and not issued to any other union for nearly
twenty years, was, as we have said, asked for as a means of making the
administration of relief more stringent than it was under the Out-relief
Regulation Order. Combined with the establishment of a special "Test
Workhouse," which we shall presently describe, it might come near to
being a penal alternative. But it is, as we shall see afterwards,
important rather as a precedent capable also of application in an
entirely humanitarian way.
[511] Special Order to Whitechapel Union, 18th April 1887. This
new departure was not mentioned in the Annual Report, and the
Order has not, as far as we know, been generally published.
(v.) _The Test Workhouse_
It must be noted that, whilst the inspectorate was in these years doing
its utmost to insist on "the offer of the house" to all able-bodied
persons, it was also encouraging boards of guardians to make the
workhouse for such persons an exclusively disciplinary institution. This
had, as we have mentioned, been suggested by Mr. Corbett in 1868. The
pressure on the accommodation of the Metropolitan workhouses, and the
mixing together of so many different classes of inmates, made it
impossible, Mr. Corbett had pointed out, "to apply the workhouse as a
test of destitution to single able-bodied men."[512] "In urging upon
boards of guardians in the Metropolis," repeated his successor, Mr.
Longley, "as I have lately had occasion to do almost daily, the
application of the workhouse test, I have not infrequently been met by
the startling admission that the workhouse is attractive to paupers;
that there are many persons in the workhouse who could maintain
themselves out of doors; and, in short, that the workhouse furnishes no
test of destitution. All arguments in support of the workhouse test
which assume the existence of a 'well-regulated workhouse' (to use the
language of the Poor Law Commissioners of Inquiry, 1833) must fail at
once when addressed to guardians whose workhouse offers attractions to
the indolent. And I have reason to think that the aversion to the proper
and free use of the workhouse which distinguishes many Metropolitan
boards of guardians, is in some measure due to the failure of the
workhouses, as at present administered, to satisfy the essential
conditions of their establishment."[513]
[512] Mr. Corbett's Report of 14th January 1868, in Twentieth
Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1867-8, p. 126; repeated in
his Report of 10th August 1871.
[513] Office Minute by Mr. Longley, 1873. Much the same words
occur in his Annual Report. The "lax discipline of the workhouse"
in London is described as tending "to deprive it of its function
as a test" (Mr. Longley's Report in Third Annual Report of the
Local Government Board, 1873-4, p. 166).
Mr. Longley was told to prepare an elaborate report on indoor relief in
the Metropolis, and in this he expressed his emphatic opinion that "the
deterrent discipline ... fails at present to be duly enforced in London
workhouses almost without exception.... The general tone of their
administration is that of the _almshouse_ rather than of the _workhouse_
system."[514] He traced this inconvenient laxity to the very nature of
the general workhouse for all classes, which the Central Authority had
substituted for the series of specialised institutions recommended in
the Report of 1834. "The presence in a workhouse," he said, "of the
sick, or of any class in whose favour the ordinary discipline must be
relaxed, and who receive special indulgences, has an almost inevitable
tendency to impair the general discipline of the establishment."[515]
The very improvement in the workhouses, which, under the Central
Authority's own pressure, was taking place in these years, had, in fact,
brought to light the inherent drawback of the general workhouse. Hence
the able-bodied, like the children and the sick, were now to be
accommodated by themselves. Thus we find, from 1871 onwards, the idea of
the "Test Workhouse," an institution set apart exclusively for the
able-bodied, where they could be subjected (to use Mr. Longley's words)
to "such a system of labour, discipline, a nd restraint as shall be
sufficient to outweigh," in the estimation of the inmates, "the
advantages" which they enjoy. Mr. Longley declared that the main object
of the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 had been, not exclusively, or even
principally, the better accommodation of the sick, but the introduction
of classification by institutions, with the double object of, on the one
hand, an improved treatment of the sick, and, on the other, "the
establishment of a stricter and more deterrent discipline in
workhouses."[516] Circumstances, he said, had delayed the accomplishment
of the latter purpose, but it was now time for the Central Authority to
"urge upon guardians the establishment in workhouses of a more
distinctly deterrent system of discipline and diet than has hitherto
been secured," involving "a reconsideration of the conditions of pauper
labour and service in workhouses."[517]
[514] Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis; in
Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. 49.
[515] _Ibid._ p. 42.
[516] Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis, in
Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. 43.
[517] _Ibid._ p. 47. We have not verified the statement that the
intention of the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 included the
allocation of separate workhouses exclusively for the able-bodied.
We see that in January 1868 Mr. Corbett was suggesting it as if it
were an idea of his own. "I am more than ever convinced," he says,
"that one of the great wants of the Metropolis is the
establishment of new, or the appropriation of existing workhouses
for the able-bodied classes of _groups_ of unions, in each of
which one sex only should be received; a far more complete system
of classification maintained than has hitherto been attempted, at
least in Metropolitan workhouses; and strict discipline enforced
under proper regulations and superintendence" (Mr. Corbett's
Report of 4th January 1868, in Twentieth Annual Report of the Poor
Law Board, 1867-8, p. 126). Whether or not this was exactly in the
mind of the legislature or of the Central Authority in 1867, it
seems true, as Mr. Longley pointed out, that the provisions of the
Metropolitan Poor Act were extensive enough to cover, "whether
directly or indirectly," not merely an improvement in workhouse
sick wards, but "the reception in distinct buildings of separate
classes of paupers or ... classification, not in a workhouse, but
by workhouses" (Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the
Metropolis, in Fourth Annual Report of the Local Government Board,
1874-5, p. 42).
Under the influence of the inspectorate, we see half the unions in
London gradually agreeing to take advantage of the powers given by the
Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867, and to make use, for their able-bodied
paupers, of the workhouse of the Poplar Union, which now sent its sick
to the new "sick asylum," its children to the district school, and its
aged and infirm to the workhouse of another union.[518] This
establishment of a test workhouse for the able-bodied received at first
the warm commendation of the Central Authority.[519] The Poplar
workhouse, with its rigid discipline, its absolutely limited diet and
its severe task of monotonous toil (oakum-picking and stone-pounding),
measured not by time but by a prescribed quantity, became a terror. For
the next seven years, we see the guardians offering, sometimes to
"troublesome" paupers, sometimes to all able-bodied applicants, male
or female--not outdoor relief upon a labour test--but "an order for
Poplar." "Notwithstanding the considerable number of unions which have
availed themselves of this privilege, the number ... who have accepted
the relief, or having accepted it, have remained in the workhouse, has
been so small that, although the workhouse will contain 768 persons,
there were in it at the close of last year only 166 inmates."[520] In
1878, however, the Metropolitan police magistrates seem to have
expressed disapproval of the penal character which the institution had
assumed. A woman brought up for refusing to do her task of oakum-picking
at Poplar was discharged, with the observation that such work was not a
fit task to set to women in receipt of Poor Law relief. On these
sentiments becoming known, as the Poplar Guardians informed the Central
Authority, "the master of the workhouse has a very considerable amount
of trouble in getting any work done now by the inmates." The Central
Authority, in reply, sympathised with the difficulty, but could, after
six weeks' deliberation, do nothing but express the hope that the Poplar
Guardians would be able to convert the magistrates to their views.[521]
[518] Special Order to Poplar and Stepney, 19th October 1871;
Special Order to Poplar, 6th March 1872 (extending the use of the
Poplar Workhouse to the able-bodied of any Metropolitan union);
Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.
[519] First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. xxiv; Second Annual Report,
1872-3, pp. xxvi-xxvii.
[520] Second Annual Report, 1872-3, p. xxvii.
[521] Letters, Poplar Guardians to Local Government Board, 4th
November 1878; Local Government Board to Poplar Guardians, 19th
December 1887. Even this very strict Board of Guardians had, in
1871, used, as a labour test for women, "a task of work in a
_needle-room_ ... provided by the guardians," and this had been
recommended even by Mr. Corbett (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th
August 1871). But oakum-picking had apparently been substituted
for needlework, and the Central Authority, in 1878, did not see
its way to any alternative. "With regard to the objection ... to
oakum-picking as an employment for women ... very great difficulty
was experienced in finding labour which shall not interfere with
the market for the work of the independent poor, and ... even
oakum-picking is not altogether free from this objection.... Work
of this description is in use in workhouses in various parts of
the country, not as punishment ... but as one of the most
available means of employing the able-bodied indoor paupers....
General experience has shown that it is not physically injurious,
and in this particular workhouse it is found that many of the
female paupers can pick the prescribed quantity with ease.... It
is erroneous to suppose that a particular description of work is
necessarily degrading because it happens to be exacted in gaols,
since there are but few kinds of menial work in all large
institutions to which the same objection may not also be applied;
and it should be added that, unless this kind of employment is
resorted to, it would not be practicable to find sufficient
occupation for the female inmates of the workhouses, and that
enforced idleness is more demoralising than even disagreeable
work" (Local Government Board to Poplar Union, 19th December 1878,
in _Local Government Chronicle_, 4th January 1879, pp. 8-9).
Twenty years later the official view, as we shall see, completely
changed.
The difficulty seems to have continued, for, in 1881, the Central
Authority issued an Order permitting the Poplar Guardians to use their
workhouse for other than the able-bodied, thus bringing the experiment
to an end.[522]
[522] Special Order to Poplar Union, 4th February 1881; Local
Government Board to Poplar Guardians, 9th February 1881; MS.
Minutes, Poplar Guardians, 18th February 1881.
It is to be noted that, in spite of the Poplar experience, the policy of
a special "Test House," devoted exclusively to the able-bodied,
continued to be pressed on guardians by the Inspectorate. The Birmingham
Guardians established such a "test house," in 1880, but it seems to have
been opened to other classes in 1887.[523] In the latter year,
notwithstanding this renewed abandonment, we see Mr. Henley pressing the
same policy on the Manchester Guardians, leading them to visit
Birmingham to inspect the test house there.[524] In the Metropolis, the
inspectorate got the Kensington workhouse made use of in 1882, in
substitution for that of Poplar, though only for males; and able-bodied
applicants were, for thirteen years, referred thither. This arrangement
came to an end in 1905, greatly to the regret of the inspectorate. This
Kensington test house, it was said, "for many years did useful work as a
place where really able-bodied men were received from all parts of
London, and kept hard at work under strict surveillance. As the
Kensington Guardians now need the workhouse for their own purposes this
arrangement has of necessity ceased.... The number of really able-bodied
men in the London workhouses at one time is never very large, but it is
large enough to make it extremely desirable that there should be at
least one workhouse exclusively for such a class, to which, and to which
only, they might be admitted."[525]
[523] Special Orders of 13th October 1880, 24th August 1881, and
11th February 1887.
[524] MS. Minutes, Manchester Guardians, July and August 1887. The
Manchester Guardians did not act on this, but ten years later
united with the Chorlton Guardians in setting aside (under the
Poor Law Act 1879) one workhouse for the double purpose of a
casual ward and "a test house for able-bodied paupers" (See
Special Orders to Manchester and Chorlton, dated 20th March 1897,
and 9th April 1898; Twenty-Seventh Annual Report, 1897-8, pp.
127-8). This still continues. The whole experience of these
Able-bodied Test Workhouses is reviewed in the Minority Report,
1909.
[525] Mr. Lockwood's Report, in Thirty-fifth Annual Report,
1905-6, p. 446. Already in 1898, however, the Central Authority
had told its inspectors to urge that oakum-picking, which had been
the staple of the test workhouse, should be given up, as an
occupation for workhouse inmates, especially for women; and did
not suggest any possible alternative (Twenty-eighth Annual Report,
1898-9, p. lxxxiv). "Oakum-picking by the inmates of the
workhouses should be discontinued," said Mr. Chaplin (_Hansard_,
23rd May 1898, vol. 58, p. 326). This was a complete reversal of
policy. As recently as 1890 the Central Authority had actually
invited the Poplar Board of Guardians to undertake some
oakum-picking for the Government, and the board had undertaken to
pick 30 tons at £3 per ton (Local Government Board to Poplar Board
of Guardians, 9th July 1890). By 1904, not only oakum-picking, but
also corn-grinding with a piecework task, was given up. "As
regards the proposed task of corn-grinding, the board states that
in cases where their consent is necessary they do not sanction a
task of corn-grinding by quantity, and they consider that a time
limit should be fixed for such work. As to oakum-picking, they are
of opinion that, on account of its associations, it is open to
objection as a task for workhouse inmates, and as far as
practicable, it should be discontinued for all inmates of
workhouses" (Local Government Board to Islington Union, September
1904; _Local Government Chronicle_, 8th October 1904, p. 1049).
As an adjunct of the policy of the deterrent workhouse for the
able-bodied, we have to note the coming-in of compulsory detection.
This, of course, had been entirely absent from "the principles of 1834,"
according to which every inmate of the workhouse was to be free to quit
it, with no more notice than was required for the convenience of the
establishment. "Much evil," said a Circular of 1871, "has arisen, and
... the discipline of the workhouse has been seriously impaired by the
frequent exercise of the power which the inmates have hitherto possessed
of discharging themselves from the workhouse at short and uncertain
notice, claiming re-admission as might best suit their inclination and
convenience." This was remedied by a statute in 1871 which gave the
guardians a power to detain, with which we shall deal in our section on
the workhouse.[526]
[526] 34 & 35 Vic. c. 108, sec. 4; Circular of 18th November 1871,
in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 54.
(vi.) _The Provision of Employment_
In the midst of all the efforts of the inspectorate to secure stricter
administration, made apparently with the ungrudging support of the
Central Authority, there came, in February 1886, an altogether
incongruous intervention by the new President (Mr. Chamberlain), who had
then been only a few weeks in office. On 19th February 1886, he
addressed a public letter to the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of
Works, saying that "there is considerable distress amongst workpeople of
a class above that of the persons who usually apply for poor law
relief"; and urging the Board "to expedite as far as practicable the
commencement of any public works which they may be contemplating, so
that additional employment may be afforded."[527] Four weeks later this
policy was embodied in a circular to all boards of guardians, which may
be said to have begun, for good or for evil, a new era as regards the
treatment of such of the able-bodied as were classed as "the
unemployed." Whilst nominally upholding the workhouse test and, when
that is impossible, the labour test,[528] for the relief of the
able-bodied pauper, the circular lays it down emphatically that an
altogether different provision must be made for the unemployed
wage-earner. The President was "convinced that in the ranks of those who
do not ordinarily seek poor law relief there is evidence of much and
increasing privation," among persons "usually in regular employment." It
was, in his view, "not desirable that the working classes should be
familiarised with Poor Law Relief;" and the guardians were recommended
"to endeavour to arrange" with the local municipal authorities for the
execution of such public works as the laying out, paving and cleansing
of streets, sewerage and water works, the laying-out of recreation
grounds and new cemeteries, and "spade husbandry on sewage farms." The
men to be selected from among the special class referred to were to be
engaged by the municipal authorities upon the recommendation of the
guardians. They were to be paid wages, though at somewhat below the
ordinary rates; every encouragement being given to the municipal
authorities to raise loans for the purpose. The men would thus not be
paupers, nor in receipt of anything from the Poor Rate, the intervention
of the guardians being confined to inciting the local municipal
authorities to undertake the work, and to recommending the candidates
for employment.[529]
[527] Mr. Chamberlain to Metropolitan Board of Works, 19th
February 1886, in House of Commons, No. 69 of 1886, p. 44.
[528] The Circular incidentally criticised the character of the
labour test usually imposed on the able-bodied applicant for poor
relief, as being unfit for skilled artisans. Spade labour was
suggested as "less objectionable"; and "the board will be glad to
assist the guardians by authorising the hiring of land for the
purpose" of setting a task of work to able-bodied paupers on
outdoor relief (Circular of 15th March 1886, in Sixteenth Annual
Report, 1886-7, p. 6). This has now been done at Leicester, where
the board of guardians hires land on which to set the able-bodied
to dig (Thirty-third Annual Report, 1903-4, p. 205).
[529] Circular of 15th March 1886, in Sixteenth Annual Report,
1886-7, pp. 5-7.
The policy thus laid down by Mr. Chamberlain, of finding municipal work
for the unemployed, was, it will be seen, a revival of the expedient
adopted in the Lancashire Cotton Famine. But Mr. Chamberlain omitted to
safeguard his proposal in the way in which the works started out of the
Government loans to the Lancashire municipal authorities in 1863-6 had
been (in practice, though not explicitly in terms) safeguarded. It was
not explained--perhaps it was not realised--that the conditions of
success in the Lancashire experiment had been: (i.) that no pretence
should be made of taking on the unemployed as such, and, in particular,
that the casual labourer class, whether temporarily unemployed or not,
should be definitely excluded; and (ii.) that the direct advantage to
unemployed workmen should be limited to the taking on, to do the
unskilled labourer's work, of a restricted proportion of selected
applicants, not of the labouring but of the skilled artisan class. These
necessary conditions were not expounded by the Central Authority either
in 1886 or in subsequent years. Successive presidents repeated Mr.
Chamberlain's suggestions, with no more limitations than he had laid
down. Mr. Ritchie, for instance, in the following year, told a
deputation of Boards of Guardians that, although they could not legally
give employment, as distinguished from poor relief, they "might assist
the local authorities, if the latter undertook public works, by sending
to them persons applying for relief, who would no doubt prefer to be
relieved by temporary employment rather than by becoming a burden on the
rates."[530] In 1891 (a year of "good trade," by the way) Mr. Ritchie
sent a circular to the Metropolitan vestries and district boards, urging
them to provide employment by street cleaning, etc., "in concert with
the Boards of Guardians," who were to be "afforded the opportunity of
recommending for employment persons who from their previous
circumstances and condition it is most desirable should not be placed
under the necessity of receiving relief at the cost of the rates."[531]
[530] Mr. Ritchie to deputation as to children in workhouses,
_see_ _Local Government Chronicle_, 17th December 1887, p. 1058.
[531] Circular of 16th January 1891, in Twentieth Annual Report,
1890-91, p. 206; Local Government Board to Poplar Board of
Guardians, 21st January 1891 (_see_ for the action thereon of
Boards of Guardians, MS. archives, Poplar Board of Guardians,
January 1891).
Similar letters were sent to the Boards of Guardians. In November 1892,
Mr. Fowler, afterwards Lord Wolverhampton, reproduced Mr. Chamberlain's
Circular of 1886, and recommended municipal works, "in order that
the pauperisation of those persons whose difficulties are occasioned
only by exceptional circumstances arising from temporary scarcity of
employment ... may as far as practicable be avoided."[532] In 1893
again, under Mr. Shaw Lefevre's presidency, similar circulars were
sent out.[533] In 1895, Mr. Shaw Lefevre, afterwards Lord Eversley,
again issued circulars using the very phrases of that of 1886, which
were addressed, first to all the boards of guardians, and then to all
the rural and urban district councils, asking the former about the
distress, and urging the latter to undertake works, in conference with
the boards of guardians, in order to afford employment to artisans
and others, reduced to want through the prolonged frost.[534] The
House of Commons, two days later, appointed a Committee to consider
what could be done, at the request of which circulars were sent
to all municipalities and district councils asking what had been
done.[535] Called upon to justify itself by the Committee presided
over by Mr., afterwards Sir Henry, Campbell-Bannerman, the Central
Authority explained what had been done, both in the way of Presidential
Circulars about unemployment, and in the way of Poor Law relief to
the able-bodied. It did not in this emergency suggest or issue any
new General Orders, but it sanctioned "departures from the rules
as regards outdoor relief in particular cases."[536] Moreover,
there was, as Sir Hugh Owen explained, "no indisposition on the
part of the Local Government Board to comply with an application
from a board of guardians for the issue of the Outdoor Labour Test
Order when the circumstances have appeared to be such as to require
it."[537] Meanwhile the public controversy that was taking place,
the reports of the proceedings of the Committee, and above all the
circulars demanding information from all the local authorities in the
Kingdom, enormously stimulated the idea that the unemployed had got
to be specially dealt with in such a way as to "prevent the stigma
of pauperism, and the consequent loss of citizenship."[538] The
Committee, after making elaborate inquiries, practically endorsed the
policy of Mr. Chamberlain's Circular of 1886, of bringing municipal
work to the aid of the unemployed, and carried it even further.
They definitely recommended the adoption, as a constant feature of
municipal work, though only in respect of the annually recurring
slackness of employment in the winter months, of the policy of using
the public orders in such a way as to regularise the aggregate volume
of employment. As regards the Metropolis, it was recommended that
individual boards of guardians might contribute, with the sanction of
the Local Government Board, out of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund,
half the cost of the works undertaken by the vestries or district
boards at their instance.[539] Moreover, as it had been discovered that
the Acts of 1819 and 1830 had not been repealed, which authorised the
local Poor Law authorities to purchase or hire not exceeding 50 acres
of land on which to set the poor to work at reasonable wages--statutes
which the Central Authority had persistently ignored as obsolete, and
had refused to make the rules under which alone they could be made
operative--the Committee recommended: "That the Local Government Board
should consider the application of such powers, and make rules for the
use of boards of guardians in relation thereto."[540]
[532] Circular of 14th November 1892, in Twenty-second Annual
Report, 1892-3, p. 38.
[533] Circulars of 27th March and 30th September 1893,
Twenty-third Annual Report, 1893-4, pp. lxiv-lxv; Board of Trade
Report on Agencies and Methods for dealing with the Unemployed,
1893 (C. 7182), pp. 187-206.
[534] Twenty-fourth Annual Report, 1894-5, pp. lxxi-lxxiii. The
local authorities were taking action before the Circular was sent;
_see_, for instance, MS. Minutes, Bradford Board of Guardians, 4th
February 1895, showing that they had decided on a deputation to
the town council on 23rd January; and that the town council, on
25th January, had agreed to find work in clearing away snow.
[535] _Ibid._ p. lxxiii; First, Second, and Third Reports of the
Select Committee on Distress from Want of Employment, 1895.
[536] Twenty-fourth Annual Report, 1894-5, p. lxxiv.
[537] Third Report of Select Committee on Distress from Want of
Employment, 1895, p. 560.
[538] The Lord Mayor of Manchester, in reply to deputation from
the Chorlton Board of Guardians, 1895; _see_ Second Report of
Committee on Distress from Want of Employment, 1895, p. 54.
[539] Third Report of Committee on Distress from Want of
Employment, 1895, p. v. The Committee also recommended the
abolition of the penalty of disfranchisement, on persons in
receipt of poor relief, so far as "the deserving man forced to
become dependent on public aid" was concerned (_Ibid._).
[540] _Ibid._ p. iv. _See_ Mr. Shaw Lefevre's answer in House of
Commons 18th February 1895 (_Hansard_, vol. 30, p. 969). The
Central Authority persisted in its attitude with regard to these
powers, and the rules, without which they cannot be used, have not
in fact been issued; _see_ Mr. Gerald Balfour's answer in House of
Commons, 19th July 1905 (_Hansard_, vol. 149, pp. 1179-80).
Similar powers were, however, granted to distress committees of
local municipal authorities by the Unemployed Workmen Act 1905,
under which the necessary rules have been issued.
Finally we come, with regard to the relief of the section of the
able-bodied who may be deemed to be "the unemployed," to Mr. Long's
scheme, embodied in the Unemployed Workmen Act of 1905, under which
distress committees of the local municipal councils, formed partly of
members nominated by the boards of guardians, are empowered to make
special provision for those of the able-bodied who are "unemployed,"
without their becoming paupers, in the way of: (i.) emigration; (ii.)
internal migration; (iii.) temporary employment; (iv.) farm colonies; or
(v.) labour exchanges; at the expense, so far as emigration, migration,
labour exchanges, and the cost of the whole machinery are concerned, of
the local municipal rates, and, so far as the actual relief or wages is
concerned, of voluntary subscriptions or subventions from the National
Exchequer.[541]
[541] 5 Edw. VII. c. 18 (Unemployed Workmen Act 1905); Local
Government Board to Metropolitan Mayors, 20th October 1904, and
Circulars of 24th and 31st October 1904, 20th September, 10th
October, 8th and 22nd December 1905, 13th January 1906; Orders of
20th September, 10th October, 6th December 1905, 13th January
1906. Thirty-fourth Annual Report, 1904-5, pp. cxxii-iii, 150-6;
Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, pp. clxxx-cxcii, 349-438.
(vii.) _The Farm Colony_
Meanwhile various boards of guardians had obtained the sanction of the
Central Authority for another method of dealing with that section of the
able-bodied who are termed "the unemployed." Upon the pressing and
repeated advice of the Central Authority itself, the Poplar Board (which
did not at first respond to the suggestion[542]) had in later years
cordially co-operated with the local municipal authority in making
employment for the unemployed. The increase in the number of able-bodied
applicants had continued. The workhouse was full, and indeed
overcrowded. In October 1893 Mr. Lansbury had tried in vain to induce
his fellow guardians to apply for the (Whitechapel) Modified Workhouse
Test Order, permitting the admission to the workhouse of the men alone,
whilst the families received outdoor relief. Two months later the
Central Authority was asked to sanction the expenditure of £500
chargeable to the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, to provide work for
able-bodied applicants on three days a week. The Central Authority felt
unable to sanction so vague a proposal, and practically invited a more
definite scheme. Presently the idea of a farm colony, on which to employ
able-bodied men, whilst their families remained on outdoor relief in
London, received the approval of a conference of Metropolitan guardians.
The Central Authority stated that, whilst it could not sanction any
combination of areas with this object, it would consider any proposal by
a board of guardians for the purpose. When, however, the Poplar Board of
Guardians made such a proposal, the Central Authority declined to
contemplate any action under the statutes of 1819 and 1830 already
referred to, and persisted in regarding the proposed farm colony as
merely a branch workhouse, deprecating it on account of the expense and
distance.[543] Finally, by the generosity of Mr. Joseph Fels in placing
land gratuitously at the disposal of the Poplar Board, the project in
1904 got under way, and the Central Authority (after suggesting, as an
alternative, the use of the test workhouse at Kensington, which, as
above mentioned, was on the point of coming to an end) sanctioned the
extensive farm colony at Laindon under the pretence that it was a
temporary workhouse, to which all the regulations of the General
Consolidated Order of 1847, and all the elaborately prescribed dietaries
of the Dietaries and Accounts Order of 1900, were nominally to
apply.[544] At first the view of the Central Authority seems to have
been that the men were not receiving indoor relief, but were, under the
Out-relief Regulation Order of 1852, performing a task of work in a
temporary workhouse, and were thus, we assume, receiving outdoor relief
in respect of their wives and families in return for such a labour test.
[542] In answer to an inquiry in 1887, as to what action had been
taken on the Circular of 1886, the Poplar Board of Guardians
replied that no exceptional measures had been taken, and that they
had found it unnecessary even to open a labour yard (Local
Government Board to Poplar, 11th January 1887; Poplar to Local
Government Board, 12th January 1887).
[543] Local Government Board to Poplar Board of Guardians, 15th
January, 6th June, 17th August, and 4th October 1895; MS. Minutes,
Poplar Board of Guardians, 1895-1900.
[544] No Order appears to have been issued, sanctioning or
regulating this new experiment, the Local Government Board's
approval being apparently conveyed, partly by a brief letter,
partly by verbal communications through the inspector MS.
archives, Poplar Board of Guardians, 8th and 22nd July, 16th and
30th September, 21st October, 25th November 1903; 13th April 1904;
Local Government Board to Poplar Union, 16th and 28th July 1903,
and 11th April 1904. The Central Authority refused to modify the
General Dietaries and Accounts Order 1900, which had prescribed
model dietaries for inmates of workhouses, but had not included
any for men engaged all day out-of-doors at agricultural labour,
but it sanctioned the extra expenditure illegally incurred for a
more appropriate dietary (Local Government Board to Poplar, 10th
January 1905; MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 11th January
1905).
In February 1905, however, the so-called (Whitechapel) Modified
Workhouse Test Order was issued to Poplar, under which the men alone
could be admitted to the workhouse, and become indoor paupers, their
wives and families receiving outdoor relief.[545]
[545] Special Order to Poplar of 4th February 1905 (modified
workhouse test). It is not clear whether: (i.) the men at the farm
colony; or (ii.) their families, were in 1904 included in the
statistics of indoor, or in those of outdoor, pauperism; nor
whether any change in the actual statistical classification was
made on receipt of the Order of February 1905.
Meanwhile the farm colony experiment was being tried in another form.
The Central Authority gave its sanction, in March 1904, to the Poplar
Board of Guardians sending some of their able-bodied male paupers to the
Hadleigh farm colony of the Salvation Army, at a payment at the rate of
£28:12s. per annum for each man, in addition to the outdoor relief
granted to his wife and family.[546] In the following year it gave its
sanction to a similar proposal by the Bradford Board of Guardians.[547]
We do not know in what other instances the Central Authority tried this
particular form of the farm colony experiment. The Lingfield farm colony
of the Church Army was also being made use of by some boards of
guardians, presumably with the sanction of the Central Authority.[548]
We do not understand why these interesting farm colony experiments
undertaken by Poplar, Bradford, and other boards of guardians, with the
special sanction of the Central Authority, find no mention, either in
its annual reports for 1904-5 or 1905-6, or in the reports for those
years of the inspectors for the districts.
[546] MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 30th March, 18th
May, 15th June 1904; Local Government Board to Poplar Board of
Guardians, 25th March and 2nd June 1904.
[547] Local Government Board to Bradford Board of Guardians, 14th
January 1905. The Bradford Board had asked the Central Authority
in vain, two years before, to get powers to enable Boards of
Guardians to combine to form labour colonies of their own,
especially for vagrants (MS. archives, Bradford Board of
Guardians, February 1903).
[548] Local Government Board to Poplar Board of Guardians, 1st
December 1903.
_B._--VAGRANTS
The adoption, between 1886 and 1907, of a policy of discriminating
between some able-bodied applicants and others, according to their
character and circumstances, with a view (whether by Poor Law farm
colony or by the relief works and labour exchanges of the distress
committees) to the rehabilitation of the man really seeking work, makes
all the more remarkable the retention, during the whole period, of a
contrary policy with regard to wayfarers or vagrants. We find the
Central Authority, from 1871 onwards, consistently maintaining for this
class a policy of indiscriminate relief on demand, under deterrent
conditions, distinctly "less eligible" than the poorest accommodation of
the independent labourer, free from any trace of wish for, or attempt
at, reform or cure, and intended to be uniform throughout the kingdom.
There was, for instance, after 1871, no reversion to the policy so
frequently adumbrated between 1847 and 1871, of discriminating between
the professional tramp and the _bona fide_ workman in search of
employment, reserving the deterrent casual ward for the one, and
granting a night's lodging without conditions to the other. On the
contrary, the basis of the new policy of 1871 was the universal
establishment of the deterrent casual ward for all wayfarers, and the
exclusion from the workhouse of even the worthiest among them. This
uniformity was to be secured by the Pauper Inmates Discharge and
Regulation Act, 1871,[549] which provided that a casual pauper should
not be entitled to discharge himself before 11 a.m. on the day following
his admission, or, if found a second time in one casual ward within a
month, not till 9 a.m. on the third day, nor in any case until he had
performed a prescribed task. The Act also made for uniformity by
requiring the guardians to provide such casual wards as the Central
Authority thought necessary, and by subjecting the admission, diet, and
task to its Orders. From this time forth, therefore, the Central
Authority assumes complete responsibility for the treatment of vagrants.
Its Circular of 1871 begins by condemning the work of its predecessors.
"The result of the system hitherto adopted in the relief of this class
of paupers cannot be regarded as successful, for while there has been no
uniformity of treatment as to diet and work there has been neglect in
many unions to provide proper and sufficient wards."[550] The Central
Authority enunciated once more the need for national uniformity,
pointing out that stringent regulations in one union caused vagrants to
vary their route and resort to another place, and expressed an intention
of requiring that suitable accommodation should be provided at every
workhouse. But no uniformity was actually prescribed. The examples of
Bath and Corwen unions were quoted for the guidance of others. At Bath
vagrants had to apply for relief at the police station, whence
able-bodied men were sent to the workhouse, where they were relieved,
and required to perform a three hours' task of stone-breaking, while
women, children, and old and infirm men were relieved at a refuge
without any task. The Central Authority mentioned this system with
apparent approval, and remarked that it had diminished the vagrancy of
Bath by over 58 per cent. At Corwen a proposal was approved to place the
vagrant wards in the yard of the police station, and appoint a police
officer as assistant relieving officer.[551] But the stream of vagrants,
after a merely temporary abatement, continued to grow. In 1882 the
Central Authority got another statute, and issued another order,
increasing the period of detention and otherwise making the conditions
more deterrent[552]--still without laying down any policy of
discrimination between wayfarers of one sort and wayfarers of another. A
few more years' experience showed that the detention really operated
against the virtuous wayfarer, who found himself discharged too late to
get the work for which he had tramped. The remedy of the Central
Authority was to issue circulars suggesting that the guardians should
give orders that casual paupers who had done their task on the preceding
day should be allowed to leave early in the morning.[553] Some boards of
guardians acted on this, others did not--thus destroying the national
uniformity at which the Central Authority had aimed. Finally, in 1892,
in tardy response to a recommendation of the House of Lords Committee of
1888, a Circular and an Order were issued, "with the view of
facilitating the search for work by casual paupers who are desirous of
obtaining employment," which gave to every inmate of the casual ward,
who had performed his task to the best of his ability, an absolute right
to claim his discharge at 5.30 A.M. in summer, or 6 A.M. in winter, on
the second day after admission, on his merely representing "that he is
desirous of seeking work."[554] Whether from this or other causes, the
stream of vagrants continued to grow, with the usual fluctuations. In
1904 the numbers passed all previous records, and so unsatisfactory had
proved the policy of 1871-1904 that a Departmental Committee was
appointed to find a new one.[555]
[549] 34 & 35 Vic. c. 108, secs. 5, 6, 9.
[550] Circular Letter on Vagrancy of 18th November 1871, in First
Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 55.
[551] This Circular was issued after the passing of the Pauper
Inmates Discharge and Regulation Act, and a few days before the
General Order, of which the provisions will shortly be described.
In the next year the Board reported a diminution in the number of
vagrants, and allowed some of the less stringent of the
Metropolitan casual wards to be closed, an action which caused
difficulties in later years. In the unions where there were no
casual wards, ordinary vagrants were referred to that of a
neighbouring union, but the workhouse officials were bound to
admit any applicants who, from sickness or other cause, were
unable to proceed farther, and generally any case of urgent
necessity (Second Annual Report, 1872-3, pp. xxii-xxiii). In 1872
also the Board advised guardians to dispense with the services of
police constables as assistant relieving officers, and appoint the
superintendents of the casual wards instead (Circular on Vagrancy
in the Metropolis, of 30th May 1872; in _ibid._ p. 17). No reason
is given for this change, and thirty years later the co-operation
of the police in this manner is still assumed, for the board
sanction a subscription by the guardians towards the cost of
providing a mid-day meal for vagrants when proceeding from one
workhouse to another, "where the superintendent of police is
appointed assistant relieving officer for vagrants" (_Local
Government Chronicle_, 29th November 1902, p. 1203).
[552] 45 and 46 Vic. c. 36 (Casual Poor Act 1882); General Order
of 18th December 1882, in Twelfth Annual Report, 1882-3, pp.
64-71. The Metropolis was now deemed to be one town for the
purpose of punishing resort to the casual ward more than once in a
month.
[553] Circulars of 16th April 1885, 7th November 1887, and 18th
January 1888; _see_ Fifteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Annual
Reports.
[554] Circular of 13th June 1892; Order of 11th June 1892;
Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1892-3, pp. 14-15.
[555] _See_ its Report, Cd. 2852 of 1906.
_C._--WOMEN
It was in this period of 1871-1907 that the Central Authority began to
lay down a policy with regard to women as women; significantly enough,
as part of the restrictive policy brought in by the inspectorate. Women
continued to be practically ignored in the statutes and orders, so that
their legal position remained virtually unchanged.[556] But without any
change in the orders, or in the division of the whole country into
geographical regions under which, as we have shown, women had different
claims to relief, the Central Authority sought by circulars, minutes,
decisions, and the persistent pressure of the inspectorate, to
discourage the grant of outdoor relief to particular classes of women.
Thus outdoor relief to able-bodied single women without illegitimate
children continued to be permissible, without any labour test or other
conditions, in all the unions under the Out-relief Regulation Order; and
the area under this Order continued to grow in population, until it
amounted, by 1907, to three-fourths of the whole. But by Circular of 2nd
December 1871, the Central Authority advised that outdoor relief should
not be given in any case whatsoever of this class.[557] Such outdoor
relief was specifically prohibited in the rules adopted by the
Manchester Board of Guardians in 1875, which were frequently commended
to the notice of other Boards of Guardians, who, under inspectorial
pressure, voluntarily put themselves under similar rules.[558] In the
same way, without alteration of the Orders, it was urged that deserted
wives should not be given outdoor relief, at any rate during the first
twelve months after the desertion.[559] It was officially
declared to be "inexpedient to allow outdoor relief to the wives and
children of persons who are in gaol"--not merely of convicted prisoners
under sentence, but also of those not under sentence, nearly all of whom
are still unconvicted, and, therefore, legally presumed to be
innocent--and this in spite of the admitted fact that "the law has
provided that regulations prescribed with regard to widows shall apply
to the wives in these cases," so that the Central Authority had no power
to make a prohibitory order.[560] So, too, the "wives of men in the first
class Army Reserve," to whom relief could not be actually prohibited
without trouble with the War Office, were declared not to need constant
relief, as "an able-bodied woman with the Government allowance and such
assistance as her husband ought to provide from his pay and allowances
should have no difficulty in finding, if not immediately, at least
within a reasonable period after her husband's departure, sufficient
employment to enable her to maintain adequately herself and her
children." But outdoor relief might be given for a short period, and, it
was suggested, on loan.[561] Even to widows, who, it was now recognised,
accounted for a third of the whole pauper population,[562] outdoor
relief was--apparently for the first time in the whole history of the
Central Authority from 1834, so far as we can find--now officially
discouraged. It was strongly recommended that it should not be given at
all to "any able-bodied widow with one child only." Even where there
were "more than one child, it may be desirable to take one or more of
the children into the workhouse in preference to giving outdoor
relief."[563] It is characteristic that this policy was not based on any
consideration of what was the appropriate treatment for the child, but
was regarded only as a "test," by which it was intended to exclude every
widow who could _possibly_ maintain herself and family without poor
relief. Six years later we have it observed, as a capital drawback to
this policy, not that the children might suffer by being taken into the
workhouse, but that "since the passing of the Elementary Education Acts
this offer as a test of destitution has not the same effect as
previously, inasmuch as the children being required to attend school,
the mothers cannot have the benefit of any earnings which otherwise the
children might obtain."[564] And though the Central Authority refused,
in 1877, to make illegal the grant of outdoor relief to "widows within
six months of their widowhood"--declaring, indeed, that "a widow, with
or without children, could not, on the death of her husband, in all
cases be required to go into the workhouse"--it was not obscurely hinted
that "it may be that the period of six months now allowed is too long,"
and that "the guardians should exercise their discretion in dealing with
each case according to its merits."[565] The example of the Bradfield
Union, where "the widow's month" had, since about 1873, been substituted
for "the widow's six months," was always being commended to boards of
guardians by the inspectorate. Moreover, in the Metropolis, at
Manchester, at Birmingham, and various other places, it was strongly
recommended in these years that outdoor relief to able-bodied
independent women should be given only with a labour test; which might
be (as at Manchester) "the enforced silence and order of the
needle-room," where the women, at any rate, learnt to knit, and sew, and
darn a stocking, or, as at Birmingham and Poplar, what Mr. Corbett
called "the comparative licence and desultory work of the ordinary oakum
room."[566] The task of oakum picking was eventually preferred by the
Central Authority, and, down to the last decade of the century, it was
this that was recommended to boards of guardians. The effect of this
long-continued and persistent pressure for the first twenty years of the
Local Government Board, without any alteration in the legal status of
women by order or statute, is seen in the statistics of outdoor relief.
The able-bodied women getting outdoor relief on 1st January 1871,
numbered 116,407.[567] On 1st January 1892, they had been brought down
to 53,571, the reduction having been principally in: (_a_) wives of
able-bodied men; (_b_) single women without children; and (_c_) wives of
men in gaol, in the Army, Navy, etc., or otherwise absent. But the
number of widows on outdoor relief had also been reduced from 53,502 in
1873 to 36,627 on 1st January 1892.[568]
[556] By the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act 1876, the
law which had for poor relief purposes put a woman whose husband
was beyond seas in the same position as a widow was extended to a
married woman living separate from her husband (39 & 40 Vic. c. 61
sec. 18; _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local
Government Board_, vol. iii. 1888, p. 186). It is also to be noted
that under the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, a married woman
having separate property was made liable to maintain her husband,
and, concurrently with her husband, also her children and
grandchildren if they became chargeable to the poor rate (45 & 46
Vic. c. 75, secs. 20, 21).
[557] Circular, 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2,
p. 67.
[558] For the "Manchester Rules" _see_ Fifth Annual Report,
1875-6, pp. xvii-xix, 130-133. Somewhat similar rules were at the
instance of the inspectorate adopted by the Cheshire Unions as
late as 1891 (Twenty-first Annual Report, 1891-2, pp. 164-5).
[559] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, p. 67. This suggestion we trace to Mr. Corbett, in 1869,
though in the milder form of limiting the grant of outdoor relief
to recently deserted wives, to two or three weeks only (Mr.
Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871, as reprinted by the Central
Authority for official circulation, February 1873). Ten years
later the Central Authority found that this policy was not
justified by the law, so far as regards deserted wives having
children under seven (as is the case with most of them). In such
cases it was found necessary in 1880 to advise that outdoor relief
could, in case of destitution, not be refused, even if the woman
was able-bodied, and irrespective of her character, the cause or
duration of the husband's absence, possible collusion with him,
etc. The Central Authority decided that, "assuming that the
applicant in this case is a married woman, whose husband, though
living, is not residing with her, she would not be liable for the
support of the children, who, being within the age of nurture,
cannot lawfully be separated from her; and the guardians would not
be justified, under these circumstances, in withholding out-relief
_for the children_" (_Selections from the Correspondence of the
Local Government Board_, vol. ii. 1880, p. 71).
[560] Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law
Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p.
56.
[561] Circular, 30th August 1882, in Twelfth Annual Report,
1882-3, pp. 43-4.
[562] "Widows and their dependent children [on 1st January 1873,
25,740] constitute 33 per cent of the total outdoor pauperism of
London, and 57 per cent of so much of that pauperism as is caused
otherwise than by age and permanent infirmity" (Third Annual
Report, 1873-4, p. 179).
[563] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, p. 67. The injurious results of this policy were reported
by Mr. Culley, _see_ his Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p.
74. On the other hand Mr. Longley preferred the "offer of the
House" to widows, in order to make their deceased husbands
provident. "The condition of a widow with a large family," said
Mr. Longley, "however deplorable it undoubtedly is, is one of the
ordinary contingencies of human circumstances, which may, in some
degree or other, be provided against equally with sickness, or
accident, or other bereavement.... A man in receipt of regular
weekly wages may be fairly called upon to secure his widow if
[un]able to work for her living, against dependence upon Poor Law
relief" (Mr. Longley's Report, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp.
183, 185).
[564] Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law
Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p.
56. Some of the inspectors altogether disapproved of the policy of
taking the children into the workhouse (_see_, for instance, Mr.
Culley's Report, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 74). One
inspector, at least, realised the connection of the destitution
due to widowhood with the absence of compensation for accidents
and industrial diseases among workmen. "Male life, at least, is
longer in the rural than in the manufacturing, mining, and seaport
unions. In the latter ... male life is more frequently cut short
by illness or accident arising from the nature of the
employment.... The proportion of children (exclusive of orphans)
to widows ... varies from 0·48 in the purely agricultural union of
Bedale to 2·30 in the manufacturing and shipbuilding district of
Jarrow.... I found ... on examining the returns from the different
relief districts that the highest rate of mortality amongst
husbands prevailed in the inland portion of the union, a state of
things which the relieving officers attributed to accidents in
shipbuilding yards and the unwholesome nature of the employment in
chemical works. In the same manner, in Tynemouth Union, I found
that the proportion of widows with young families was considerably
higher in the mining district than in the town of North
Shields.... In Teesdale the rate of mortality amongst the
leadminers is very great, owing, I was informed, to the bad
ventilation of the mines" (Mr. Culley's Report, in Third Annual
Report, 1873-4, pp. 72-3). We do not find that the point was
followed up until the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1900.
[565] Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law
Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, pp.
55-6. We find the policy of reducing "the widow's six months"
suggested by Mr. Corbett in 1869. At the Conference of East End
Guardians summoned by him, it was agreed "that the widows without
children should, as a rule, after a period not exceeding three
months from the commencement of their widowhood, be relieved only
in the workhouse" (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871; as
reprinted by the Central Authority for official circulation,
February 1873).
[566] _Ibid._
[567] Twenty-third Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1870-1, p.
374.
[568] Third Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1873-4,
p. 588; Twenty-first Annual Report, 1891-2, p. 365.
After 1885, though some of the inspectors continued to recommend, with
regard to women, the strict policy of 1871,[569] the Local Government
Board itself, so far as we can discover, reverted to silence on the
point, and gave no advice.
[569] It is, however, to be noted that in the model rules which
the most zealous inspectors were pressing on Boards of Guardians
in 1902--herein differing from the much commended Manchester rules
of 1875--the widow with only one child is recognised as a fit case
for outdoor relief (Mr. Preston-Thomas's Report, in Thirty-Second
Annual Report, 1902-3, p. 100).
_D._--CHILDREN
(i.) _On Outdoor Relief_
There seems to have been, so far as regards children, no explicit change
in policy in 1871. To take first the 336,870 children under sixteen who
were on outdoor relief on 1st January 1871[570]--almost exactly
one-third of the aggregate pauperism--we see continued the same ignoring
of their general condition. We do not find that the inspectors ever
investigated what was happening to these children or that the Central
Authority ever made any official inquiry, still less issued any order,
on the subject. The general policy of restricting outdoor relief, which
we have sufficiently described, had incidentally the effect, in the
course of twenty years, of reducing the number of children on outdoor
relief by nearly one-half.[571]
[570] Twenty-third Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1870-71,
p. 378.
[571] On 1st January 1892, the 336,870 children of 1871 had fallen
to 177,245, probably the lowest figure of the whole seventy years
(Twenty-first Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1891-2,
p. 365).
On one point, indeed, that of education, as we have seen, Parliament had
explicitly over-ridden the implied contention that the Poor Law
Authorities had no responsibility for the welfare of the children on
outdoor relief. The policy of Denison's Act of 1855, which had been
comparatively little acted upon, was extended in 1873 so as to make it
compulsory on boards of guardians to see that such children between five
and thirteen were regularly at school.[572] The guardians were even
required to pay the school fees for children--even illegitimate
children--who were not paupers, if they needed this, and the parents did
not thereby become paupers.[573] We see the Central Authority
communicating these decisions of the Legislature without comment, and
the boards of guardians carrying them out as they chose;[574] sometimes
even taking it upon themselves to petition the Education Department to
relax the requirement of schooling after twelve, as being hard on the
parent, useless to the child, and leading to "much necessary work being
left undone," especially "the eradication of pernicious weeds."[575]
[572] 36 & 37 Vic. c. 86, sec. 3 (Elementary Education Act 1873);
39 & 40 Vic. c. 79, sec. 40 (Elementary Education Act 1876); 43 &
44 Vic. c. 23, sec. 5 (Elementary Education Act 1880). It was held
in 1877 that the guardians might, if they chose, pay, besides the
school fee, also for books and stationery (_Selections from the
Correspondence of the Local Government Board_, vol. i. 1880, p.
49).
[573] 39 & 40 Vic. c. 79, sec. 10 (Elementary Education Act 1876).
[574] Circulars of 30th December 1873 and 30th December 1876, in
Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 4-7, and Sixth Annual Report,
1876-7, pp. 23-6; MS. Minutes, Bakewell Board of Guardians, 12th
January and 9th February 1874.
[575] _Ibid._ 30th August 1880.
We may see further imposition of responsibility on the boards of
guardians for the well-being of the children of the poor, in the series
of Acts for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Already in 1868
boards of guardians had been expressly directed by statute to institute
proceedings against parents who neglected their children.[576] In 1888
the Central Authority reminded the guardians of the power they had thus
had for twenty years, without often making use of it.[577] In 1889
Parliament enacted that any person having the custody of a child under
sixteen who "wilfully ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes such
child, or causes or procures such child to be ill-treated, neglected,
abandoned, or exposed, in a manner likely to cause such child
unnecessary suffering or injury to its health, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanour," and that the guardians might, "out of the funds under
their control, pay the reasonable costs and expenses of any proceedings"
which they direct to be taken. They were not definitely required to take
such proceedings, but Parliament laid the duty upon them to do so. The
Act of 1894 made the provisions more explicit, and defined injury to
health so as to include "injury to or loss of sight, or hearing, or
limb, or organ of the body, and any mental derangement."[578]
[576] 31 & 32 Vic. c. 122, sec. 37 (Poor Law Amendment Act 1868).
[577] Circular of 31st December 1888, in Eighteenth Annual Report,
1888-9, p. 105.
[578] 52 & 53 Vic. c. 44, secs. 1, 12 (1889); 57 & 58 Vic. c. 41,
sec. 1 (1894); Circular of 30th September 1889, in Nineteenth
Annual Report, 1889-90, pp. 92-5.
These statutes were applicable, among others, to the 170,000 children on
outdoor relief, many of whom were plainly underfed, housed in insanitary
conditions, half-clothed, and generally treated in a manner "likely to
cause injury" to their health; but we do not find that the boards of
guardians realised the great increase of power and responsibility thus
entrusted to them. The Central Authority, which observed mildly that
Parliament evidently meant the guardians to institute proceedings, did
not point out to them the applicability of the new statutes to the
children on outdoor relief; and the boards of guardians, so far as we
can ascertain, seldom or never acted on them. In 1904, accordingly, the
power to pay the expenses of prosecution was transferred to county and
borough authorities, so that the guardians ceased to be responsible for
taking proceedings; but the workhouse remains a "place of safety" to
which a constable or other person authorised by a Justice may take a
child, the guardians are required to provide for the reception of any
child so brought to the workhouse, and the master is bound to admit such
child if there is sufficient accommodation.[579]
[579] 4 Edw. VII. c. 15, sec. 5.
After 1890 we find the responsibility of the Poor Law authorities for
all the outdoor paupers beginning to be recognised by the inspectorate.
"The absolute responsibility of the guardians for the material
well-being of every one who is in receipt of outdoor relief,"[580] said
Mr. Davy in 1893, had been officially recognised by the District Nurses
Order, to which we shall recur. "If any relief at all is given to an
applicant," Mr. Davy laid it down, "it is the plain duty of the
guardians _to take precautions_ to insure that ... the pauper is
sufficiently fed, clothed, and lodged."[581] This was notoriously not
the case in many unions, the children especially being in an evil
plight. "In many unions," said Mr. Baldwyn Fleming, in 1891, "the
relieving officer and the inspector of nuisances could show guardians
cases ... where large families are living in cottages too small for
them, and the accommodation is in almost every respect unsatisfactory,
where the children have little but rags to cover them by day or night,
where school attendance is avoided to the utmost, where the feeding only
just escapes starvation, where the physical and moral education of the
children are equally impracticable, where infant life is one constant
struggle with misery and privation."[582] The demoralising association
of the outdoor pauper children with the pay-station was specially
denounced by another inspector. "What," he said, "is the sense, I would
ask--I _do_ ask in board rooms--of all this trouble and outlay to put
the children into cottage homes or scattered homes, to keep them, in
fact, altogether away from the workhouse, if while doing all this the
very same authority permit the precisely similar children of the outdoor
poor to haunt the pay-stations, to hang about workhouse gates, or to sit
mixed up in waiting-rooms with adult paupers.... The children, early in
life, often at times when they ought to be at school, have their eyes
opened to the facility with which by exaggerating your impecunious
condition, 2s. 6d. or 3s. a week can be got without the labour of
earning it.... The master of one of the board schools had written ... to
complain that three children systematically were kept from school on a
particular day of the week for the purpose of drawing relief due to
their parents."[583]
[580] Mr. Davy's Report, in Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1892-3,
p. 72.
[581] _Ibid._
[582] Mr. Baldwyn Fleming's Report, in Twentieth Annual Report,
1890-1, p. 222.
[583] Mr. Kennedy's Report, in Twenty-eighth Annual Report,
1898-9, pp. 168-9.
We cannot find, however, any order, minute, or circular explicitly
taking official cognisance of the condition of these children (except in
respect of the statutory requirement of school attendance); nor do the
boards of guardians seem to have taken any trouble to inquire into their
condition. In 1901 the Central Authority had reported to it, at its
special request (in connection with the adequacy of the amount granted,
especially for the aged), the amounts usually given in outdoor relief.
In the majority of unions it must then have appeared that the amount
allowed for the support of each child on outdoor relief was either the
1s. and one loaf per week, which had had the sanction of Mr. Corbett in
1869,[584] or frequently 1s. 6d. per week. The Bradford Board of
Guardians, however, if no other, reported that it allowed to deserving
widows with dependent children 4s. for the first child, 3s. for the
second, and 2s. for each additional child (besides 5s. for the mother
herself).[585] We do not find that any official view has been expressed
as to this diversity.
[584] Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871, as reprinted by
the Central Authority in 1873 for official circulation.
[585] Bradford Union to Local Government Board, 26th January 1901
(MS. archives, Bradford Board of Guardians).
At the very end of the period we find Parliament suddenly insisting on
the responsibility of the boards of guardians for the condition, not
only of the children on outdoor relief, but of all children in so far as
sufficiency of food is concerned. By the Act of 1906 special provision
is made for children at school who are in need of food. This Act,
embodied in a General Order, was communicated to boards of guardians in
a circular which explains the exact degree of responsibility which, in
the opinion of the Central Authority, Parliament has thereby imposed on
them. A parent is bound to supply his children with necessary food, and
if he is unable to do so should apply to the guardians for help. When a
father, being able to supply food, neglects to do so, or being unable
neglects to apply to the guardians, so that the child is underfed, a
"special application" on behalf of the child may be made to the
guardians or relieving officer "by the managers, or by a teacher duly
empowered by the managers, of a public elementary school, or by an
officer duly empowered by the local education authority." If the food is
urgently needed it is to be supplied at once, as a loan to the father,
and he is to be informed as soon as possible that it has been so given.
When there is no such urgency, the father is to be informed that food
will be supplied before it is given, that he may have the opportunity of
providing it himself; and the guardians are to inquire whether the need
is due to habitual neglect; if it is so, the relief shall (and in any
case it may) be given on loan.
Whenever relief under this order is given on loan, the guardians are
obliged to take proceedings for its recovery, unless the Local
Government Board specially approves of their not doing so, which
approval would only be obtainable in very special circumstances, _e.g._
if it were obviously impossible to recover the amount. It is held to be
particularly important that these proceedings should always be taken, as
they are the only means of safeguarding against abuse, for the rule
that, as a condition of relief, the able-bodied father must enter the
workhouse or be set to work by the guardians is specially abrogated in
cases under this order, as being inapplicable to them. The order does
not apply to any child who is blind or deaf and dumb, nor in the case of
any relative except the father, nor if the child is not resident with
the father. Relief is not to be ordered on a "special application" for a
longer period than one month. "Where a special application is renewed
within a short time, say six months, after the expiration of the period
for which the relief has been given, and further relief has to be
allowed, or where within this period special application is made and
relief is given in respect of some other member of the same family, and
the cause of the application is the habitual neglect of the father to
provide food, the Board think that the guardians should consider whether
the case is one in which proceedings could be taken against the father,
either under the Vagrancy Act 1824, or the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children Act 1904."
Finally, the Board "trust that the boards of guardians, particularly
those of populous unions in which cases of underfed children more
frequently occur, will endeavour to co-operate with the local education
authorities in dealing with really necessitous cases, whilst exercising
due discrimination so as to avoid the pauperisation and consequent
disfranchisement of parents who ought not to be brought under the Poor
Law."[586]
[586] Circular of 27th April 1905, in Thirty-fifth Annual Report,
1905-6, pp. 317-20.
The number of outdoor pauper children is now slightly more than in 1892,
there being on 1st January 1906, 179,870 such, 96,804 being widows'
children, 72,721 children with both parents or with fathers only, and
10,345 having no parents.[587]
[587] Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, p. cxxxi.
Turning now to the much smaller number of children in Poor Law
institutions, of whom there were on January 1st 1871, 55,832[588]
(together with a very small number "boarded out"), we see a similar
continuity of policy in the Central Authority, but in these cases it is
continuity in the policy of a constant enlargement of responsibility,
and of a steady improvement in the provision.[589]
[588] Twenty-third Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1870-71,
p. 374.
[589] There are few statutory provisions of this period which
affect the institutional treatment of children, and these few deal
simply with financial questions. It is worth noting, however, that
they tend to improve accommodation, as they facilitate increased
expenditure, by allowing a larger sum to be raised for building,
fitting up, and furnishing Metropolitan District Schools (Poor Law
Loans Act 1872, 35 Vic. c. 2, sec. 1), and by allowing the
expenses of maintenance in a certified school to be paid up to any
limit to be fixed by the Local Government Board; and provide
against over-crowding by allowing no repayment from the common
poor fund in respect of children in a school in excess of a
maximum number fixed for the school by the board. The special
provisions for the education of defective children will be
considered under the heading "Defectives."
(ii.) _In Poor Law Schools_
The main preoccupation of the Central Authority since 1871, so far as
children are concerned, has been the increase, progressive improvement,
and novel development of the Poor Law school entirely removed from the
workhouse.[590] The recommendations and incitements to boards of
guardians to remove from the workhouse the healthy children of school
age are incessant down to 1900.[591] Such children are ordinarily
accommodated in Poor Law schools, either district schools, where these
exist, or much more frequently "separated" or "workhouse schools," which
may be of the old aggregated type, or "cottage homes" or "scattered
homes." The dramatic change from the views of 1850 is the abandonment of
the "district school." The aggregated type, held in such esteem
previously to 1871, fell gradually into disfavour, and is now known as
the "barrack school." Already in 1871 Mr. Corbett was criticising these
schools as being far too large (as well as too indiscriminate in the
kind of children admitted) to be really successful.[592] After repeated
outbreaks of malignant ophthalmia, and continued experience of the
mental drawbacks, especially of the large girls' schools, the Central
Authority abandoned its policy, and presently came to decline to
sanction proposals which would have the effect of "extending the large
schools in the Metropolis and ... most readily [to] entertain any
proposals for applying to other purposes any of these large buildings,
subject to other provision of a suitable character being made for the
children."[593] The barrack school system grew up out of the five
Metropolitan school districts; these also therefore shared in the
condemnation, and in 1899 two had been dissolved.[594]
[590] In his Report for 1898, the inspector of Poor Law schools
for the six northern counties describes the changes of the
preceding thirty-seven years. In 1871-5 there were seventy-four
unions, having considerable numbers of children, which educated
them all in schools within the workhouse walls. Four had distinct
schools, but on the workhouse premises; and four only had entirely
separate schools. In 1898, only one union had workhouse schools
for girls and two for boys; three had distinct schools, but on the
workhouse premises; with half-a-dozen others with similar
arrangements for part of the children, or for the children
awaiting transfer only. Elsewhere the children were in entirely
separate schools or cottage homes, or removed to certified
schools; or in scattered homes or boarded out (Mr. Mozley's
Report, in Twenty-eighth Annual Report, 1898-9, p. 183).
[591] The last in the published documents seems to be the
incidental reference in the Circular of 4th August 1900 as to the
aged and deserving poor (Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1, p. 18).
[592] Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.
[593] _Hansard_, 1st February 1897, vol. 45, p. 904.
[594] _Ibid._ 2nd June 1899, vol. 72, p. 258. The process of
discovery of the evils of these large schools may be interestingly
traced in the annual reports of the L.G.B. Inspectors of Poor Law
Schools from 1871 to 1895; the _Report on the Health of
Metropolitan Pauper Schools_, by J. H. Bridges, 1890; and Report
of the Committee on Poor Law Schools, 1896.
A "separate school" belonging to a single union or separate parish would
naturally be much smaller than a district school, but nothing is said as
to the merits or demerits of an aggregated school of moderate size. The
method which seems to have won the approval of the Central Authority is
that of "cottage homes," or the "block system," under which children are
grouped in bodies of not more than twenty-five or thirty in separate
houses on a common ground of considerable acreage, and with suitable
common buildings, such as baths, chapels, etc., under the supervision,
not only of "house-mothers," but also of a superintendent of the whole.
Since 1894 the Board have constantly approved the erection of schools on
this plan; they always require that the cottage homes should be entirely
separated from the workhouse. The outstanding feature of this system is
the great expense.[595]
[595] The "cottage homes" required special orders widely differing
from those for the "barrack schools"; _see_, for instance, that
for the Marston Green Cottage Homes of the Birmingham Union of 8th
November 1879.
An alternative plan is that of "scattered homes," _i.e._ cottages taken
here and there throughout the union, not adjacent to each other,
wherein the children live under the care of matrons or foster parents,
and whence they attend the public elementary schools. In some cases the
results of this system have been good, but the Central Authority
received reports of certain cases of bad management, which made it
cautious in regard to other proposals in that direction. The adoption of
the system in Camberwell was sanctioned on the conditions that the
guardians could satisfy the Central Authority that they could get proper
houses for the scattered homes, and also that they could be quite sure
of having an adequate system of inspection.[596]
[596] Local Government Board to Camberwell Union. The Sheffield
"Scattered Homes" were described in Mr. Kennedy's Report, in the
Twenty-third Annual Report, 1893-4, p. 138. They were (as
"isolated homes") regulated by Special Orders of 4th November
1896, 23rd February 1898, and 7th February 1906.
Notwithstanding the great expense of these highly elaborated
boarding-schools for the indoor pauper boys and girls--an expense
reaching between £100 and £200 capital, and between £30 and £50 annual
maintenance, for each child--we see the Central Authority constantly
pressing for their multiplication. The very idea of "less eligibility"
has been forgotten by the inspectors. To quote one of them in 1902: "The
number and nature of obstacles (to the removal of children from the
workhouse) conjured up in the minds of many of the country guardians
is," he says, "quite surprising. One idea, which proves a great
stumbling-block, is that the children will be put in a position above
their deserts, and above that of the children living in their own homes
with their parents."[597]
[597] Mr. Hervey's Report, in Thirty-first Annual Report, 1901-2,
p. 80.
On 1st January 1906, the total number of children in "district or
separate schools" was no more than 12,393, whilst in "cottage and other
homes" there were 14,590; and 11,368 were in other institutions (mostly
certified industrial schools, conducted by philanthropic committees not
for profit).[598]
[598] Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, p. cxxxi. The policy of
placing children out in private venture homes run for profit (the
old "farming" system) was not wholly given up. In 1874 the Central
Authority decided to "withdraw from the almost nominal
supervision" which it had exercised over the private venture
seaside homes for children; and to leave these, as certified
schools, entirely to the supervision of such boards of guardians
as chose to make use of them, the payments being classed as
non-resident relief (Circular of May 1874, in _Local Government
Chronicle_, 23rd May 1874, p. 334). Yet a Special Order of 17th
September 1879 regulated the admission of pauper children to the
Metropolitan Infirmary for Children, Margate (John Weekly,
proprietor). Others of 29th November 1880 and 30th June 1886, did
the same for the Downlands Seaside Infirmary for Children,
Rottingdean (J. F. Landguist, proprietor). In 1889, the North
Surrey School District established a Convalescent Home of its own
at Broadstairs (Special Orders of 8th February 1889 and 17th
October 1891).
(iii.) _The Workhouse Children_
Notwithstanding the desire of the Central Authority to remove the
children from the workhouses, there remained on 1st January 1906 no
fewer than 21,526 in these institutions.[599] The Central Authority has,
for instance, never objected to the retention in workhouses of children
of tender years, or of children of any age, in the interval before they
can be sent to school. In 1889, indeed, it was especially forbidden to
send children to separate schools under the age of three.[600] Though no
alteration has been made in the General Consolidated Order of 1847, by
which the internal economy of the workhouse is professedly governed, the
Central Authority laid it down in 1895 that "in every workhouse in which
there are several children too young to attend school, a separate
nursery--dry, spacious, light, and well ventilated--should be provided,
and should be suitably furnished."[601]
[599] Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, p. cxxx. This includes a
comparatively small number of sick children in Poor Law
infirmaries.
[600] General Order of 22nd July 1889 (as to Metropolis); and of
10th February 1899 (to all unions). In 1878, indeed, the North
Surrey District School had refused to receive children under four,
and the Central Authority had declined to interfere (_Selections
from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board_, vol. i.
1880, p. 178).
[601] Memorandum, "Duties of Visiting Committees," June 1895, in
Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 1895-6, p. 122.
The children are always to be under the supervision of paid officers, a
recommendation made in the days of the Poor Law Board, but still up to
1895 frequently urged--showing that at any rate till then it had not
been effectively insisted on. Even in that year the Board had to write:
"In no case should the care of young children be entrusted to inferior
or weak-minded inmates"--a qualification which weakens the force of the
prohibition of the use of paupers at all. "Unless young children are
placed under responsible supervision they cannot be said to be 'properly
taken care of'";[602] and again, more generally, "all children in
workhouses should be under the charge of officers, either industrial
trainers or caretakers, and should not be left to the charge of adult
paupers."[603] The medical officer is responsible for the children's
health, and with a view to the prevention of disease he is expected to
inspect them, whether they are ill or not, "frequently and
individually." In this connection may be mentioned a "Memorandum
relative to Ophthalmia of New-born Children,"[604] in which the Board
requested medical officers to give each nurse or midwife acting under
their directions such written instructions as they might deem necessary
in order to give effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission
on the subject. In 1882 the Central Authority refused to sanction any
women's committee;[605] but by 1897 the guardians were urged to appoint
women's committees for the supervision of the women and children in the
workhouse.
[602] _Ibid._
[603] Circular Letter, 29th January 1895, in Twenty-fifth Annual
Report, 1895-6, p. 110.
[604] June 1897, in Twenty-seventh Annual Report, 1897-8, p. 24.
[605] _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government
Board_, vol. ii. 1883, p. 258.
It is interesting to trace the growth of opinion with regard to the
provision for the children of means of enjoyment. For half a century
after 1834 the Central Authority allowed no toys whatever for all its
tens of thousands of indoor children of all ages. An auditor in 1883
disallowed sums spent on toys for sick children, and Mr. Hibbert was
questioned in Parliament. He said "there have been similar disallowances
previously, and the Local Government Board, while relieving the persons
surcharged of their liability, have held that expenditure of this
character should be defrayed by private liberality, rather than out of
rates compulsorily levied." The disallowances had therefore hitherto
been confirmed, the payments being thus decided to be actually illegal.
"The subject," continued Mr. Hibbert, "had been considered in connection
with the recent surcharge, and it is proposed to hold that the
expenditure was within the legal powers of the guardians, and the
auditor will be communicated with, with a view to a reversal of his
decision."[606] It is not clear which of these conflicting decisions of
the Central Authority was in accordance with law.
[606] _Ibid._ vol. iii. 1888, p. 55; _Hansard_, 13th March 1883,
vol. 277, p. 365.
In 1891 the Board wrote: "The supply of illustrated books and
periodicals of children is especially desirable. Admirable publications
of this class can now be obtained at a very small cost, and where it
appears to be necessary an expenditure by the guardians for this purpose
should, in the Board's opinion, be urged upon them. The question of the
provision of bats, balls, skipping-ropes, etc., for the children and
toys for the infants, is also one which the Board are desirous should
receive the attention of the inspectors on the occasion of their
inspections of the workhouses."[607]
[607] Circular, "Supply of Books, Newspapers, etc.," 23rd January
1891, in Report of Royal Commission on the Aged Poor, 1895, vol.
iii. No. C. 7684, ii. p. 967; Twentieth Annual Report, 1890-1, p.
xc.
"Special care should be taken that a sufficient part of each day is set
apart for recreation only, and that the children should be allowed to
take exercise frequently outside the workhouse premises, and that they
should be encouraged in healthy games of all sorts."[608] The guardians
were allowed to take girls from the Forest Gate Schools to see the
sights of London, provided the places visited were approved by the
school inspector,[609] and also to pay a donation to the funds of a Band
of Hope, when the Poor Law children were allowed to share in the work of
the society.[610]
[608] Circular Letter of 29th January 1895, on "Workhouse
Administration," in Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 1895-6, p. 110.
[609] _Local Government Chronicle_, 18th August 1900, p. 841.
[610] _Ibid._ 14th June 1902, p. 614.
In recent years, we see the inspectorate urging that even children of
tender years ought not to live in the workhouse. This is a new idea
which has not yet received more formal endorsement. As children under
three may not, by the Central Authority's own order of 10th February
1899, be sent to a separate Poor Law school, there is as yet no place
for them but the workhouse. "Nothing has been said," observed Mr. Jenner
Fust, in 1901, "about the nursery children, at present retained at the
workhouse till three years old, or even more, though the case of these
requires attention as much as that of the older ones. They are almost
always largely under the care of inmates, and the conditions are seldom
improved even when these inmates are their own mothers.... I cannot but
think that nursery homes with trained nurses as foster-mothers should
form part of the equipment of all cottage homes, or, if a separate
receiving home be established, the nursery children might conveniently
be placed there, the removal from the workhouse not being delayed beyond
the period when a child is able to walk."[611]
[611] Mr. Jenner Fust's Report, in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, p. 147.
With regard to the education of the older workhouse children the Central
Authority has changed its policy. It does not actually forbid the
guardians to arrange for a school within the workhouse, which was the
policy of 1850. But the plan now favoured is to send them out to the
public elementary schools, as is also done when they are placed in
scattered homes. At first the Central Authority only sanctioned this
course with reluctance, only when the number of such children was small,
and with special recommendations as to the appointment of officers to
supervise the children out of school hours and impart industrial
training.[612] In the case of one union, they "urged the guardians to
reconsider the question, with a view to the appointment either of a
caretaker of the children or a porter, who could give that attention to
the boys when in the workhouse which was of such importance to their
future welfare."[613] Later, perhaps, when the principle of paid
"caretakers" had become more fully accepted, the Central Authority gave
the system much more hearty support, noted its prevalence with
satisfaction, and considered it highly desirable that children in Poor
Law establishments should thus be given opportunities of mixing with
other children.
[612] _Local Government Chronicle_, 22nd June 1878, p. 489.
[613] _Hansard_, 6th September 1886, vol. 308, p. 1316.
When there is a choice of elementary schools, each child should be sent
to the one conducted according to its own religious creed, and it was
also recommended that the children should be sent out to Sunday schools
of their own denomination. This denomination is ordinarily that of the
child's parents, but if the religion is not known, he is to be brought
up in the Church of England:[614] if the father changes his creed, that
of the child changes also.[615]
[614] _Local Government Chronicle_, 2nd July 1904, p. 707.
[615] _Ibid._ 8th November 1902, p. 1126.
While in the workhouse the children are to receive instruction in
industrial and manual work, but the Board strongly resisted proposals
for sending them out to work in factories.[616]
[616] _Hansard_, 21st June 1888, vol. 327, pp. 809-10; _Selections
from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board_, vol ii.
1883, p. 139.
Subject to these conditions, the 21,526 children living in the workhouse
remain there to the knowledge and with the sanction of the Central
Authority--at least, this is what the guardians contend, and, so far as
we can discover, there is no order, circular, or minute to the
contrary.[617]
[617] We ought perhaps to add that the Central Authority is found
putting pressure on boards of guardians who refuse to make any
adequate provision for their children. In 1898 it is reported
that, because the Darlington Board of Guardians refused to make
such provision, the Central Authority had refused to sanction any
alteration of the workhouse whatsoever until such provision had
been made (_Local Government Chronicle_, 19th February 1898, p.
175).
The 21,526 workhouse children appear to be made up of: (_a_)
infants under three; (_b_) children between three and fourteen,
scattered in groups of a dozen to as many as seventy in the
workhouses of the unions having no separate schools of their own
(in the York Workhouse there are usually about seventy children);
and (_c_) children temporarily in the workhouse on their way to
separate schools, boarding-out, being apprenticed, etc. In another
classification they are: (_a_) the newly-born infants of the women
in the lying-in ward; (_b_) children between three and fourteen,
who are orphans or deserted; (_c_) children of indoor paupers, who
are either (i.) permanent residents; or (ii.) "ins-and-outs." We
cannot find any expression of policy of the Central Authority with
regard to any of these classes. In the Metropolis, it should be
said, provision has been made for the relegation to special
institutions of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, not only of
children suffering from ophthalmia, etc., but also of children
temporarily remitted to the care of the guardians by the police
("remand children"), who had heretofore been sent to the
workhouses (Circulars of 19th January and 5th April 1897, and
General Order of 2nd April 1897, Twenty-seventh Annual Report,
1897-8, pp. 8-9). We do not gather that any corresponding
provision has been made for such children outside the Metropolis.
Meanwhile the guardians are pressed to bestow on them an amount of
salaried care and expensive attention that surprises the more
old-fashioned among them, who have not yet quite abandoned the principle
of "less eligibility." "One matter of some interest," says Mr. Baldwyn
Fleming in 1902, "is the curious reluctance displayed by country
guardians to have the children's teeth cared for." The argument used is,
"The ratepayers do not take their children to the dentist, and why
should we do so?" (in the case of the indoor Poor Law children.)[618]
[618] Mr. Baldwyn Fleming's Report in the Thirty-first Annual
Report, 1901-2, p. 91.
(iv.) _The Education of the Indoor Pauper Child_
Down to 1897 the Central Authority had contemplated and recognised in
its orders and circulars that the pauper children would spend only about
half the school time in ordinary school subjects, the other half being
devoted to what was euphemistically called "industrial training."[619]
This meant, in practice, the employment of the children in domestic
work, gardening, mending clothes or boots, and so on, the persons
selected as "industrial trainers" not being required to have any
pedagogic qualifications or power to teach, and being paid in fact only
at workmen's rates. In 1897, the rapid abandonment of the half-time
system outside the workhouse led to a great advance. By the Order of
that year,[620] which governs all Poor Law schools, whether they are in
workhouses or district or separate schools, the half-time system is
greatly discouraged. Industrial training takes a subordinate place. The
Order fixes the number of hours during which the children are to be
under school instruction, and provides for a ten minutes' rest in every
attendance of two hours or more, limits the number of hours which may be
occupied in manual or industrial work, and provides for one whole
holiday or two half-holidays in each week, in addition to allowing six
weeks' holidays in the year if the guardians choose to grant it. One
object of the Order was to secure that children should not be unduly
pressed with manual or industrial work in addition to the school
instruction. The religious teaching required by any Orders in force is
to be given in addition to the school hours. In 1877 it had been ordered
that any time which might be devoted to drill or industrial training,
other than a reasonable time for needlework, in the case of girls,
should not be included in the time prescribed for attendance.[621] The
present Order, in more general terms, allows school instruction to
include "any of the subjects for which grants may be made under the Code
of Regulations of the Education Department, for the time being in force,
except cookery, laundry work, dairy work, or cottage gardening." Of the
time allowed for needlework, not more than one-third is to be spent in
mending; the rest is to be occupied in plain needlework, knitting, and
cutting out and making garments. When children attend school for
half-time, it is preferred that they shall receive the school
instruction in the morning, and the industrial training in the
afternoon.[622] There is now no superior limit to the education that may
be provided for a pauper child within the proper ages. As early as 1878
payment for the attendance of the workhouse girls at a school of cookery
was held to be legal. Guardians are allowed to pay the fees for the
instruction of the children at a technical institute when they see fit
to do so,[623] quite irrespective of whether or not the children of the
poorest independent labourer can get such advantages.
[619] There was not much pretence of technical instruction in the
earlier Orders. What was aimed at was putting the children to
work, chosen for its utility, not for its instructiveness (_i.e._
digging rather than gardening, mending the shoes of the
establishment rather than learning the art of shoemaking). In the
Special Order to the Walsall and West Bromwich School District of
1st July 1871, it was laid down that the children might be
employed (under certain circumstances, wholly employed) "upon
works of industry." In an amending Special Order of 20th July
1893, the age was raised, but the phrase was retained.
[620] Order of 30th January 1897 in Twenty-seventh Annual Report,
1897-8, pp. 5-8; _see_ for its effect Thirty-third Annual Report,
1903-4, p. 256.
[621] General Order "prescribing attendance" as regards workhouse
schools, 30th October 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p.
204.
[622] Circular Letter, 1st February 1897, in Twenty-seventh Annual
Report, 1897-8, p. 5.
[623] _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government
Board_, vol. i. 1880, p. 224; _Local Government Chronicle_, 30th
January 1904, p. 113.
It may be noted that a Special Order of 30th April 1887 (not mentioned
in the Annual Reports, or otherwise communicated to boards of guardians)
enables the Forest Gate District School to allow a class of the elder
girls to go out and buy their food, spending not more than 3s. 6d. a
week each, and prepare it for their own consumption, so as to get some
practical experience of ordinary life. By another Order of 5th August
1889, the children in this one school are allowed to buy their own
outfits (up to £3 10s.). We do not find that the Central Authority has
yet made these privileges general, nor extended them to any other indoor
pauper children.[624]
[624] By a General Order of 20th May 1881, corporal punishment is
absolutely forbidden in Poor Law Schools as regards "any female
child" of any age. This rule has not yet been made by the Board of
Education for the schools attended by non-paupers nor by most
local education authorities.
On 1st April 1904, the responsibility for the inspection
of the education of the Poor Law Schools, and of pauper
children in certified schools, was transferred to the Board
of Education thus reverting to the policy prior to 1863.[625]
[625] Thirty-third Annual Report, 1903-4, p. 256.
(v.) _Boarding-out_
The boarding-out system was in 1871 still on its trial, having been
authorised for scarcely a year, and the Central Authority was very
guarded in expressing any opinion on its merits; it gradually won
favour, but while mildly encouraging it the Central Authority would do
nothing to force its growth. In 1900 it was referred to as one method of
removing children from the workhouse,[626] but it was never thought
likely to become a practical means for dealing with the mass of pauper
children, as a substitute either for ordinary outdoor relief or for Poor
Law schools.[627]
[626] Circular Letter of 4th August 1900, on Aged Deserving Poor,
in Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1901, p. 18.
[627] _Hansard_, 8th May 1894, vol. 24, p. 598.
Boarding-out beyond the union had been first regulated by the Order of
25th November 1870. In 1877 it was found that boarding-out within the
union was being largely practised, it being, as the Central Authority
had itself held, legally only ordinary out-relief, requiring no
sanction. This also was then regulated by a General Order.[628] Both
these Orders were re-issued with slight modifications in 1889, the
former to every union in the country, the latter to all but the most
populous town unions. Again, in 1905, the Order for boarding-out beyond
the union was slightly altered and re-issued.[629]
[628] 10th September 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, pp.
193-200.
[629] Macmorran and Lushington's _Poor Law Orders_, second
edition, 1905, p. 1331.
The operation of these Orders was limited to certain classes of
children; in 1877 to those deserted by their parents, or whose parents
were dead, undergoing penal servitude, suffering from mental disease, or
out of England; by the Orders of 1889, children whose parents were
permanently bedridden or disabled were added to the list; and in 1905
children adopted by the guardians were formally included, as such
children could previously only be boarded out if they were also orphan
or deserted according to the definition. The Central Authority refused
its sanction to a proposal to board out the illegitimate children of
able-bodied women in the workhouse.[630] It was twice decided that when
out-relief is given to a child living with a person not legally liable
for its support, such child must be considered as boarded out.[631]
There is no age limit for boarding-out within the union, but a child may
not be first boarded out beyond the union under two, nor when over ten,
unless in the same home with a brother or sister under that age.
[630] _Local Government Chronicle_, 16th August 1902, p. 825.
[631] _Ibid._ 27th April 1889, p. 338; _Hansard_, 2nd July 1897,
vol. 50, p. 966; _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local
Government Board_, vol. ii. 1883, p. 94. On the other hand, a
contrary decision seems to have been given in 1885 (_ibid._ vol.
iii. 1888, p. 187).
In view of this gradual adoption of the boarding-out system as a
permanent form of the treatment of children under the Poor Law, it is
instructive to compare the requirements which the Central Authority
makes to ensure the proper maintenance of the boarded-out children with
the policy just described in respect of the children on ordinary outdoor
relief.
The various Orders all lay practically the same duties on the
foster-parent. He is to sign an undertaking that: "He will bring up the
child as one of his own children, and provide the child with proper
food, lodging and washing, and endeavour to train the child in habits of
truthfulness, obedience, personal cleanliness and industry, as well as
in suitable domestic and outdoor work, so far as may be consistent with
the law; that he will take care that the child shall attend duly at
church or chapel according to the religious creed to which the child
belongs, and shall attend school according to the provisions of the law
for the time being; that he will provide for the proper repair and
renewal of the child's clothing, and that in case of the child's illness
he will forthwith report such illness to the guardians and to the
boarding-out committee; and that he will at all times permit the child
to be visited and the house to be inspected by any member of the
boarding-out committee, and by any person specially appointed for that
purpose by the guardians or by the Local Government Board. The
undertaking shall also contain an engagement on the part of the
foster-parent that he will, upon the demand of a person duly authorised
in writing by the boarding-out committee, or by the guardians, give up
possession of the child."[632] The 1905 undertaking is slightly
different in terms, the chief variation being an omission of the
reference to "domestic and outdoor work," because cases had occurred in
which these words had been pleaded as an excuse for overtaxing the
working capacity of the children.[633]
[632] Boarding out without the Union Order, 1889, in Nineteenth
Annual Report, 1889-90, p. 49. The "within the Union Order"
contains some modifications for the case where there is no
committee.
[633] Circular Letter, 9th December 1905, in Thirty-fifth Annual
Report, 1905-6, p. 328.
Foster-parents may never be persons in receipt of relief, or whose only
means of support is the allowance made for the children. Children should
not, except in special cases, be boarded with relations, nor in any home
where the father is employed in night work; foster-parents employed in
outdoor work are preferred to those occupied in sedentary labour.[634]
They should also (both, in the case of married couples) be of the same
religious creed as the child,[635] live within two miles from the school
where the child is to attend, and within five miles--preferably
three--from the house of some member of the committee. Attention is to
be paid to decent accommodation in the homes, and to the separation of
the sexes in the sleeping-rooms. Children over seven are not allowed to
sleep in the same room with married couples. No child is to be boarded
out in a house where sleeping accommodation is afforded to an adult
lodger.[636]
[634] Memorandum of the Local Government Board, June 1900. See
_Local Government Law and Legislation_, by W. H. Dumsday, 1900, p.
126.
[635] _Local Government Chronicle_, 31st October 1903, p. 1070.
[636] Memorandum of the Local Government Board, June 1900, _Local
Government Law and Legislation_, by W. H. Dumsday, 1900, p. 126.
The number of children to be placed in any one home was at first limited
to two--or four, if all were brothers and sisters,--but it was soon
found that further restrictions were necessary for the prevention of
over-crowding. Accordingly, it is ruled that not more than one child may
be placed in a home where a child is boarded by any other agency and
none where there is more than one such child; no child is to be boarded
in a home where, with him, there would be more than five children
resident. The clothing provided for a boarded-out child is to be of a
good, ordinary character, with no suggestion of a workhouse uniform. The
highly expensive but most advantageous service of dentistry may be paid
for by the guardians. The Central Authority strongly disapproved of a
proposal made to it, under which a child was to be sent out to work, and
earn wages, while the full allowance was still being paid by the
guardians. "If a boarded-out child is eligible under the Education and
Factory Acts for employment, the boarding-out committee should report
the case to the guardians, who should obtain the consent of the Local
Government Board to any proposal to relieve the child whilst in receipt
of regular wages. A foster-parent should not be permitted to allow a
child to go to work for wages unless the guardians, with the assent of
the Board, have previously assented thereto."[637]
[637] _Local Government Chronicle_, 12th March 1904, p. 290.
Prior to 1877 the Central Authority held that children boarded out
within the union, being merely cases of outdoor relief, did not require
these precautions. From 1877 onward similar precautions were required in
their cases. Such children became thus differentiated from other
children on outdoor relief, on whose behalf no such requirements are
insisted on. For the boarded-out children a payment was approved of 4s.
a week each (afterwards raised to 5s.), a sum to be contrasted with the
1s. or 1s. 6d. for each child which is the usual sum allowed for each
child on ordinary outdoor relief.[638]
[638] The rate of 1s. and one loaf for the support per week of
each child on outdoor relief was deliberately sanctioned, in 1869,
by a Conference of Metropolitan Guardians, presided over by Mr.
Corbett (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871, as reprinted
for official circulation in 1873 by the Central Authority). The
dividing line between children merely on this outdoor relief, and
those "boarded out" at 4s. or 5s. per week, it must be remembered,
is not kinship, but whether or not the person with whom the child
lives is legally liable for its maintenance. Thus, the policy of
the Central Authority has been that children living with a
stepfather and stepmother, with a widower stepfather, with a
widowed stepmother, or even with a brother, a sister, an uncle, or
an aunt (none of whom is legally liable for their maintenance)
require all this elaborate supervision and protection; whereas if
the children live with their own mother and father, with their
widowed mother, with their widower father, with any or all of
their grandparents, or exposed to the tender mercies of a father
and stepmother, no such supervision and protection is insisted on.
But although this is the rule, we are informed that the Central
Authority, in practice, now makes no difficulty, if applied to, in
sanctioning the transfer of children living with grandparents,
uncles and aunts, or brothers and sisters, from the category of
ordinary outdoor relief to the more regulated and more richly
endowed category of boarding-out. It still objects in the case of
parents (_Selections from the Correspondence of the Local
Government Board_, vol. iii. 1888, p. 187; _Decisions of the Local
Government Board_, 1903-4, by W. A. Casson, 1905, p. 78).
In equally marked contrast with its attitude with regard to the other
children on outdoor relief, the Central Authority has been vigilant to
secure for the boarded-out children systematic inspection. Mr. Chaplin
said in Parliament: "I approve of, and warmly sympathise with
boarding-out, subject to one condition, which is of surpassing
importance, namely, that the inspection of the children boarded out
shall be adequate and effective. I cannot conceive a position of greater
misery and hardship than that of some poor unfortunate little child
boarded out to some one who takes care of it, not for love of the child,
but simply for the purpose of making a gain and a profit out of it....
So far as it is possible to promote that adequate inspection ... and
wherever it is possible to board out on these conditions, the Board
gives its assistance."[639]
[639] _Hansard_, 8th August 1898, vol. 54, p. 576.
The children boarded within the union are to visited by the medical
officer quarterly, whether or not they are reported ill, and by the
relieving officer--who pays the foster-parents at their
residence,--ordinarily weekly, and may also be visited by the guardians
or any other person appointed for the purpose by the guardians or the
Local Government Board. If there is a boarding-out committee (which is
permissive under the 1889 Boarding-out in Unions Order) a member thereof
must visit every six weeks; the inspection by the medical officer may
then be dispensed with, and the system becomes more nearly like that for
boarding outside the union. Under the latter, the responsibility is
thrown on the committee, and unless they fail the guardians are not
allowed themselves to inspect. The Local Government Board also sends an
inspector from time to time, with the object of discovering how the
committees do their work, for it is on the efficiency of the committees
that the whole system of boarding-out depends.[640]
[640] Circular Letter, 29th May 1889, in Nineteenth Annual Report,
1889-90, pp. 36-41.
When the children are thus thoroughly supervised by the committees, and
the committees are kept up to their work by the general inspectors, the
Board do not favour any further inspection by the guardians. "One of
the main objects of the boarding-out system is that pauper children
should become merged in the general population; but if a child boarded
out is to be examined regularly by a medical man, supervised by a
committee of the guardians, and inspected by a Government inspector, it
would appear to imply that no confidence whatever is to be placed in the
boarding-out committees under whom the children are placed, although for
any success attending the boarding-out system it is on these committees
that we must rely."[641] Besides, "where children are boarded out by
guardians at a long distance from their own union or parish, it may
often be inconvenient, except in the case of many children being placed
in the same neighbourhood, for the guardians to arrange for the
visitation of the children by their own officer as frequently as the
Board deem indispensable, when inspection by members of the committee
has ceased. It follows, therefore, that if the voluntary boarding-out
committees should allow their vigilance or their interest to flag, the
guardians will, in all probability, seldom have any alternative but to
take back the children."[642]
[641] Mr. Ritchie, President of the Local Government Board,
_Hansard_, 4th July 1887, vol. 316, pp. 1598-9.
[642] Circular Letter, 29th May 1884, in Nineteenth Annual Report,
1889-90, p. 44.
The boarded-out children, thus elaborately inspected and expensively
provided for, had, by 1st January 1906, slowly risen to 8,781;[643] but
they were even then only one-seventh of those in institutions, and only
one-twentieth of those on ordinary outdoor relief.
[643] Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, p. cxxxii.
(vi.) _Apprenticeship_
We may note a tendency to enlarge the responsibilities, powers and
duties of the guardians for successfully launching the children in the
world--an enlargement which plainly loses sight altogether of the
principle of "less eligibility." We see the Central Authority making
elaborate suggestions for the care of children apprenticed or in
service, and issuing an Order enabling the guardians to provide outfits
when children were sent out, without previously asking for sanction,
which had before been necessary under some of the Orders. When the
Central Authority had been asked for such sanction it had taken the
opportunity of objecting to a child being sent to service without money
wages, or to an inn or public-house (unless in exceptional
circumstances), or to any place where the conditions of service seemed
unsatisfactory, and of requiring to be satisfied that the child was
qualified for employment as required by the Education Acts. By allowing
guardians to obtain outfits without obtaining express sanction the
Central Authority relinquished this opportunity of control over the
conditions of service. It therefore referred to these points in the
Circular on the Order, and expressed its confidence that the guardians
would see that all was satisfactory in these respects.[644] It did not
approve of the Poor Law children being engaged as servants to officers
of Poor Law establishments--situations which, like those in
public-houses, etc., were left to be filled by the less carefully
protected children of independent parents or those on outdoor
relief--considering it desirable that the children should be severed
from all connection with pauper surroundings as soon as possible after
attaining an age at which they can secure employment.[645]
[644] Circular on "Outfits for Children sent to Service," 14th
July 1897, in Twenty-seventh Annual Report, 1897-8, p. 26.
[645] _Local Government Chronicle_, 18th October 1902, p. 1051.
When children are first apprenticed they receive very low wages or more
often none at all, and there is frequently a difficulty in providing for
their maintenance. We have already referred to the doubt of the Central
Authority as to how to treat the experiment of the Norwich Guardians on
this point. Though these Guardians kept their homes this doubt
apparently continued. The Keighley Guardians wished to use one of their
cottage homes as a residence for working boys from the workhouse, but
the Central Authority refused its assent, stating that it had no power
to render such a course legal. Nevertheless it allowed a lad who
received no wages, but was entirely engaged in learning his trade, to
reside in the workhouse during the term of his apprenticeship,[646] and
to children earning low wages insufficient to support them outdoor
relief may be given. "In such cases the Board have required to be
furnished with an assurance that the guardians had satisfied themselves
that the amount allowed by them would, with the weekly wages paid by the
master, be adequate to provide for the maintenance and clothing of the
apprentice, either alone or in association with other boys. They also
required a statement of the weekly wages ordinarily paid in the locality
to apprentices in the particular trade, and to be informed (_a_) of the
amount of weekly relief the guardians proposed to grant; (_b_) the
period during which such relief should continue; and (_c_) whether, as
the apprentice's wages increased, the relief would be correspondingly
reduced."[647]
[646] _Ibid._ 31st October 1903, p. 1070.
[647] _Local Government Chronicle_, 31st January 1903, p. 102.
In 1904 the Central Authority was prepared to acquiesce, subject to the
details of the scheme proving satisfactory, in a proposal to establish a
home for boys over whom the guardians had acquired parental rights, the
boys receiving board and lodging therein for so long in each case, as
the wages were insufficient to enable them to obtain suitable
accommodation elsewhere.[648]
[648] _Ibid._ 15th October 1904, p. 1072; _Decisions of the Local
Government Board_, 1903-4, by W. A. Casson, 1905, p. 118.
The Central Authority had, in 1873, been doubtful how far a relieving
officer should interfere if he found, when visiting a servant or
apprentice, that the master or mistress, _instead of paying the
stipulated wages_, gave clothing, which might be old, useless, or valued
at an exorbitant rate. It merely told the guardians that he should make
a special inquiry, and report if the practice appeared to be actually
injurious to the personal condition of the child, so as to amount to
"cruel or illegal treatment in any respect."[649]
[649] Circular Letter of 31st May 1873, in Third Annual Report,
1873-4, pp. 3-4.