Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T06:35:12.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Paternalism, the Magistracy and Poor Relief in England, 1795–1834

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Peter Dunkley
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

When men in the early nineteenth century appealed to the landed proprietors of England to accept their “paternal responsibilities”, they gave voice to the conviction that gentry behavior had special relevance for the question of social discipline. Conservatives, especially, adhered to the view that subordination and the hierarchy of ranks resting upon it constituted the fountainhead of social cohesion. But at the same time, reliance on this concept of social organization involved the governors in various commitments to their subordinates, for ultimately the cohesiveness of the social order seemed dependent upon the operation of reciprocal obligations. The place of these imperatives in rural relationships arose from, and contributed to, a tradition that saw the subsistence and well-being of the entire community to be dependent upon the social responsibilities of and the connections between the different degrees of interest within the agricultural economy. A characteristic anxiety of the conservative of the period was that the economic individualism of a rising urban and industrial society promised to undermine the social accountability of each component of the social order; this presaged the disintegration of society because the “chain of connexion” between the rich and the poor would thereby be broken. The implication was that the intrusion of self-interest, economic or otherwise, threatened a structure of interdependency and mutual respect and concern between ranks. It appeared, then, that the most serious danger to society would certainly come at that point when the landowners of England — the rulers of what still seemed an essentially rural world — abandoned their paternalist traditions and opted for indolence, indifference, or the allures of commercial farming.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , December 1979 , pp. 371 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1979

References

1 See, e.g., Carlyle, Thomas, Past and Present (London, 1962; first ed. 1843), pp. 171–72Google Scholar; Southey, Robert, “On the Means of Improving the People” (1818), in Essays, Moral and Political (Shannon, 1971), II, pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

2 Coats, A. W., “The Classical Economists and the Labourer”, in: Land, Labour and Population in the Industrial Revolution, ed. by Jones, E. L. and Mingay, G. E. (New York, 1968), pp. 106.Google Scholar

3 See Kent, N., General View of the Agriculture of the County of Norfolk (1769), p. 192.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.; Dunbabin, J. P. D., Rural Discontent in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, 1974), pp. 13.Google Scholar

5 Briggs, A., “The Language of‘Class’ in Early Nineteenth-Century England”, in: Essays in Labour History, ed. by Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (London, 1967), pp. 45–46.Google Scholar

6 Thompson, E. P., “Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture”, in: Journal of Social History, VII (1973–1974)Google Scholar, passim.

7 Laslett, P., The World We Have Lost (New York, 1965), pp. 70.Google Scholar

8 Kerr, B., “The Dorset Agricultural Labourer, 1750–1850”, in: Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society, LXXXIV (1962), p. 163.Google Scholar

9 Thompson, “Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture”, loc. cit., pp. 389–90.

10 Thompson, E. P., “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century”, in: Past & Present, No 50 (1971), p. 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Ibid., pp. 129, 131; Perkin, H., The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880 (Toronto, 1972), pp. 182–83, 186–87.Google Scholar

12 Perkin, op. cit., pp. 182–83,188; Thompson, “Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture”, loc. cit., p. 383.

13 For an instance of the sort, see Marshall, J. D., “Nottinghamshire Labourers in the Early Nineteenth Century”, in: Transactions of the Thoroton Society, LXIV (1960), pp. 67–68.Google Scholar

14 See Jones, E. L., “The Agricultural Labour Market in England, 1793–1872”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XVII (1964–1965), pp. 324–26.Google Scholar

15 Tabular Statement Showing the Comparative Ability of the Several Counties in England to Support Their Agricultural Population [Parliamentary Papers (Lords), 1830–31, CCLXXXVIII].

16 See Marshall, J. D., The Old Poor Law, 1795–1834 (London, 1968), pp. 33, 36.Google Scholar

17 Krause, J. T., “Changes in English Fertility and Mortality, 1781–1850”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XI (1958–1959), p. 66.Google Scholar

18 Oxley, G. W., Poor Relief in England and Wales, 1601 –1834 (Newton Abbot, 1974), pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

19 Report from the Select Committee on That Part of the Poor Laws Relating to the Employment or Relief of Abie-Bodied Persons from the Poor Rate [PP, 1828, IV], p. 6.

20 Report from the Select Committee on Poor Rate Returns [PP, 1825, IV], p. 22; Hobsbawm, E. J. and Rudé, G., Captain Swing (New York, 1968), pp. 73–74Google Scholar; Chambers, J. D. and Mingay, G. E., The Agricultural Revolution, 1750–1880 (New York, 1966), pp. 139Google Scholar; Gash, N., “Rural Unemployment, 1815–34”, in: Economic History Review, VI (1935–1936), pp. 92–93.Google Scholar

21 Marshall, The Old Poor Law, op. cit., p. 37. See Oldham, C. R., “Oxfordshire Poor Law Papers”, in; Economic History Review, V (1934–1935), p. 94.Google Scholar

22 Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd”, loc. cit., p. 88; Peacock, A. J., Bread or Blood (London, 1965), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

23 See Thompson, E. P., Whigs and Hunters. The Origin of the Black Act (New York, 1975), pp. 262.Google Scholar

24 As is argued in Brundage, A., “The Landed Interest and the New Poor Law: A Reappraisal of the Revolution in Government”, in: English Historical Review, LXXXVII (1972), pp. 28, 34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Poynter, J. R., Society and Pauperism: English Ideas on Poor Relief, 1795–1834 (London, 1969), pp. 11.Google Scholar

26 Zangerl, C. H. E., “The Social Composition of the County Magistracy in England and Wales, 1831–1887”, in: Journal of British Studies, XI (1971–1972), p. 114.Google Scholar

27 Chambers, J. D., Nottinghamshire in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1966), pp. 73–74Google Scholar; S., and Webb, B., English Poor Law History, Part I: The Old Poor Law (Hamden, Conn., 1963), pp. 181Google Scholar; Neuman, M. D., “A Suggestion Regarding the Origins of the Speenhamland Plan”, in: English Historical Review, LXXXIV (1969), p. 321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Lords Committee Appointed to Consider of the Poor Laws [PP (Lords), 1817, LXXIV], p. 91.Google Scholar

29 See below, p. 387.

30 First Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales [PP, 1835, XXXV], pp. 4–5Google Scholar; Tate, W. E., The Parish Chest (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 228–29Google Scholar; Fussell, G. E., Village Life in the Eighteenth Century (Worcester, n.d.), pp. 24, 26Google Scholar; Emmison, F. G. and Gray, I., County Records (London, 1967), pp. 16Google Scholar; Hampson, E. M., The Treatment of Poverty in Cambridgeshire, 1597–1834 (Cambridge, 1934), pp. 228, 231Google Scholar; Poynter, Society and Pauperism, op. cit., p. 11.

31 Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1825, p. 22.

32 Report from the Select Committee on Labourers' Wages [PP, 1824, VI], p. 23; Report of the Poor Law Commissioners on the Continuance of the Poor Law Commission [PP, 1840, XVII], p. 12; Rose, M. E. [Ed.], The English Poor Law, 1780–1930 (Newton Abbot, 1971), pp. 57.Google Scholar

33 See, e.g., Report from the Select Committee on the Poor Laws [PP, 1817, VI], pp. 90, 111.

34 S. and B. Webb, The Old Poor Law, op. cit., p. 426.

35 First Annual Report, pp. 4–5; Hampson, The Treatment of Poverty, op. cit., p. 228.

36 Minutes of the Lords Committee, p. 65; S. and Webb, B., The Old Poor Law, pp. 168–69Google Scholar. Rates were levied on occupiers rather than owners; therefore, the magistrates, being part of the rentier class, did not pay rates commensurate with their holdings. Onerous rate burdens on tenants, however, could necessitate reductions in rent.

37 Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 35.

38 Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 5. Since the justices acted most often in petty sessions, such limitations were not usually relevant in any event.

39 Report on the Administration of the Poor Laws, Appendix B 1: Answers to Rural Queries, Pt IV [PP, 1834, XXXIII], p. 73d; Report from the Select Committee on Poor Rate Returns [PP, 1822, V], p. 8; Report from the Select Committee on Poor Rate Returns [PP, 1824, VI], p. 19.

40 Report from the Select Committee on Poor Rate Returns [PP, 1823, V], pp. 16, 17; Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1822, p. 29; 1824, pp. 19, 29–30; 1825, pp. 17, 21.

41 Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1823, pp. 17–18Google Scholar; 1825, p. 21; Hampson, , The Treatment of Poverty, p. 246.Google Scholar

42 Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 4.

43 Ibid., p. 5.

44 Report on the Poor Laws, 1817, p. 23Google Scholar; S., and Webb, B., The Old Poor Law, p. 162.Google Scholar

45 Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1823, p. 18Google Scholar; Minutes of the Lords Committee, 1817, p. 88Google Scholar; The Poor Law Report of 1834, ed. by S. G., and Checkland, E. O. A. (Harmondsworth, 1974), Introduction, p. 37.Google Scholar

46 Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 22; S. G. and E. O. A. Checkland, ibid.

47 Minutes of Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Lords Appointed to Consider of the Poor Laws [PP (Lords), 1830–1931, CCLXXXVII], pp. 3, 58–59Google Scholar; Richard Earle to Poor Law Commissioners, 25 June 1836, Second Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales [PP, 1836, XXIX], Appendix B, No 15, p. 387; Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 55.

48 See Answers to Rural Queries, Pt IV, qq. 43 and 44, passim.

49 Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 28; First Annual Report, p. 12.

50 Oxley, Poor Relief, op. cit., pp. 31–32, 53.

51 Martin, E. W., “From Parish to Union: Poor Law Administration, 1601–1865”, in: Comparative Development in Social Welfare, ed. by Martin, E. W. (London, 1972), pp. 31.Google Scholar

52 Ashby, A. W., One Hundred Years of Poor Law Administration in a Warwickshire Village (Oxford, 1912), pp. 40Google Scholar; Hampson, The Treatment of Poverty, p. 225; Thompson, , “Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture”, p. 90.Google Scholar

53 Answers to Rural Queries, Pt IV, q. 43.

54 Professor Mark Blaug has used this same survey as the basis for some significant conclusions regarding relief practices prior to 1834. See “The Poor Law Report Reexamined”, in: Journal of Economic History, XXIV (1964), pp. 229–45.Google Scholar

55 Hobsbawm and Rude. Captain Swing, op. cit.. pp. 77–80.

56 Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 4.

57 Report on Poor Rate Returns. 1822. pp. 28. 38: 1823. pp. 27–29: Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 6: Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1825. p. 20; Report from the Select Committee on Poor Rate Returns [PP. 1826. III], pp. 17–18.

58 Blaug, “The Poor Law Report Reexamined”, loc. cit., p. 231; id.. “The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New”, in: Journal of Economic History. XXIII (1963). pp. 159. 166.Google Scholar On the other hand, a recent study by D. A. Baugh suggests that the bench may well have been engaged in extending, rather than abandoning, the use of allowance scales in the years after the war. “The Cost of Poor Relief in South-East England. 1790–1834”. in: Economic History Review. Second Series. XXVIII (1975). p. 64.Google Scholar

59 Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 5: Abstract of Returns Made to the Committee in 1824 Relative to Labourers' Wages [PP. 1825, XIX], passim. Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 5.

60 Blaug, , “The Poor Law Report Reexamined”, p. 231.Google Scholar

61 For such an attempt, see M. Neuman, “Speenhamland in Berkshire”, in: Comparative Development in Social Welfare, op. cit., pp. 107–10.

62 Brundage, A., “The Landed Interest and the New Poor Law: A Reply”, in: English Historical Review, XC (1975), pp. 347–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., “The English Poor Law of 1834 and the Cohesion of Agricultural Society”, in: Agricultural History, XLVIII (1974), pp. 407–08.Google Scholar

63 Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 6. See Rose, The English Poor Law, op. cit., p. 38; S., and Webb, B., The Old Poor Law, p. 166.Google Scholar

64 See, e.g., Report on the Poor Laws, 1817, p. 76; Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1823, p. 16.

65 Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1822, p. 7. See also Tate, The Parish Chest, op. cit., p. 17.

66 Nassau Senior to Lord Brougham, 14 September 1832, in: Levy, S. Leon, Senior, Nassau W., 1790–1864 (Newton Abbot, 1970)Google Scholar, Appendix X, p. 249. See also Richard Earle to Poor Law Commissioners, 25 June 1836, Second Annual Report, Appendix B, No 15, p. 386.

67 Nine asserted that there would be no change. Many more parishes than this actually answered the question, but their comments are irrelevant to the matter under consideration here.

68 Brundage, “The English Poor Law of 1834”, loc. cit., p. 407; id., “A Reply”, loc. cit., p. 348.

69 The Poor Law Report of 1834, op. cit., pp. 229–30. Also quoted in Brundage, , “A Reply”, p. 348.Google Scholar

70 See J. L., and Hammond, B., The Village Labourer, 1760–1832 (London, 1912), pp. 184–85Google Scholar; Blaug, “The Myth of the Old Poor Law”, loc. cit., pp. 161–62; Brundage, , ”A Reply”, p. 347.Google Scholar

71 Answers to Rural Queries, Pt IV, q. 44, passim.

72 See Neuman, “Speenhamland in Berkshire”, loc. cit., pp. 107–08.

73 Oxley, , Poor Relief, pp. 116–17Google Scholar; Baugh, “The Cost of Poor Relief”, loc. cit., pp. 59, 64.

74 Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 40.

75 Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 38.

76 Nassau Senior to Lord Brougham, 14 September 1832, loc. cit., p. 247; Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1822, pp. 28–30; 1824, p. 25; 1825, p. 19; 1826, pp. 17–18; Minutes of the Lords Committee, 1817, p. 74; Richard Hall to Poor Law Commissioners, 10 July 1835, First Annual Report, Appendix B, No 4, p. 129. See also The Poor Law Report of 1834, p. 240.

77 See Minutes of the Lords Committee, 1817, pp. 35–36; Report on the Poor Laws, 1817, p. 109; Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1824, p. 17; 1825, p. 18; Huzel, J. P., “Malthus, the Poor Law, and Population in Early Nineteenth-Century England”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XXII (1969), p. 446.Google Scholar

78 See Board of Agriculture, The Agricultural State of the Kingdom (New York, 1970; first ed. 1816), p. 25Google Scholar; Report on Poor Rate Returns, 1822, pp. 28–30; 1824, p. 25; 1825, p. 19; 1826, pp. 17–18.

79 Minutes of the Lords Committee, 1817, pp. 25,97; Memorial of the Magistrates of the County of Suffolk, respecting Poor Rates, n.d., Report on the Poor Laws, 1817, Appendix H, p. 167; Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 35.

80 Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 40.

81 For all of above, First Annual Report, pp. 4–6.

82 See p. 383.

83 See, e.g., Luton Union: William Rudd, Overseer, to Poor Law Commissioners, n.d. [c. 24 September 1834], Ministry of Health Papers 12/96, Public Record Office; Biggleswade Union: F. Smith, Assistant Overseer, to id., 4 March 1835, MH 12/55; Amphill Union: George Smith to id., 25 September 1834, MH 12/1.

84 Bedford Union: George P. Livins to the Commissioners, 24 October 1834, MH 12/21.

85 Woburn Union: Lord Charles Russell to T. F. Lewis, 21 November 1834, MH 12/126.

86 Amphill Union: Amphill Petty Sessions (signed by 5 JPs) to the Commissioners, 11 September 1834, MH 12/1. See also Woburn Union: John Green to id., 30 September 1834, MH 12/126; Amphill Union: Rev. James Beard, JP, to id., 2 May 1835, MH 12/1.

87 Woburn Union: Russell to Lewis, 21 November 1834.

88 Bedford Union: Lord Tavistock to Lord John Russell, 10 November 1834, MH 12/21. As we have seen, the government had not in fact prematurely introduced the act into Bedfordshire; the overseers had implemented a harsher policy on their own initiative.

89 Bedford Union: Lord John Russell to Edwin Chadwick, 12 November 1834, MH 12/21.

90 D. G. Adey to the Commissioners, 14 November 1834, MH 32/5.

91 Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 57.

92 See Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 40.

93 Kerr, “The Dorset Agricultural Labourer”, loc. cit., p. 170; Neuman, , “Speenhamland in Berkshire”, pp. 114–15.Google Scholar

94 See, e.g., Memorial of the Magistrates of the County of Suffolk, loc. cit., p. 167.

95 The difficulties here are not as great as might be supposed. B. A. Holderness has shown that the system of “open” and “close” parishes was only of “minor importance” in Southern and Eastern England, the area with which we are most concerned. The system was most common in the North-East Midlands, West Norfolk, and the East Riding. In addition, it is significant that the trend of increase in Poor Law expenditure bears no relationship to the prevalence of the system, both “open” and “close” parishes experiencing the same pressure on the rates in the nineteenth century. “‘Open’ and ‘Close’ Parishes in England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”, in: Agricultural History Review, XX (1972), pp. 129, 132, 134, 136, 137–38.Google Scholar

96 See, e.g., Answers to Rural Queries. Pt IV, pp. 7d, 16d, lOOd, 147d, 165d, 198d, 219d, 236d, 241d, 297d, 320d,338d,349d,378d,396d,434d,440d,460d,469d,487d,548d,566d.

97 Ibid., pp. lOOd, 178d, 253d, 413d, 477d, 586d.

98 See ibid., pp. 165d, 219d. Charles Savill Onley, JP, of Stisted Hall, Essex, claimed that “this opinion is corroborated by those of many respectable Magistrates with whom I have conversed on the subject”. Ibid., p. 187d.

99 This is not to suggest that they did not believe their own rhetoric. See Thompson, Whigs and Hunters, op. cit., p. 263.

100 Gilbert, A. D., Religion and Society in Industrial England (London, 1976), pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

101 S., and Webb, B., The Old Poor Law, pp. 181–82.Google Scholar

102 Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 7. See also ibid., p. 48; Report on Abie-Bodied Persons, p. 27.

103 See Minutes of the Lords Committee, 1817, p. 19; Report on the Poor Laws, 1817, p. 90; Report on Labourers' Wages, p. 34.

104 A. J. Peacock, “Village Radicalism in East Anglia, 1800–50”, in: Dunbabin, Rural Discontent, op. cit., p. 36.

105 See Bedford Union; Livins to the Commissioners, 24 October 1834, for a description of prompt magisterial action against local overseers when more than 200 laborers appealed to the bench en masse.

106 Hobsbawm, and Rudé, , Captain Swing, pp. 184–85Google Scholar. See also Williams, D. E., “Were ‘Hunger’ Rioters Really Hungry? Some Demographic Evidence”, in: Past & Present, No 71 (1976), p. 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

107 See Lord Melbourne to Lord Grey, 29 October 1831, Grey Papers, Box 41/2, University of Durham.

108 Hobsbawm, E. J., “From Social History to the History of Society”, in: Daedalus, C (1971), p. 38.Google Scholar

109 See Richards, E., “‘Captain Swing’ in the West Midlands”, in: International Review of Social History, XIX (1974), pp. 87–89.Google Scholar