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Roast Beef, the New Poor Law, and the British Nation, 1834–63

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2013

Nadja Durbach
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Abstract

In the early years of the New Poor Law, workhouses were explicitly prohibited from serving roast beef and plum pudding to inmates. Historians have recently begun to focus increased attention on the cultural meanings invested in specific food products and the politics of their production, distribution, and consumption. Unpacking the contentious disputes between local and central Poor Law authorities over the provision of roast beef to workhouse inmates similarly reorients the discussion of the pauper diet to address, not the amount or quality of food provided, but rather the cultural politics of what exactly a pauper was allowed to eat. A study of when and why paupers were and were not furnished with a festive meal of what was often termed “Old English Fare” provides a way of rethinking the place of the poor within local and national communities at a moment when attitudes toward poverty were undergoing profound changes.

Keywords

workhouseNew Poor LawbeeffoodChristmasfestive mealspovertypaupers
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 963 - 989
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2013 

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60 Copy of Letter from the PLC to Thirsk Board of Guardians, 22 December 1837, TNA: PRO MH 12/14639.

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91 Copy of Letter from PLC to Risbridge Board of Guardians, 25 June 1838, TNA: PRO MH 12/11955.

92 Copy of Letter from PLC to Auditor for Atcham Union, 12 October 1838, TNA: PRO MH 12/9822; Letter from Auditor for Hartley-Wintney Union to PLC, 12 July 1838, TNA: PRO MH 12/10805.

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98 Copy of Extract from Minute Book of Northampton Board of Guardians, 12 June 1838, TNA: PRO MH 12/8781.

99 Copy of Extract from Minute Book of Bridgwater Board of Guardians, 8 June 1838, TNA: PRO MH 12/10244.

100 Copy of Extract from Minute Book of Bridgnorth Board of Guardians, 16 June 1838, TNA: PRO MH 12/9851. Unmarried mothers were also excluded from the Coronation Dinner hosted on the Workhouse Green in the Swaffham Union. See Digby, Pauper Palaces, 153.

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102 For roast beef in the workhouses on Victoria's wedding day, see Letter from John Jardine to PLC, 11 February 1840, TNA: PRO MH 12/11955; Letter from Chairman of Woodbridge Board of Guardians to PLC, 7 April 1840, TNA: PRO MH 12/12079; The Times, 20 February 1840, 3; Baxter, The Book of the Bastiles, 126; Hodgson, Borough of South Shields, 174.

103 Letter from PLC to Woodbridge Board of Guardians, 17 April 1840, TNA: PRO MH 12/12079; Circular Letter from Edwin Chadwick on Expense of Christmas Dinners in Workhouses, 18 March 1840, TNA: PRO MH 10/99.

104 Copy of Letter from PLC to Bourn Board of Guardians, 25 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/6658.

105 Ibid.

106 The Times, 23 December 1840, 3.

107 The Times, 25 December 1840, 6.

108 Letter from John Dallenger to PLC, 29 November 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/11935; Letter from Charles Hammond to PLC, 11 December 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/14598; The Times, 22 December 1846, 5; The Age, 27 December 1840, 415.

109 The Times, 16 December 1841, 3.

110 The Times, 25 December 1841, 6.

111 Letter from R.D. Thurgood to PLC, 29 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/3708; Letter from F. C. Inskipp to PLC, 21 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/12951; Copy of Letter from Auditor to Fareham Board of Guardians, 28 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/10768.

112 Copy of a Resolution of the Launceston Guardians, 23 December 1840, TNA: PRO MH 12/1407.

113 Stanley I. Richardson, A History of the Edmonton Poor Law Union, 1837–1854. Edmonton Hundred Historical Society, Occasional Papers New Series Number 8, n.d., 46.

114 Letter from Edward Senior to PLC, 29 December 1840, TNA: PRO MH 12/6422; Letter from Clerk of the Westbury-on-Severn Union to PLC, 16 December 1840, TNA: PRO MH 12/4236; Auditor's Report for Bosmere and Claydon, Stow, and Cosford, 2 February 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/11765.

115 Dudley Union, Copy of Correspondence Between the Guardians of Dudley Union and the Poor-Law Commissioners Respecting the Disallowance of the Money Paid for the Last Christmas-day Dinner Given to the Paupers, PP 1847 (276), 2.

116 Copy of Extract from Minute Book of Trowbridge Board of Guardians, 17 December 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/5372.

117 Letter from Clerk of the Bourn Union to PLC, 7 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/6658. Emphasis in original.

118 Ibid.

119 Dudley Union, 3.

120 Copy of Extract from Minute Book of Trowbridge Board of Guardians, 17 December 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/5372.

121 Letter from Chairman of the Crickhowel Guardians to PLC, 22 April 1840, TNA: PRO MH 12/15747.

122 Letter from R. Millner to PLC, 2 January 1838, TNA: PRO MH 12/14256.

123 Letter from Clerk of the Bourn Union to PLC, 7 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/6658.

124 Letter from Robert Sarjeant to PLC, 12 December 1846, TNA: PRO MH 12/14204.

125 The Age, 27 December 1840, 415.

126 Letter from Clerk of the Bourn Union to PLC, 7 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/6658.

127 Dudley Union, 1.

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130 Quoted in Poynter, Society and Pauperism, 323.

131 Brundage, English Poor Laws, 71; Nicholls, A History of the English Poor Law, 338.

132 Nicholls, A History of the English Poor Law, 340.

133 Letter from Clerk of the Bourn Union to PLC, 7 January 1841, TNA: PRO MH 12/6658. Emphasis in original.

134 Dudley Union, 4.

135 Brundage, English Poor Laws, 112.

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140 Report from the Select Committee on the Andover Union, PP 1846 (663), 368.

141 Baxter, The Book of the Bastiles, 130.

142 Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, appendix A, PP 1847–48 (960), 16.

143 Copy of Letter from PLC to Bridgwater Board of Guardians, 22 December 1843, TNA: PRO MH 12/10246.

144 Letter from Bolton Board of Guardians to PLB, 4 August 1855, TNA: PRO MH 12/5601.

145 Letter from J. O. Anwyl to PLB, 17 June 1864, TNA: PRO MH 12/16095.

146 Metropolitan Workhouses, PP 1850 (133), 104.

147 Miller, “Feeding in the Workhouse.”

148 Letter from Joseph Spencer to PLB, 24 September 1855, TNA: PRO MH 12/15474.

149 Letter from Thomas Henry Field to PLB, 15 May 1856, TNA: PRO MH 12/10647.

150 Appeal of South Molton Board of Guardians, 29 November 1856, TNA: PRO MH 12/2500.

151 Copy of Extract from Minute Book of Barnsley Board of Guardians, 24 May 1856, TNA: PRO MH 12/14677; Letter from District Auditor for Barnsley to PLB, 14 January 1857, TNA: PRO MH 12/14678.

152 The Times, 22 January 1858, 6.

153 Letter from Clerk to the Leominster Board of Guardians to PLB, 19 July 1858, TNA: PRO MH 12/4390; Letter from Chairman of the Sheffield Board of Guardians to PLB, 18 August 1858, TNA: PRO MH 12/15475; Letter from Clerk of the Wakefield Board of Guardians to PLB, 21 January 1858, TNA: PRO MH 12/15574.

154 Letter from Clerk to the Newport Union to PLB, 14 February 1863, TNA: PRO MH 12/8096.

155 Letter from Master of the Thorne Workhouse to PLB, 6 May 1863, TNA: PRO MH 12/15556.

156 Letter from Humphry England to PLB, undated, TNA: PRO MH 12/10384.

157 Letter from Kingston Board of Guardians to PLB, undated, TNA: PRO MH 12/14309.

158 Letter from District Auditor for Lincolnshire and Rutlandshire to PLB, 13 February 1863, TNA: PRO MH 12/6825.

159 For debates over continuity and change in poverty relief, see Michael E. Rose, The Relief of Poverty, 1834–1914 (Houndmills, 1986).

160 On the tensions between moral economy and political economy, see Jones, Gareth Stedman, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar; Thompson, Customs in Common.