Administration of the Old Poor Law

The rising cost of the poor rates combined with the occasional outbreak of unrest in the years after Waterloo led to a series of Parliamentary enquiries into the workings of the Poor Law. In 1817 evidence concerning Bedfordshire was provided for a Select Committee of the House of Lords by two county magistrates: the Rev. Hugh Wade-Gery of Eaton Socon, and William Wilshere, the Hitchin attorney and from Michaelmas 1817 Chairman of Bedfordshire Quarter Sessions.

Minutes of Evidence taken before the Lords Committees on the Poor Laws

14 May 1817 … The Reverend Hugh Wade Gery is called in; and having been sworn, is Examined, as follows:

You reside in the parish of Eaton Socon in Bedfordshire ? – I do.

Are you rector of the parish? – No, I am not.

You are an acting magistrate for that county? – I am; and also for the county of Huntingdon.

Can you speak to the effect of the poor laws in the northern part of the county of Bedford? – I can, in some measure …

How long have you resided in Bedfordshire? – Ever since the year 1797; I did not act as a magistrate for the first three or four years; I believe not till the year 1804 …

In applications that have been made to you as a magistrate, have not the poor applied for relief for their children? – Very frequently … We have generally allowed half a crown a head per week where the family consisted of five or six persons.

In calculating that half a crown per head, were the wages of the labourer and the earnings of each of the family taken into consideration? – Yes; the whole earnings of the family were included in the half crown; when the family has been small, not more than two or three, there a greater allowance is usually made than half a crown per head.

From your knowledge of the manner in which the labouring poor in Bedfordshire live, do not you know that the females particularly, and even the male young children in each family, are employed in lace-making? – Yes; a great many of them.

Does not the effect of that domestic manufacture add to the general earnings of the family? – Certainly.