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The Relief of Poverty in Mid Nineteenth-Century Colyton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Jean Robin
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Extract

The welfare state emerged in 1948 when the National Assistance Act finally abolished the New Poor Law Forty-two years later, as politicians and bureaucrats struggle to keep increasing expenditure within bounds, the existence of the welfare state in its present form is under threat. Just over 150 years ago, the Old Poor Law was presenting parish ratepayers with a similar problem of rising costs, leading in 1834 to a fundamental reorganisation into the New Poor Law It may therefore be profitable to see how effective in practice the New Poor Law was when it replaced a system widely regarded as profligate, and to consider the extent to which benefits payable through the welfare state were available a hundred years or more ago.

This study examines in detail how the New Poor Law, and other forms of relief, affected the whole population of the rural parish of Colyton, in south Devonshire, during the thirty years from 1851 to 1881. It will first describe the sources from which a poor person in Colyton in the mid nineteenth century could look for relief; next discuss how widespread poverty was and who the poor were; then look at what kinds of relief were available, under what conditions; and finally assess the comparative importance to the poor of the different agencies providing assistance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1990 , pp. 193 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

Notes

1 In spite of the costs of the present system of welfare payments, Thomson has already shown that the value of pensions paid to the elderly during the first thirty years of the New Poor Law as a proportion of the average gross incomes of manual workers was almost double its level in the 1980s. (Thomson, D, ‘The decline of social security falling state support for the elderly since early Victorian times’, Ageing and Society 4 (1984) 451–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; while Snell and Millar have demonstrated a similar diminution in relative value of welfare payments to single-parent families between the time of the Old Poor Law and the present day (Snell, K.D.M. and Millar, J., ‘Lone-parent families and the Welfare State: past and present’, Continuity and Change 2:3 (1987) 387–422.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 White, R., The History of the Feoffees of Colyton, 1546–1946 (Bridport, 1951) p. 2.Google Scholar

3 Feoffees of Colyton, 17/7 Minutes and order book, 1765–1853. 27.9.1852.

4 In this respect, the Colyton guardians seem to have differed from those described by Fraser in D, Fraser, ed., The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1976)Google Scholar, ‘Introduction’ p. 19, who, far from being ‘malleable pawns in the hands of despotic commissioners’ retained considerable powers of discretion in their own hands.

5 This dovetailing of the activities of the local Poor Law authorities and the feoffees was in marked contrast to the position in some densely populated urban areas. See Rose, M.E., The English Poor Law, 1780–1930 (Newton Abbott, 1970) pp. 222–226.Google Scholar

6 Parliamentary Papers L, H.M.S.O. 1861, 589

7 P.R.O 15/1177 Rules of the Colyton Mutual Provident Society, 25.6.1849

8 Feoffees of Colyton, 17/3. Treasurer's book of payments to the poor, 1825–73.

9 Some writers on the New Poor Law consider that it did not succeed in its intention of stopping grants of outdoor relief to the able-bodied poor, and that the allowance system of the Old Poor Law, which supplemented low wages according to a fixed scale, still continued under the New Poor Law, but in the modified form of irregular payments of outdoor relief, often disguised as sickness benefits (see particularly Rose, M.E., ‘The allowance system under the New Poor Law’, Economic History Review 1966, 607–620Google Scholar and Digby, A., Pauper Palaces (London 1978) p. 6)Google Scholar. Although it is improbable that such disguised payments were never made in Colyton, there is some evidence to suggest that the great bulk of outdoor relief for sickness was genuine. A comparison of the proportions of relief paid out at different times of the year by the guardians and the feoffees to men for the illness of themselves, their wives (excluding confinements) and their children, shows no very great discrepancies. If we take all the sickness payments made by both bodies between 1851 and 1873, we find that the guardians made 25 per cent of their payments from June to September, the period when unemployment, and therefore disguised payments, would have been at their lowest, compared to the feoffees’ 27 per cent. The corresponding figures for October to January were guardians, 35 per cent, feoffees 28 per cent; and for February to May, guardians 40 per cent and feoffees 45 per cent. The feoffees had no reason whatever to disguise relief under the heading of sickness, being free to relieve distress as they chose, so it seems reasonable to assume that their sickness payments, and correspondingly those of the guardians, genuinely reflected the distribution of illness in Colyton throughout the year.

10 D.R.O Axminster Union Minute Books 7–13, 28.9.1849–29.12.1881.

11 D.R.O P.O. 14 Colyton.

12 D.R.O. P.O. 22 and P.O 46 Colyton.

13 Burial book, Colyton, 25.2.1865–17.6.1902, held by Colyton Parish Council.

14 Webb, S. and Webb, B., English Local Government. English Poor Law History, Part II The Last Hundred Years. Vol.1 (London, 1929) p. 276.Google Scholar

15 Seebohm Rowntree, B., Poverty and Progress, (London, 1941) p. 155–67Google Scholar

16 As Snell and Millar point out, relief ‘as of right’ has a long tradition in this country, even though with a different rationale than today See Snell, K.D.M. and Millar, J., ‘Lone parent families’Google Scholar

17 General Consolidated Order, 24.7.1847 See Dumsday, W, The Relieving Officer's Handbook, 1st edn. (London, 1902) p. 37Google Scholar

18 D.R.O. A.U.M.B. 9, 7.8.1863.

19 D.R.O. A.U.M.B. 12, 6.1.1876 and 20.1.76.

20 G.C.O. 1847; Dumsday, , Relieving Officer's Handbook, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

21 D.R.O. A.U.M.B. 8, 2.9.1856.

22 D.R.O A.U.M.B. 9, 26.2.1858.

23 D.R.O. P.O. 14 Colyton, 20.7.1859

24 D.R.O A.U.M.B. 8, 6.6.1856.

25 Out Relief Prohibitory Order, 21.12.1844; Dumsday, , Relieving Officer's Handbook, p. 66.Google Scholar

26 G.C.O., 1847; Dumsday, , Relieving Officer's Handbook, p. 30.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., pp. 4–12.

28 Flinn, M.W, ‘Medical Services Under The New Poor Law’ in Fraser, , ed., The New Poor Law, p. 58.Google Scholar

29 Feoffees, 17/7, 20.8.1858.

30 Ibid., 17.5.1872.

31 See particularly Thomson, ‘The decline of social security’, ‘Provision for the elderly in England, 1830–1908’ Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Cambridge University (1980)Google Scholar; Thomson, ‘Workhouse to nursing home: residential care of elderly people in England since 1840’, Ageing and Society 3 (1983) 43–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomson, ‘I am not my father's keeper’ Law and History Review 2:2 (1984) 265–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Welfare and the historians’ in Bonfield, L., Smith, R. and Wrightson, K., eds., The World We Have Gained, (Oxford, 1986) pp. 355–78.Google Scholar

32 Only men are considered here because married women were not treated separately but received any relief payable to them through their husbands, so that evidence for them is not available until widowhood. Widows are treated as a separate category later (see p. 209).

33 This is somewhat at variance with Thomson's view that ‘the establishment of pensionable age of 70 in 1908 set a definition of old age that was higher than it appears ever to have been considered before or since’, (‘Provision’ p. 7), and that 60 years was the generally accepted point of entry into old age.

34 D.R.O A.U.M.B. 9, 5.6.1864.

35 Thomson, , ‘Provision’, p. 77Google Scholar

36 G.C.O 1847; Dumsday, , Relieving Officer's Handbook, p. 31.Google Scholar

37 The position in Colyton contrasts strongly with that in Norfolk, as described by Digby, , Pauper Palaces, p. 227Google Scholar, who infers that farm labourers were required to support their elderly parents, in spite of the low wages they received.

38 D.R.O A.U.M.B. 12, 20.6.1878, 4.7.1878, 18.7.1878, 1.8.1878, 21.11.1878.

39 O.R.P O 1844, see Ibid., 30.

40 Feoffees, 17/7 4.1.1875.

41 Webb, S. B., English Local Government, p. 58.Google Scholar

42 O.R.P.O 1844; Dumsday, , Relieving Officer's Handbook, p. 65.Google Scholar

43 McCord, N., ‘The Poor Law and philanthropy’ in Fraser, , ed., The New Poor Law, pp. 100–105.Google Scholar

44 Feoffees 17/7, 2.2.1855, 7.2.1855 and 13.2.1855.

45 Ibid., 27.12.1855.

46 Ibid., 28.12.1870.

47 Ibid., 6.1.1870.

48 Ibid., 15.2.1872.

49 Ibid., 14.8.1852 and 4.11.1859; 4.10.1852; 5.5.1858.

50 Dumsday, , Relieving Officer's Handbook, p. 84.Google Scholar

51 For examples see D.R.O P.O. 14 Colyton, 5.4.1852; and Feoffees 17/7, 16.6.54, 16.5.1867 and 28.5.1873.

52 Digby, A., ‘The Rural Poor Law’ in Fraser, , ed., The New Poor Law, pp. 161–2.Google Scholar

53 Local Government Board Circular, 23.5.1879; Dumsday, , Relieving Officers’ Handbook, pp. 48–9Google Scholar

54 D.R.O P.O. 14 Colyton, 25.2.1854, 13.7.1855 and 8.11.1855.

55 D.R.O P.O. 14 Colyton, 24.2.1852.

56 Ibid., 9.11.1854.

57 D.R.O A.U.M.B. 12, 20.7.1876.

58 White, , Feoffees, p. 10.Google Scholar

59 Feoffees, 17/14, 4.3.1861.

60 Dumsday, , Relieving Officer's Handbook, p. 54.Google Scholar

61 Feoffees, 17/7, 11.2.1864.

62 Ibid., 6.6.1851 and 11.7.1964.

63 D.R.O A.U.M.B. 9 and 10.

64 Direct payments to the poor accounted for less than a third of the feoffees’ expenditure, the greater part of which went on the running costs of the free school; on maintaining the town's water supply and street lighting; on upkeep of the trust's properties in Colyton, Ottery St. Mary and Honiton, and on rates and taxes. At this period in their history, the feoffees spent nothing on their own entertainment and, as already pointed out, they were not themselves allowed to receive any assistance from the trust.

65 Feoffees, 17/3.

66 Feoffees, 17/7, 11.2.1876.