Chapter VII: Part VI: After the Reformation (1)

The Reformation theory of charity.

During the Reformation, which extended, it should be understood, from the middle of the 14th century to the reign of James I., the groundwork of the theory of charity was being recast. The old system and the narrow theory on which it had come to depend were discredited. The recoil is startling. To a very large extent charitable administration had been in the hands of men and women who, as an indispensable condition to their participation in it, took the vows of obedience, chastity and "wilful" poverty. Now this was all entirely set aside. It was felt (see _Homilies on Faith and Good Works, &c._, A.D. 1547) that socially and morally the method had been a failure. The vow of obedience, it was argued, led to a general disregard of the duties of civic and family life. Those who bound themselves by it were outside the state and did not serve it. In regard to chastity the _Homily_ states the common opinion: "How the profession of chastity was kept, it is more honesty to pass over in silence and let the world judge of what is well known." As to wilful poverty, the regulars, it is urged, were not poor, but rich, for they were in possession of much wealth. Their property, it is true, was held _in communi_, and not personally, but nevertheless it was practically theirs, and they used it for their personal enjoyment; and "for all their riches they might never help father nor mother, nor others that were indeed very needy and poor, without the license of their father abbot" or other head. This was the negative position. The positive was found in the doctrine of justification--the central point in the discussions of the time, a plant from the garden of St Augustine. Justification was the personal conviction of a lively (or living) faith, and was defined as "a true trust and confidence of the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and a stedfast hope of all good things to be received at His hands." Without this justification there could be no good works. They were the signs of a lively faith and grew out of it. Apart from it, what seemed to be "good works" were of the nature of sin, phantom acts productive of nothing, "birds that were lost, unreal." So were the works of pagans and heretics. The relation of almsgiving to religion was thus entirely altered. The personal reward here or hereafter to the actor was eliminated. The deed was good only in the same sense in which the doer was good; it had in itself no merit. This was a great gain, quite apart from any question as to the sufficiency or insufficiency of the Protestant scheme of salvation. The deed, it was realized, was only the outcome of the doer, the expression of himself, what he was as a whole, neither better nor worse. Logically this led to the discipline of the intelligence and the emotions, and undoubtedly "justification" to very many was only consistent with such discipline and implied it. Thus under a new guise the old position of charity reasserted itself. But there were other differences.

The relation of charity to prayer, fasting, almsgiving and penance was
altsred. The prayerful contemplation of the Christ was preserved in
the mysticism of Protestantism; but it was dissociated from the
"historic Christ," from the fervent idealization of whom St Francis
drew his inspiration and his active charitable impulse. The tradition
did not die out, however. It remained with many, notably with George
Herbert, of whom it made, not unlike St Francis, a poet as well as a
practical parish priest; but the absence of it indicated in much
post-Reformation endeavour a want, if not of devotion, yet of
intensity of feeling which may in part account for the fact that
sectarianism in relief has since proved itself stronger than charity,
instead of yielding to charity as its superior and its organizer.
Fasting was parted from prayer and almsgiving. It was "a thing not of
its own proper nature good as the love of father or mother or
neighbour, but according to its end." Almsgiving also as a "work"
disappeared and with it a whole series of inducements that from the
standpoint of the pecuniary and material supply of relief had long
been active. It was no wonder that the preachers advocated it in vain,
and reproached their hearers with their diminished bounty to the poor;
the old personal incentive had gone, and could only gradually be
superseded by the spontaneous activity of personal religion very
slowly wedding itself to true views of social duty and purpose.
Penance, once so closely related to almsgiving, passed out of sight.
Charity, the love of God and our neighbour, had two offices, it was
said, "to cherish good and harmless men" and "to correct and punish
vice without regard to persons." Correction as a means of discipline
takes the place of penance, and it becomes judicial, regulating and
controlling church membership by the authority of the church, a
congregation, minister or elder; or dealing with laziness or ill-doing
through the municipality or state, in connexion with what now first
appear, not prisons, but houses of correction.

The religious life was to be democratic--not in religious bodies, but in the whole people; and in a new sense--in relation to family and social life--it was to be moral. That was the significance of the Reformation for charity.

The organization of municipal relief.

Consistently with this movement of religious activity towards a complete fulfilment of the duties of civic life, the older classical social theory, fostered by the Renaissance, assumed a new influence--the great conception of the state as a community bound together by charity and friendship, "We be not born to ourselves," it was said, "but partly to the use of our country, of our parents, of our kinsfolk, and partly of our friends and neighbours; and therefore all good virtues are grafted on us naturally, whose effects be to do good to others, when it showeth forth the image of God in man, whose property is ever to do good to others" (Lamond, p. 14). Economic theory also changed. Instead of the medieval opinion of the "theologian or social preacher," that "trade could only be defended on the ground that honestly conducted it made no profit" (Green, ii. 71), we have a recognition of the advantages resulting from exchange, and individual interests, it is argued, are not necessarily inconsistent with those of the state, but are, on the contrary, a source of solid good to the whole community.

Municipal laws for the suppression of the mendicity of the able-bodied
and the organization of relief on behalf of the infirm were common in
England and on the continent (Colmar, 1362; Nuremberg, 1478;
Strassburg, 1523; London, 1514). Vives (Ehrle, _Beitrage zur
Geschichte und Reform der Armenpflege_, p. 26), a Spaniard, who had
been at the court of Henry VIII., in a book translated into several
languages and widely read, seems to have summed up the thought of the
time in regard to the management of the poor. He divided them into
three classes: those in hospitals and poor-houses, the public homeless
beggars and the poor at home. He would have a census taken of the
number of each class in the town, and information obtained as to the
causes of their distress. Then he would establish a central
organization of relief under the magistrates. Work was to be supplied
for all, while begging was strictly forbidden. Non-settled poor who
were able-bodied were to be sent to their homes. Able-bodied settled
poor who knew no craft were to be put on some public work--the
undeserving being set to hard labour. For others work was to be found,
or they were to be assisted to become self-supporting. The hospitals
provided with medical advice and necessaries were to be classified to
meet the needs of the sick, the blind and lunatics. The poor living at
home were to work with a view to their self-support. What they earned,
if insufficient, might be supplemented. If a citizen found a case of
distress he was not to help it, but to send it for inquiry to the
magistrate. Children were to be taught. Private relief was to be
obtained from the rich. The funds of endowed charities were to be the
chief source of income; if more was wanted, bequests and church
collections would suffice. The scheme was put in force in Ypres in
1524. The Sorbonne approved it, and similar plans were adopted in
Paris and elsewhere. It is in outline the scheme of London municipal
charity promoted by Edward VI., by which the poor were classified, St
Bartholomew's and St Thomas's hospitals appropriated for the sick,
Christ's hospital for the children of the poor, and Bridewell for the
correction of the able-bodied. Less the institutional arrangements and
plus the compulsory rate, the methods are those of the Poor Relief Act
of Queen Elizabeth of 1601. At first the attempt had been made to
introduce state relief in reliance on voluntary alms (1 Mary 13, 5
Eliz. 3, 1562-1563), subject to the right of assessment if alms were
refused. But the position was anomalous. Charity is voluntary, and
spontaneously meets the demands of distress. Such demands have always
a tendency to increase with the supply. Hence the very limitations of
charitable finance are in the nature of a safeguard. At most economic
trouble can only be assuaged by relief, and it can only be met or
prevented by economic and social reforms. If a compulsory rate be not
enforced, as in Scotland and formerly in some parishes in England, a
voluntary rate may be made in supplementation of the local charities.
In Scotland, where the compulsory clauses of the Poor Relief Act of
James I. were not put in force, the country weathered the storm
without them, and the compulsory rate, which was extended throughout
the country by the Poor Act of 1844, came in very slowly in the 18th
and 19th centuries. In France (1566) a similar act was passed and set
aside. If a compulsory rate be enforced, it is inevitable that the
resources of charity, unless kept apart from the poor-law and
administered on different lines from it, will diminish, and at the
same time, as has happened often in the case of endowed charities, the
interest in charitable administration will lapse, while the charges
for poor-law relief, drawn without much scruple from the taxation of
the community, will mount to millions either to meet increasing
demands or to provide more elaborate institutional accommodation. The
principle once adopted, it was enacted (1572-1573) that the aged and
infirm should be cared for by the overseers of the poor, a new
authority; and in 1601 the duplicate acts were passed, that for the
relief of the poor (43 Eliz. 2), and that for the furtherance and
protection of endowed charities. Thus the poor were brought into the
dependence of a legally recognized class, endowed with a claim for
relief, on the fulfilment of which, after a time, they could without
difficulty insist if they were so minded. The civic authority had
indeed taken over the alms of the parish, and an _eleemosyna civica_
had taken the place of the _annona civica_. It was a similar system
under a different name.

Poor Relief Acts and statutory serfdom.

A phrase of Robert Cecil's (1st earl of Salisbury) indicates the minute domestic character of the Elizabethan legislation (D'Ewes, 674). The question (1601) was the repeal of a statute of tillage. Cecil says: "If in Edward I.'s time a law was made for the maintenance of the fry of fish, and in Henry VII.'s for the preservation of the eggs of wild fowl, shall we now throw away a law of more consequence and import? If we debar tillage, we give scope to the depopulating. And then, if the poor being thrust out of their houses go to dwell with others, straight we catch them with the statute of inmates; if they wander abroad, they are within the danger of the statute of the poor to be whipt. So by this undo this statute, and you endanger many thousands." A strong central government, a local authority appointed directly by the government, and a network of legislation controlled the whole movement of economic life. On this reliance was placed to meet economic difficulties. The local authorities were the justices of the peace; and they had to carry out the statutes for this purpose, to assess the wages of artisans and labourers, and to enforce the payment of the wages they had fixed; to ensure that suitable provision was made for the relief of the poor at the expense of rates which they also fixed; and to suppress vagabondage. Since 23 Edw. III. there had been labour statutes, and in 1563 a new statute was passed, an "Act containing divers orders for Artificers, Labourers, Servants of Husbandry and Apprentices" (5 Eliz. c. 4). It recognized and upheld a social classification. On the one hand there was the gentleman or owner of property to which the act was not to apply; and on the other the artisan and labouring class. This class in turn was subdivided, and the justices were to assess their wages annually according to "the plenty and scarcity of the time and other circumstances." Persons between the ages of twelve and sixty, who were not apprentices or engaged in certain specified employments, were compelled to serve in husbandry by the year "with any person that keepeth husbandry." The length of the day's work and the conditions of apprenticeship were fixed. The assessed rate of wages was enforceable by fine and imprisonment, and refusal to be apprenticed by imprisonment. Thus there was created a life control over labour with an industrial settlement and a wage fixed by the justices annually. There are differences of opinion in regard to the extent to which this act was enforced; and the evidence on the point is comparatively scanty. It was enforced throughout the century in which it was passed, and it probably continued in force generally until the Restoration, while subsequently it was put in operation to meet special emergencies, such as times of distress when some settlement of wages seemed desirable (cf. Rogers, v. 611; Hewins, _English Trade and Finance_, p. 82; Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce: Modern Times_, i. 168). It was not repealed till 1814.

From 1585 to 1622 there was, it is said, a slight increase in labourers' wages, which fluctuated from 5s. 3/8d. to 5s. 8-1/4d. a week, with a declining standard of comfort and at times great distress. Then there was a marked increase of wage till 1662 and "a very marked improvement; the rate of increase being very nearly double that of the earlier periods," and reaching 9s., "as the highest weekly rate for the whole period." Then from 1662 to 1702 there was "a slight improvement" (Hewins, p. 89). It would seem indeed that the stir of the times between 1622 and 1662 may have caused a great demand for labour. But with the Restoration, when the assessment system was falling into desuetude, came the Poor Relief Act of 1662 (13 & 14 Car. II. cap. 62), which brought in the law of settlement, and a settlement for relief of a very strict nature was added to the industrial settlement of the Artificers and Labourers Act. Thus, if the influence of that act, which had so long controlled labour, was waning, its place was now taken by an act which, though it had nothing to do with the assessment of wage, yet so settled the labourer within the bounds of his parish that he had practically to rely, if not upon a wage fixed by the justices, yet upon a customary wage limited and restricted as a result of the law of settlement. And the assessment by the justices, in so far as it may have continued, would therefore be of little or no consequence. Settlement also, like the Artificers and Labourers Act, would prevent the country labourer from passing to the towns, or the townsmen passing to other towns. At least they would do so at the risk of forfeiting their right to relief if they lost their settlement without acquiring a new one. Hence the industrial control, though under another name and other conditions, remained in force to a large extent in practice.

By the Artificers and Labourers Act then, in conjunction with other measures, the labouring classes were finally committed to a new bondage, when they had freed themselves from the serfdom of feudalism, and when the control exercised over them by the gild and municipality was relaxed. The statute was so enforced that to earn a year's livelihood would have taken a labourer not 52 weeks, but sometimes two years, or 58 weeks, or 80 weeks, or 72 weeks; sometimes, however, less--48 or 35. It followed that on such a system the country could only with the utmost good fortune free itself from the economic difficulties of the century, and that the need of a poor-law was felt the more as these difficulties persisted. A voluntary or a municipal system could not suffice, even as a palliative, while such statutes as these were in force to render labour immobile and unprogressive. Also, while wages were fixed by statute or order, whether chiefly in the interest of the employers or not, obviously any shortage on the wages had to be made good by the community. The community, by fixing the wages to be earned in a livelihood, made itself responsible for their sufficiency. And it is suggestive to find that in the year in which the Artificers and Labourers Act (1563) was passed, the act for the enforcement of assessments of poor-rate (5 Eliz. cap. 3) was also enacted. The Law of Settlement, to which we have referred, passed in the reign of Charles II., was due, it is said, to a migration of labourers southward from counties where less favourable statutory wages prevailed; but it was, in fact, only a corollary of the Artificers and Labourers Act of 1563 and the Poor Relief Act of 1601. These laws, it may be said, were the means of making the English labourer, until the poor-law reform of 1834, a settled but landless serf, supported by a fixed wage and a state bounty. By the poor-law it was possible to continue this state of things till, in consequence of an absolute economic breakdown, there was no alternative but reform.

The philanthropic nature of the poor-law is indicated by its antecedents: once enacted, its bounties became a right; its philanthropy disappeared in a quasi-legal claim. Its object was to relieve the poor by home industries, apprentice children, and provide necessary relief to the poor unable to work. The act was commonly interpreted so as to include the whole of that indefinite class, the "poor"; by a better and more rigid interpretation it was, at least in the 19th century, held to apply only to the "destitute," that is, to those who required "necessary relief"--according to the actual wording of the statute. The economic fallacy of home industries founded on rate-supplied capital early declared itself, and the method could only have continued as long as it did because it formed part of a general system of industrial control. When in the 18th century workhouses were established, the same industrial fallacy, as records show, repeated itself under new conditions. Within the parish it resulted in the farmer paying the labourer as small a wage as possible, and leaving the parish to provide whatever he might require in addition during his working life and in his old age. Thus, indeed, a gigantic experiment in civic employment was made for at least two centuries on a vast scale throughout the country--and failed. As was natural, the lack of economic independence reacted on the morals of the people. With pauperism came want of energy, idleness and a disregard for chastity and the obligations of marriage. The law, it is true, recognized the mutual obligations of parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren; but in the general poverty which it was itself a means of perpetuating such obligations became practically obsolete, while at all times they are difficult to enforce. Still, the fact that they were recognized implies a great advance in charitable thought. The act, passed at first from year to year, was very slowly put in force. Even before it was passed the poor-rate first assessed under the act of 1563 was felt to be "a greater tax than some subsidies," and in the time of Charles II. it amounted to a third of the revenue of England and Wales (Rogers, v. 81).

The service of villein and cottar was, as we have now seen, in part superseded by what we have called a statutory wage-control, founded on a basis of wage supplemented by relief, provided by a rate-supported poor-law. But it follows that with the decay of this system the poor-law itself should have disappeared, or should have taken some new and very limited form. Unfortunately, as in Roman times, state relief proved to be a popular and vigorous parasite that outlived the tree on which it was rooted: assessments of wage under the Statute of Labourers fell into disuse after the Restoration, it is said, and the statute was finally repealed in 1814, and sixty years later the act against illegal combinations of working men; but the serfdom of the poor-law, the _eleemosyna civica_, remained, to work the gravest evil to the labouring classes, and even after the reform of 1834 greatly impeded the recovery of their independence. Nevertheless, by a new law of state alms for the aged, or by statutory outdoor relief with, as some would wish, a regulated wage, it is now proposed to bring them once again under a thraldom similar to that from which they have so slowly emancipated themselves.

The endowed charities.

The policy adopted by Queen Elizabeth for the relief of the poor (1601) included a scheme for the reorganization of voluntary charity as well as plans for the extension of rate-aided relief. During the century, as we have seen, endeavours had been made to create a system of voluntary charity. This it was proposed to safeguard and promote concurrently with the extension of the poor-rate. Accordingly, in the poor-law it was arranged that the overseers, the new civic authority, and the churchwardens, the old parochial and charitable authority, should act in conjunction, and, subject to magisterial approval, together "raise weekly or otherwise" the necessary means "by taxation of every inhabitant." The old charitable organization was based on endowment, and the churchwarden was responsible for the administration of many such endowments. What was not available from these and other sources was to be raised "by taxation." The object of the new act was to encourage charitable gifts.

Towards the end of the 18th century, when the administration of poor relief fell into confusion, many charities were lost, or were in danger of being lost, and many were mismanaged. In 1786 and 1788 a committee of the House of Commons reported on the subject. In 1818, chiefly through the instrumentality of Lord Brougham, a commission of inquiry on educational charities was appointed, and in 1819 another commission to investigate (with some exceptions) all the charities for the poor in England and Wales. These and subsequent commissions continued their inquiries till 1835, when a select committee of the House of Commons made a strong report, advocating the establishment of a permanent and independent board, to inquire, to compel the production of accounts, to secure the safe custody of charity property, to adapt it to new uses on cy-pres lines, &c. A commission followed in 1849, and eventually in 1853 the first Charitable Trusts Act was passed, under which "The Charity Commissioners of England and Wales" were appointed.

The following are details of importance:--(1) _Definition._--The
definition of the act of 1601 (Charitable Uses, 43 Eliz. 4) still
holds good. It enumerates as charitable objects all that was once
called "alms": (a) "The relief of aged, impotent and poor people"--the
normal poor; "the maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers and
mariners"--the poor chiefly by reason of war, sometime a class of
privileged mendicants; (b) education, "schools of learning, free
schools and scholars in universities"; and then (c) a group of objects
which include general civic and religious purposes, and the charities
of gilds and corporations; "the repair of bridges, ports, havens,
causeways, churches, sea-banks and highways; the education and
preferment of orphans; the relief, stock, or maintenance for houses of
correction; marriages of poor maids, supportation, aid, and help of
young tradesmen, handicraftsmen, and persons decayed"; and there
follows (d) "the relief or redemption of prisoners or captives"; and,
lastly, (e) "the aid and ease of any poor inhabitants concerning
payment of fifteens" (the property-tax of Tudor times), setting out of
soldiers, and other taxes. The definition might be illustrated by the
charitable bequests of the next 60, or indeed 225, years. It is a fair
summary of them. (2) _Charitable Gifts._--A public trust and a
charitable trust are, as this definition shows, synonymous. It is a
trust which relates to public charities, and is not held for the
benefit of private persons, e.g. relations, but for the common good,
and, subject to the instructions of the founder, by trustees
responsible to the community. Gifts for charitable purposes, other
than those affected by the law of mortmain, have always been viewed
with favour. "Where a charitable bequest is capable of two
constructions, one of which would make it void and the other would
make it effectual, the latter will be adopted by the court" (Tudor's
_Charitable Trusts_, ed. 1906, by Bristowe, Hunt and Burdett, p. 167).
Gifts to the poor, or widows, or orphans, indefinitely, or in a
particular parish, were valid under the act, or for any purpose or
institution for the aid of the "poor." Thus practically the act
covered the same field as the poor-law, though afterwards it was
decided that, "as a rule, persons receiving parochial relief were not
entitled to the benefit of a charity intended for the poor" (Tudor, p.
167). (3) _Religious Differences._--In the administration of charities
which are for the poor the broadest view is taken of religious
differences. (4) _Superstitious Uses._--The superstitious use is one
that has for its object the propagation of the rights of a religion
not tolerated by the law (Tudor, p. 4). Consequently, so far as
charities were held or left subject to such rights, they were illegal,
or became legal only as toleration was extended. Thus by degrees,
since the Toleration Act of 1688, all charities to dissenters have
become legal--that is, trusts for schools, places for religious
instruction, education and charitable purposes generally. But bequests
for masses for the soul of the donor, or for monastic orders, are
still void. (5) _Administration._--The duty of administering
charitable trusts falls upon trustees or corporations, and under the
term "eleemosynary corporations" are included endowed hospitals and
colleges. Under schemes of the Charity Commissioners, where charities
have been remodelled, besides trustees elected by corporations, there
are now usually appointed _ex-officio_ trustees who represent some
office or institution of importance in connexion with the charity. (6)
_Jurisdiction by Chancery and Charity Commission._--The Court of
Chancery has jurisdiction over charities, under the old principle that
"charities are trusts of a public nature, in regard to which no one is
entitled by an immediate and peculiar interest to prefer a complaint
for compelling the performance by the trustees of their obligations."
The court, accordingly, represents the crown as _parens patriae_. Now,
by the Charitable Trusts Act 1853, and subsequent acts, a charity
commission has been formed which is entrusted with large powers,
formerly enforced only by the Court of Chancery. (7) _Jurisdiction by
Visitor._--A further jurisdiction is by the "visitor," a right
inherent in the founder of any eleemosynary corporation, and his
heirs, or those whom he appoints, or in their default, the king. The
object of the visitor is "to prevent all perverting of the charity, or
to compose differences among members of the corporation." Formerly the
bishop's ordinary was the recognized visitor (2 Henry V. I, 1414) of
hospitals, apart from the founder. Subsequently his power was limited
(14 Eliz. c. 5, 1572) to hospitals for which the founders had
appointed no visitors. Then (1601) by the Charitable Uses Act
commissions were issued for inquiry by county juries. Now, apart from
the duty of visitors, inquiry is conducted by the charity
commissioners and the assistant commissioners. By subsequent acts (see
below) ecclesiastical and eleemosynary charities have been still
further separated and defined. (8) _Advice._--"Trustees, or other
persons concerned in the management of a charity, may apply to the
charity commissioners for their opinion, advice or direction; and any
person acting under such advice is indemnified, unless he has been
guilty of misrepresentation in obtaining it." (9) _Limitation of
Charity Commissioners' Powers_,--The commissioners cannot, however,
make any order with respect to any charity of which the gross annual
income amounts to L50 or upwards, except on the application (in
writing) of the trustees or a majority of them. Their powers are thus
very limited, except when put in motion by the trustees. If a parish
is divided they can apportion the charities if the gross income does
not exceed L20. (10) _General Powers of the Charity
Commission._--Subject to the limitation of L50, &c., the charity
commissioners have power (Charitable Trusts Act 1860) to make orders
for the appointment or removal of trustees, or of any officer, and for
the transfer, payment and vesting of any real or personal estate, or
"for the establishment of any scheme for the administration" of the
charity, (11) _Schemes and Remodelling of Charities._--Under this
power charities are remodelled, and small and miscellaneous charities
put into one fund and applied to new purposes. The cy-pres doctrine is
applied, by which if a testator leaves directions that are only
indefinite, or if the objects for which a charity was founded are
obsolete, the charity is applied to some purpose, as far as possible,
in accordance with the charitable intention of the founder. This
doctrine probably received its widest application in the City of
London Parochial Charities Act of 1883. Under other acts doles have
been applied to education and to allotments. About 380 schemes are
issued in the course of a year. (12) _Objects adopted in remodelling
Charities._--In the remodelling of charities for the general benefit
of the poor some one or more of thirteen objects are usually included
in the scheme. These are subscriptions to a medical charity, to a
provident club or coal or clothing society, to a friendly society; for
nurses, for annuities, for outfit for service, &c.; for emigration;
for recreation grounds, clubs, reading-rooms, museums, lectures; for
temporary relief to a limited amount in each year; for clothes fuel,
tools, medical aid, food, &c., or in money "in cases of unexpected
loss or sudden destitution"; for pensions. (13) _Parochial
Charities._--By the Local Government Act of 1892, local ecclesiastical
charities, i.e. endowments for "any spiritual purpose that is a
legal purpose" (for spiritual persons, church and other buildings, for
spiritual uses, &c.), are separated from parochial charities, "the
benefits of which are, or the separate distribution of the benefits of
which is, confined to inhabitants of a single parish, or of a single
ancient ecclesiastical parish, or not more than five neighbouring
parishes." These charities, since the Local Government Act 1894, are
under the supervision of the parish councils, who appoint trustees for
their management in lieu of the former overseer or vestry trustees,
or, under certain conditions, "additional trustees." The accounts have
to be submitted to the parish meeting, and the names of the
beneficiaries of dole charities published. (14) _Official
Trustees._--There is also "an official trustee of charity lands," who
as "bare trustee" may hold the land or stock of the charity managed by
the trustees or administrators. In 1905 the stock transferred to the
official trustees amounted to L24,820,945. (15) _Audit_.--The charity
commissioners have no power of audit, but the trustees of every
charity have to prepare a statement of accounts annually, and transmit
it to the commission. The accounts have to be "certified under the
hand of one or more of the trustees and by the auditor of the
charity." (16) _Taxation_.--In the case of rents and profits of lands,
&c., belonging to hospitals or almshouses, or vested in trustees for
charitable purposes, allowances are made in diminution of income-tax
(56 Vict. 35 S 61). From the inhabited house duty any hospital charity
school, or house provided for the reception or relief of poor persons,
is exempted (House Tax Act 1808). Also there is an exemption from the
land-tax in regard to land rents, &c., in possession of hospitals
before 1693. (17) _The Digest._--A digest of endowed charities in
England and Wales was compiled in the years 1861 to 1876. A new digest
of reports and financial particulars has since been completed.

The income of endowed charities in 1876 was returned at L2,198,463. It
is now, no doubt, considerably larger than it was in 1876. Partial
returns show that at least a million a year is now available in
England and Wales for the assistance of the aged poor and for doles.
Between the poor-law, which, as it is at present administered, is a
permanent endowment provided from the rates for the support of a class
of permanent "poor," and endowed charities, which are funds available
for the poor of successive generations, there is no great difference.
But in their resources and administration the difference is marked.
Local endowed charities were constantly founded after Queen
Elizabeth's time till about 1830, and the poor-rate was at first
supplementary of the local charities. When corn and fuel were dear and
clothes very expensive, what now seem trivial endowments for food,
fuel, coal and clothes were important assets in the thrifty management
of a parish. But when the poor were recognized as a class of
dependants entitled by law to relief from the community, the rate
increased out of all proportion to the charities. A distinction then
made itself felt between the "parish" poor and the "second" poor, or
the poor who were not relieved from the rates, and relief from the
rates altogether overshadowed the charitable aid. Charitable
endowments were ignored, ill-administered, and often were lost. After
1834 the poor-law was brought under the control of the central
government. Poor relief was placed in the hands of boards of guardians
in unions of parishes. The method of co-operation between poor-law and
charity suggested by the acts of Queen Elizabeth was set aside, and,
as a responsible partner in the public work of relief, charity was
disestablished. In the parishes the endowed charities remained in
general a disorganized medley of separate trusts, jealously guarded by
incompetent administrators. To give unity to this mass of units, so
long as the principles of charity are misunderstood or ignored, has
proved an almost impossible and certainly an unpopular task. So far as
it has been achieved, it has been accomplished by the piecemeal
legislation of schemes cautiously elaborated to meet local prejudices.
Active reform has been resented, and politicians have often
accentuated this resentment. In 1894 a select committee was appointed
to inquire whether it was desirable to take measures to bring the
action of the Charity Commission more directly under the control of
parliament, but no serious grievances were substantiated. The
committees' reports are of interest, however, as an indication of the
initial difficulties of all charitable work, the general ignorance
that prevails in regard to the elementary conditions that govern it,
the common disregard of these principles, and the absence of any
accepted theory or constructive policy that should regulate its
development and its administration.

Charity in the parish after 1601.

After the Poor-Law Act of 1601 the history of the voluntary parochial charities in a town parish is marked by their decreasing amount and utility, as poor-law relief and pauperism increased. The act, it would seem, was not adopted with much alacrity by the local authorities. From 1625 to 1646 there were many years of plague and sickness, but in St Giles's, London, as late as 1649, the amount raised by the "collectors" (or overseers) was only L176. They disbursed this to "the visited poor" as "pensions." In 1665 an extra levy of L600 is mentioned. In the accounts of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, where, as in St Giles's, gifts were received, the change wrought by another half-century (1714) is apparent. The sources of charitable relief are similar to those in all the Protestant churches--English, Scottish or continental: church collections and offertories; correctional fines, such as composition for bastards and conviction money for swearers; and besides these, income from annuities and legacies, the parish estate, the royal bounty, and "petitions to persons of quality." In all L2041 was collected, but, so far as relief was concerned, the parish relied not on it, but on the poor-rate, which produced L3765. All this was collected and disbursed on their own authority by collectors, to orphans, "pensioners" or the "known or standing" poor, or to casual poor (L1818), including nurse children and bastards. The begging poor were numerous and the infant death-rate enormous, and each year three-fourths of those christened were "inhumanly suffered to die by the barbarity of nurses." The whole administration was uncharitable, injurious to the community and the family, and inhuman to the child. If one may judge from later accounts of other parishes even up to 1834, usually it remained the same, purposeless and unintelligent; and it can hardly be denied that, generally speaking, only since the middle of the 19th century has any serious attention been paid to the charitable side of parochial work. Parallel to the parochial movement of the poor-law in England, in France (about 1617) were established the _bureaux de bienfaisance_, at first entirely voluntary institutions, then recognized by the state, and during the Revolution made the central administration for relief in the communes.

Charitable movements after 1601.

In the 17th century in England, as in France, opinion favoured the establishment of large hospitals or _maisons Dieu_ for the reception of the poor of different classes. In France throughout the century there was a continuous struggle with mendicancy, and the hospitals were used as places into which offenders were summarily driven. A new humanity was, however, beginning its protest. The pitiful condition of abandoned children attracted sympathy in both countries. St Vincent de Paul established homes for the _enfants trouves_, followed in England by the establishment of the Foundling hospital (1739). In both countries the method was applied inconsiderately and pushed to excess, and it affected family life most injuriously. Grants from parliament supported the foundling movement in England, and homes were opened in many parts of the country. The demand soon became overwhelming; the mortality was enormous, and the cost so large that it outstripped all financial expedients. The lesson of the experiment is the same as that of the poor-law catastrophe before 1834; only, instead of the able-bodied poor of another age, infants were made the object of a compassionate but undiscerning philanthropy. With widespread relief there came widespread abandonment of duty and economic bankruptcy. Had the poor-rates instead of charitable relief been used in the same way, the moral injury would have been as great, but the annual draft from the rates would have concealed the moral and postponed the economic disaster. To amend the evil, changes were made by which the relation between child and mother was kept alive, and a personal application on her part was required; the character of the mother and her circumstances were investigated, and assistance was only given when it would be "the means of replacing the mother in the course of virtue and the way of an honest livelihood." General reforms were also made, especially through the instrumentality of Jonas Hanway, to check infant mortality, and metropolitan parishes were required to provide for their children outside London. A kindred movement led to the establishment of penitentiaries (1758), of lock hospitals and lying-in hospitals (1749-1752).

In Queen Anne's reign there was a new educational movement, "the charity school"--"to teach poor children the alphabet and the principles of religion," followed by the Sunday-school movement (1780), and about the same time (1788) by "the school of industry"--to employ children and teach them to be industrious. In 1844 the Ragged School Union was established, and until the Education Act of 1870 continued its voluntary educational work. As an outcome of these movements, through the efforts of Miss Mary Carpenter and many others, in 1854-1855 industrial and reformatory schools were established, to prevent crime and reform child criminals. The orphanage movement, beginning in 1758, when the Orphan Working Home was established, has been continued to the present day on a vastly extended scale. In 1772 a society for the discharge of persons imprisoned for small debts was established, and in 1773 Howard began his prison reforms. This raised the standard of work in institutional charities generally. After the civil wars the old hospital foundations of St Bartholomew and St Thomas, municipalized by Edward VI., became endowed charities partly supported by voluntary contributions. The same fate befell Christ's Hospital, in connexion with which the voting system, the admission of candidates by the vote of the whole body of subscribers--that peculiarly English invention--first makes its appearance.

A new interest in hospitals sprang up at the end of the 17th century. St Thomas's was rebuilt (1693) and St Bartholomew's (1739); Guy's was founded in 1724, and on the system of free "letters" obtainable in exchange for donations, voluntary hospitals and infirmaries were established in London (1733 and later) and in most of the large towns. Towards the end of the 18th century the dispensary movement was developed--a system of local dispensaries with fairly definite districts and home visiting, a substitute for attendance at a hospital, where "hospital fever" was dreaded, and an alternative to what was then a very ill-administered system of poor-law medical relief. After 1840 the provident dispensary was introduced, in order that the patients by small contributions in the time of health might provide for illness without having to meet large doctors' bills, and the doctor might receive some sufficient remuneration for his attendance on poor patients. This movement was largely extended after 1860. Three hospital funds for collecting contributions for hospitals and making them grants, a movement that originated in Birmingham in 1859, were established in London in 1873 and 1897.

Since 1868 the poor-law medical system of Great Britain has been
immensely improved and extended, while at the same time the number of
persons in receipt of free medical relief in most of the large towns
has greatly increased. The following figures refer to London: at
hospitals, 97 in number, in-patients (1904) during the year, 118,536;
out-patients and casualty cases, 1,858,800; patients at free,
part-pay, or provident dispensaries, about 280,000; orders issued for
attendance at poor-law dispensaries and at home, 114,158. The number
of beds in poor-law infirmaries (1904) was 16,976. There are in London
12 general hospitals with, 18 without, medical schools, and 67
special hospitals. Thus the population in receipt of public and
voluntary medical relief is very large, indeed altogether excessive.

Each religious movement has brought with it its several charities. The Society of Friends, the Wesleyans, the Baptists have large charities. With the extension of the High Church movement there have been established many sisterhoods which support penitentiaries, convalescent homes and hospitals, schools, missions, &c.

The magnitude of this accumulating provision of charitable relief is evident, though it cannot be summed up in any single total.

At the beginning of the 19th century anti-mendicity societies were established; and later, about 1869, in England and Scotland a movement began for the organization of charitable relief, in connexion with which there are now societies and committees in most of the larger towns in Great Britain, in the colonies, and in the United States of America. More recently the movement for the establishment of settlements in poor districts, initiated by Canon Barnett at Toynbee Hall--"to educate citizens in the knowledge of one another, and to provide them with teaching and recreation"--has spread to many towns in England and America.

Progress of thought in 18th and 19th centuries.

These notes of charitable movements suggest an altogether new development of thought. On behalf of the charity school of Queen Anne's time were preached very formal sermons, which showed but little sympathy with child life. After the first half of the century a new humanism with which we connect the name of Rousseau, slowly superseded this formal beneficence. Rousseau made the world open its eyes and see nature in the child, the family and the community. He analysed social life, intent on explaining it and discovering on what its well-being depended; and he stimulated that desire to meet definite social needs which is apparent in the charities of the century. Little as it may appear to be so at first sight, it was a period of charitable reformation. Law revised the religious conception of charity, though he was himself so strangely devoid of social instinct that, like some of his successors, he linked the utmost earnestness in belief to that form of almsgiving which most effectually fosters beggardom. Howard introduced the era of inspection, the ardent apostle of a new social sagacity; and Bentham, no less sagacious, propounded opinions, plans and suggestions which, perhaps it may be said, in due course moulded the principles and methods of the poor-law of 1834. In the broader sense the turn of thought is religious, for while usually stress is laid on the religious scepticism of the century, the deeper, fervent, conscientious and evangelical charity in which Nonconformists, and especially "the Friends," took so large a part, is often forgotten. Sometimes, indeed, as often happens now, the feeling of charity passed into the merest sentimentality. This is evident, for instance, from so ill-considered a measure as Pitt's Bill for the relief of the poor. On the other hand, during the 18th century the poor-law was the object of constant criticism, though so long as the labour statutes and the old law of settlement were in force, and the relief of the labouring population as state "poor" prevailed, it was impossible to reform it. Indeed, the criticism itself was generally vitiated by a tacit acceptance of "the poor" as a class, a permanent and irrevocable charge on the funds of the community; and at the end of the 18th century, when the labour statutes were abrogated, but the conditions under which poor relief was administered remained the same, serfdom in its later stage, the serfdom of the poor-law, asserted itself in its extremest form in times of dearth and difficulty during the Napoleonic War. In 1802-1803 it was calculated (Marshall's _Digest_) that 28% of the population were in receipt of permanent or occasional relief. Those in receipt of the former numbered 734,817, including children--so real had this serfdom of the poor become.

In 1832 the expenditure on pauperism in England and Wales was L7,036,968. In the early years of the 19th century the mendicity societies, established in some of the larger towns, were a sign of the general discontent with existing methods of administration. The Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor--representing a group of men such as Patrick Colquhoun, Sir I. Bernard, Dr Lettsom, Dr Haygarth, James Neald, Count Rumford and others--took a more positive line and issued many useful publications (1796). After 1833 the very atmosphere of thought seems changed. There was a general desire to be quit of the serfdom of pauperism. The Poor-law Amendment Act was passed in 1834, and since then male able-bodied pauperism has dwindled to a minimum. The bad years of 1860-1870 revived the problem in England and Scotland, and the old spirit of reform for a time prevailed. Improved administration working with economic progress effected still further reductions of pauperism, till on the 1st of January 1905 (exclusive of lunatics in county asylums and casual paupers) the mean number of paupers stood at 764,589, or 22.6 per thousand of the population, instead of 41.8 per thousand as in 1859 (see POOR-LAW).

Charity organization societies were formed after 1869, with the object of "improving the condition of the poor," or, in other words, to promote independence by an ordered and co-operative charity; and the Association for Befriending Young Servants, and workhouse aid committees, in order to prevent relapse into pauperism on the part of those who as children or young women received relief from the poor-law. The Local Government Board adopted a restricted out-door relief policy, and a new interest was felt in all the chief problems of local administration. The movement was general. The results of the Elberfeld system of municipal relief administered by unpaid almoners, each dealing with but one or two cases, influenced thought both in England and America. The experience gained by Mr Joseph Tuckerman of Boston of the utility of registering applications for relief, and the teaching of Miss Octavia Hill, led to the foundation of the system of friendly visiting and associated charity at Boston (1880) and elsewhere. Since that time the influence of Arnold Toynbee and the investigations of Charles Booth have led to a better appreciation of the conditions of labour; and to some extent, in London and elsewhere, the spirit of charity has assumed the form of a new devotion to the duties of citizenship. But perhaps, in regard to charity in Great Britain, the most important change has been the revival of the teaching of Dr Chalmers (1780-1847), who (1819) introduced a system of parochial charity at St John's, Glasgow, on independent lines, consistent with the best traditions of the Scottish church. In the development of the theory of charitable relief on the economic side this has been a main factor. His view, which he tested by experience, may be summed up as follows: Society is a growing, self-supporting organism. It has within it, as between family and family, neighbour and neighbour, master and employee, endless links of sympathy and self-support. Poverty is not an absolute, but a relative term. Naturally the members of one class help one another; the poor help the poor. There is thus a large invisible fund available and constantly used by those who, by their proximity to one another, know best how to help. The philanthropist is an alien to this life around him. Moved by a sense of contrast between his own lot, as he understands it, and the lot of those about him, whom he but little understands, he concludes that he should relieve them. But his gift, unless it be given in such a way as to promote this self-support, instead of weakening it, is really injurious. In the first place, by his interference he puts a check on the charitable resources of another class and lessens their social energy. What he gives they do not give, though they might do so. But next, he does more harm than this. He stimulates expectation, so that by a false arithmetic his gift of a few shillings seems to those who receive it and to those who hear of it a possible source of help in any difficulty. To them it represents a large command of means; and where one has received what, though it be little, is yet, relative to wage, a large sum to be acquired without labour, many will seek more, and with that object will waste their time and be put off their work, or even be tempted to lie and cheat. So social energy is diverted from its proper use. Alms thus given weakens social ties, diminishes the natural relief funds of mutual help, and beggars a neighbour instead of benefiting him. By this argument a clear and well-defined purpose is placed before charity. Charity becomes a science based on social principles and observation. Not to give alms, but to keep alive the saving health of the family, becomes its problem: relief becomes altogether subordinate to this, and institutions or societies are serviceable or the reverse according as they serve or fail to serve this purpose. Not poverty, but distress is the plea for help; not almsgiving, but charity the means. To charity is given a definite social aim, and a desire to use consistently with this aim every method that increasing knowledge and trained ability can devise.