Chapter IV: The Local Government Board (1)

As we have already mentioned, the merging of the Poor Law Board in the newly established Local Government Board came about for reasons unconnected with the Poor Law, and it coincided with no definite change in Poor Law Policy. But, as already indicated, the placing of the Central Authority on a permanent basis coincided with a gradual improvement in the quality of the inspectorial staff, who, in the ensuing decades, remind us more of the masterful assistant commissioners of the 1834-47 period. On the other hand, the development of the office from a mere specialised authority, concerned only with a single function, into what became practically a Ministry of the Interior, charged with the supervision of all the local government of the country (with the partial exception of police and schools), necessitated both an increase and a development of the permanent secretariat. To this secretariat, with its graded hierarchy and multiplicity of departments, boards of guardians and the administration of the Poor Law tended inevitably to take their place among municipal corporations, local boards of health, highway authorities, and the administration of other statutory powers. There is even a third element to take into account. The revival of public interest in Poor Law problems, beginning about 1867[488] in the Metropolis and some of the large towns, and spreading later to the whole country, had its effect in the House of Commons, especially after the extension of the franchise in London and the boroughs (1867), and in the counties (1884). We see this manifesting itself in Poor Law policy in various minor statutes, and, above all, in sporadic circulars and other declarations of policy by the Parliamentary President of the Local Government Board.

[488] The sequence in the Metropolis seems to have been, first,
the exceptional distress in the East End during 1866-7; then a
strict administration on deterrent principles, agreed to by
conferences of East End Guardians in 1869, under the influence of
Mr. Corbett, who had become inspector for the Metropolis in 1866;
Mr. Goschen's Circular of 20th November 1869, and the consequent
inquiries into Poor Law practice; Mr. Corbett's powerful Report of
10th August 1871; and then the Circular of 2nd December 1871, with
the conferences resulting therefrom. Mr. Longley was appointed
inspector for the Metropolis in March 1872 (Mr. Longley's Report,
in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp 196-7).

Thus the student who seeks to discover what was the policy of the Central Authority between 1871 and 1907 finds two distinct influences at work on Boards of Guardians, each of which carries with it the weight of the Central Authority, but one of them is seen to be predominant between 1871 and 1885, whilst the other predominates after 1885.

The able, zealous, and somewhat doctrinaire inspectorate, especially between 1871 and 1885, stands always on the "principles of 1834" in their strictest interpretation--constantly using language, indeed, which went beyond any proposals of the 1834 Report, or any policy embodied in the documents of the Central Authority of 1834-47. On the other hand, the president (and Parliament with his concurrence) sporadically brought in (especially after 1885) a note that some might term a sentimental, others an enlightened humanitarianism, with regard to particular sections--the unemployed, the decayed members of friendly societies, the "deserving aged poor" generally. This humanitarianism was certainly in direct contradiction of the "principles of 1834." How far it may be said to have embodied, perhaps unconsciously, other principles will subsequently appear.

The cleavage in policy between the inspectorate and the president did not at first manifest itself. For the first decade or so, the successive presidents and the inspectorate seem to be at one in a policy of "strict administration"--a policy as to which we cannot discover whether it was due to the influence of such presidents as Mr. Goschen and Mr. Stansfeld upon such inspectors as Mr. Corbett, Mr. Doyle, Mr. Wodehouse, and Mr. Longley, or _vice versa_. We may perhaps ascribe to the caution of the secretariat the confining of this policy to the general terms of circulars and minutes, thus avoiding alike the necessary precision of orders and statutes and any explicit extension of the "principles of 1834" to classes other than the able-bodied.

From 1871 to about 1885 the outstanding feature of the policy of the Central Authority was the steady pressure exercised through the inspectors with the object of reducing outdoor relief. This arose out of the inquiries set on foot by Mr. Goschen, which had revealed, not only the granting of a large amount of outdoor relief to able-bodied men and women and their families, but also great differences in practice between one union and another. As we have shown, neither Mr. Goschen nor the Central Authority under any other president had, down to 1871, so far as the aged and infirm and cases of sickness were concerned, ever indicated or advocated, in any official document that we have been able to find, any alternative policy to that of outdoor relief. The Circular on Outdoor Relief[489] now issued to the inspectors and widely published, which set the tone for the ensuing decade, did not explicitly declare any new policy with regard to these classes, which then made up at least three-fourths of the total outdoor relief cases. Moreover its illustrative examples and its specific recommendations related entirely to the able-bodied. Indeed, except for an important new departure in the treatment of able-bodied widows with children, the recommendations to be pressed on Boards of Guardians amounted to no more than the substitution of the practice of the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order for either that of the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order or that of the Labour Test Order, where one or other of these latter was in force. The differences between these orders, as we have shown, relate only to the able-bodied. Thus, an acute clerk of a board of guardians would have been warranted in saying that, so far as concerned the aged and infirm and the sick, the Circular of 1871 announced no new policy.

[489] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, pp. 63-8.

But the Circular appeared to the casual reader to be against outdoor relief as such to any class of paupers. The expression "Outdoor Relief" was nowhere defined or limited. Particular unions were compared one with another as to the amount and proportion of their total outdoor relief to all cases, those having a large amount being held to blame, without a consideration of whether their outdoor relief was to the able-bodied or to the aged and infirm and the sick; and even without any consideration of the relative proportion of persons over sixty, or the relative prevalence of ill-health in their several populations.[490]

[490] The first notice that we have seen of the fact that some
districts contain "a much higher proportion of the weak and old,"
than others, and that some have also a much higher rate of
mortality among husbands than others, which vitiates any simple
comparison of their pauperism, is in a Report by Mr. Culley
(inspector) in 1873 (Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 66, 72-3).
But the hint was not acted on in the tables of statistics used by
the inspectors.

Moreover, some of the other recommendations of the Circular implied, though they did not express, a suggestion that the "offer of the House" might be used as a means of preventing the aged and the sick from coming on the rates at all. Quite a new stress was laid on getting contributions from relatives, and on the most vigilant inquiry into circumstances, recommendations which certainly applied to the aged and infirm and to the sick, and which seemed to carry with them the hint that, if confronted with the workhouse, even the aged and the sick would be maintained by their relations.

Whether or not the Central Authority can be held in these years to have deliberately adopted the new policy of the offer of the workhouse for the aged and infirm and for the sick, as well as for the able-bodied, it was this policy which, from 1871 onwards, was increasingly pressed on boards of guardians by the abler and more energetic of the inspectors. We cannot find any official document in which any inspector explicitly committed himself to the statement that the time had come when outdoor relief should, as a matter of principle, be refused to the aged and infirm, or to the sick, as had long been the official advice with regard to the able-bodied.[491] But it was in these years that these inspectors took to circulating among their boards of guardians the comparative tables showing their relative position in order of merit according to the smallness of their out-relief--always without making any distinction between the out-relief to the aged and the sick on the one hand, and that to the able-bodied on the other. In their published reports on their districts we see the inspectors taking the same tone and using the same unguarded phrases implying the inherent badness of outdoor relief (without any limitation to the able-bodied), that marked the Circular of 1871. The minutes of the boards of guardians of this period occasionally preserve a record of, or contain a reference to the inspector's letters or personal advice to the same effect.[492]

[491] Mr. Longley did definitely recommend that outdoor relief,
even to the widows with families, the sick and the "disabled"--by
which he meant the aged--should be discontinued, except in cases
that might be found to fall outside a series of categories so
defined, and so extensive, as practically to include the whole of
these classes. Moreover, in his view it was to be "regarded as the
next step in the advance towards improved administration that
applicants for out-relief shall be called upon to show special
cause why they should not receive indoor relief" (Mr. Longley's
Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 142).

[492] _E.g._ MS. archives, Newcastle Board of Guardians
(lithographed letter of Mr. Hedley, inspector, drawing attention
to the comparative outdoor pauperism of his unions, and urging
reduction).

It was a feature of this period that the inspectors were in close personal contact with the president. Mr. Stansfeld inaugurated a system of occasional dinners at which he met all the inspectors and discussed with them their difficulties. They had also periodical conferences in London for a week at a time, at which they formulated a common policy. In these years began, too, the Poor Law conferences, where the inspectors (and occasionally also the president) came in contact with the new school of unofficial Poor Law experts, who were in favour of the "logical development" of the "principles of 1834." It was, in fact, "now argued" that, just as under the Act of 1834, the "offer of the workhouse" had "obliged the able-bodied to assume responsibility for the able-bodied period of life ... an application of the same principle to the other responsibilities of life would produce equally advantageous results."[493] The presidents of the first decade of the Local Government Board seem, indeed, sometimes to have accepted the view that all relief ought, strictly speaking, to be given in the workhouse. Mr. Longley's Report on outdoor relief in the Metropolis was sent officially to the boards of guardians and commended as laying down "sound lines of policy."[494] Mr. Dodson, in 1881, declared as president that "the whole object and system of the Poor Law as established in this country is that it should be strictly administered, with the aim simply to testing and relieving absolute destitution; and no effectual means have yet been devised of so testing the destitution except by offering the house. And just in proportion as the Poor Law is strictly administered, and in proportion as entrance into the house is insisted upon as a condition of relief, so, on the whole, is the Poor Law better administered--better administered, I do not hesitate to say, not only in the interest of the poor themselves, but in the interest of the ratepayers at large. Now, you must remember, in the case of outdoor relief it is impossible absolutely to test the cases. They cannot be closely watched, and you cannot tell when a man is receiving outdoor relief that he is not having aid from other sources, or that he is not to some extent earning something for himself, and might possibly, if left to his own resources, earn more. Well, then, it is a system which in that way acts as a check upon personal exertions and upon providence, and I need not say that anything which acts as a check upon exertion and providence cannot but result in an increase of pauperism and the demoralisation of the labouring classes, and must end in an increased charge to the ratepayers."[495]

[493] _History of the English Poor Law_, by T. Mackay, 1899, vol.
iii. p. 154.

[494] Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, pp. xix-xx.

[495] Mr. Dodson (President of the Local Government Board) to
deputation from Newington and St. Saviour's, Southwark, November
1881, in _Local Government Chronicle_, 26th November 1881, p. 951.

A notable step towards stricter administration in these years was the adoption in 1875 by the Manchester Board of Guardians of by-laws for its own guidance, putting additional restrictions on the grant of outdoor relief.[496] These by-laws were made much of by the inspectors, and carried from board to board. Their object was to discourage as much as possible the grant of outdoor relief as such. Yet it is noteworthy that they apply primarily to the able-bodied (male and female), and that they do not mention at all the case of the aged, and that they allude to the sick only by way of restricting the duration of each order of outdoor relief to two weeks. But here again we detect the hint that the "offer of the house" might be used, in the case of the aged, as a means of extracting contributions from relatives whether or not such contributions were legally due.

[496] Fifth Annual Report, 1875-6, pp. xvii-xix.

In 1877 we see a great effort made to get the new departure embodied in a general order. The Central Poor Law Conference, professing to sum up all the experience and knowledge both of the inspectors and of the new school of unofficial Poor Law experts, asked the Central Authority to issue new orders restricting outdoor relief generally. Even here it is noteworthy that no explicit suggestion was made that the aged and the sick ought not to be granted outdoor relief. What was asked for was practically the "Manchester Rules," with the addition of the suggestion that all relief should be given on loan. Here, however, the Central Authority made a stand. It refused to make any new order, specifically declining to extend the Prohibitory Order to the whole country, to make all relief recoverable as if granted on loan, to enable all medical relief to be made on loan, to impose a fixed limit for the grant of outdoor relief in cases of sickness, or to prohibit outdoor relief to widows in the first six months of their widowhood.[497]

[497] Letter, signed by Sir John Lambert, to Mr. Albert Pell,
M.P., Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in
Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, pp. 51-7.

Thus, the policy of 1871-85 resulted, not in any alteration of the classic orders of 1844, 1847, and 1852, or in any explicit reversal of the policy hitherto pursued with regard to the aged and the sick, but only in a general "tightening up" of the administration of relief by boards of guardians all over the country. We shall see this general "tightening up" more in detail in the examination of the treatment of various classes. That examination will also reveal the effect of the reaction against this tightening up, which set in about 1885--a reaction which showed itself in the relaxation, usually at the instance or with the encouragement of Parliament and successive presidents, of the conditions of relief to specific classes.

_A._--THE ABLE-BODIED

(i.) _National Uniformity_

In the absence of new Statutes, and of alterations in the General Orders relating to the relief by boards of guardians of the able-bodied, there was, of course, between 1871 and 1907, no step towards national uniformity. The country continued to be divided up geographically into three regions, according to whether or not the Central Authority had permitted the grant of outdoor relief to able-bodied men, subject to a labour test; and to whether or not it had permitted outdoor relief to able-bodied women without children. And unlike the period 1847-1871, that of 1871-1907 did not witness any important alteration in the geographical extension of these three regions, though the relative populations altered very considerably. The general policy of the Central Authority, in issuing the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order to rural districts, with or without the Labour Test Order when required, and in issuing to the large towns the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, was continued throughout the whole period.[498]

[498] It is to be noted that Mr. Longley, in 1873, drew attention
to the uncertainty of practice caused by the lack of definition of
"able-bodied," and the different senses in which it was used in
the official documents. He pointed out that the absence of
definition seriously impaired administration, and urged that
authoritative instructions should be issued (Mr. Longley's Report
in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 174). We do not find that any
action was taken.

(ii.) _The Workhouse Test_

What happened for the first five-and-twenty years of the Local Government Board was, as we have indicated, a general tightening up in the administration of all three regions. The Central Authority intimated that it would not easily give the approval that was necessary for any departure from the orders. "In unions where the Prohibitory Order is in force," said the circular to the inspectors of 2nd December 1871, "the workhouse test should be strictly applied.... The Board will not be prepared to sanction any cases which are not reported within the time limited by the order, and in which the reports do not contain a detailed statement of the paupers to which they refer, showing the number of their respective families with the ages and number of children employed, amount of wages of the several members of the family at work, cause of destitution, period during which they have been without employment, amount of relief, if any, given previously to the transmission of the report, and what extent of accommodation for all classes exists in the workhouse at the time."[499]

[499] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, p. 67. With regard to the 85,386 persons who received
outdoor relief on 1st January 1873, as "able-bodied male paupers"
(including, it must be remembered, 18,037 wives and 45,285
children of such men, 15,133 men relieved on account of their own
sickness, 5572 on account of the sickness of wife or child, and
only 1339 merely for want of work), the Central Authority observed
without discrimination, that: "There would be, in our opinion, no
material difficulty in enforcing, throughout all the unions, the
_salutary provision_ which forbids the allowance of relief to this
class of persons except in a workhouse" (Third Annual Report,
1873-4, p. xiv). But no such "provision" existed, in any Statute
or Order, or even in any official Circular, so far as we can
discover. Mr. Corbett had once suggested that he should "encourage
boards of guardians to abstain far _more than at present_, from
giving out-relief to able-bodied men on account of their own
sickness or accident." But even he did not propose its refusal in
all cases (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871). We cannot
find that the Central Authority had ever before formally seemed to
give its approval, if it really intended to do so by this _obiter
dictum_, to the suggestion that sick persons ought not to receive
outdoor relief.

As times became bad, the Central Authority received "applications ... for a relaxation of the provisions of the General Out-relief Prohibitory Order, and for the substitution of an outdoor labour test for the more effective test of destitution afforded by the offer of relief in the workhouse." Instead of yielding to these requests, as had formerly happened, the Central Authority now replied, "that the Supplemental Outdoor Labour Test Order is not intended to supersede, but to be subsidiary to the General Out-relief Prohibitory Order, and should not be brought into operation so long as there is sufficient room in the workhouse available for able-bodied paupers."[500] "A strict adherence to the workhouse test," said the Central Authority, "on such occasions when temporary relief is demanded solely from the state of the weather, is essentially beneficial to the labouring classes, and conducive to their real interest. A certainty of obtaining outdoor relief in his own home, whenever he may demand it, extinguishes in the mind of the labourer all motive for husbanding his earnings, and induces him to rely exclusively upon the rates, instead of upon his own savings, for any momentary relief which he may require from the sudden cessation of his usual employment. The unfailing application of the workhouse test, on the other hand, makes him at once aware that the only form in which he can receive relief is as an ordinary inmate of the workhouse, and the strongest inducement to support himself and his family is thus held out to him, an inducement altogether wanting when the guardians, upon his application, readily grant him outdoor relief."[501]

[500] Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. xvii. It also received
"applications from a few other unions for assent to temporary
out-relief in the case of boatmen or other persons thrown out of
work by the frost." Sanction was not actually refused, but it was
pointed out that the guardians should have offered the workhouse
(_ibid._).

[501] Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. xviii.

But, as already mentioned, the Central Authority, though pressed to do so, did not consent to make the Out-relief Prohibitory Order co-extensive with the country. "The Order," it replied, "is now in force in all the rural unions ... and in many urban unions also, and the Board continue to apply its provisions from time to time to other unions as often as the circumstances enable them to do so, but it has never been attempted to apply the provisions of the Order to the Metropolis, or those centres of manufacturing industry where large numbers of persons are periodically thrown out of employment by sudden and extensive depressions of trade."[502] In such places, as it was explained, it would certainly be found necessary to abrogate the Order at those periods, and this would weaken its force generally.

[502] Letter of Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor
Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8,
p. 56.

(iii.) _The Labour Test_

Where the relief of able-bodied men outside the workhouse was not prohibited, we see the Central Authority in these years not only rigidly maintaining the rule as to a labour test (whether under the Out-relief Regulation Order or under a Labour Test Order supplementary to the Out-relief Prohibitory Order); but also seeking to make the administration more strict. This rule, it was explained in 1879, "is one the value of which has been experienced at various times, and in various parts of the country, as a test of the actual destitution of the applicant; and to the observance of which, in times of serious pressure, such as the present, the Board attach very great importance. The Board are not prepared to suspend the operation of the articles in question generally; but if while applying its provisions, the guardians should be of opinion that, in certain special cases which might arise, it would be proper that the strict application of these provisions should not be enforced, the Board, on receiving a particular report of the circumstances under Article 10 of the Order, would be prepared to give their favourable consideration to the cases."[503] Even in such a severe crisis of unemployment as that of 1879-81, when the number of men thrown out of work was probably greater than at any date from 1841 down to the present day, the Central Authority held to its view of what the labour test should be. "For this object," it was explained, "the operations of breaking stone and picking oakum (when performed under proper superintendence) are in many respects very appropriate, and, having regard to the objection to employing paupers on work of a productive character, which may interfere with the ordinary callings or employment of any portion of the independent population of the district, the Board are unable to suggest any other kind of work than those named."[504] Nor was even breaking stone or picking oakum to be paid for as wages, or regarded as employment. "With regard to the proposal of the [Warrington] guardians to pay 2s. 6d. for each ton of stones broken," the Central Authority stated "that the task is intended merely for a test of destitution, and that the relief granted to each pauper should not be proportioned to the quantity of stone broken by him, but to the necessities of his case."[505] The inspectors were instructed to press the guardians everywhere not to grant even admission to "the stoneyard" as a matter of course; "orders to able-bodied men for relief in the labour yard should only be given from week to week"; and the homes of the men so relieved should be visited by the relieving officer at least once a fortnight.[506] Moreover, even this relief was intended to be only temporary; and the conditions were sometimes made more onerous after the first few weeks. "In the Poplar Union, at the expiration of the first month, the applicant is required to come to the stoneyard an hour earlier and to leave an hour later than before, and to break an additional bushel of stones."[507] Gradually we see it being assumed, even as regards unions under the Out-relief Regulation Order, that it is merely "when the workhouse accommodation is insufficient,"[508] or "so long as they have not adequate workhouse accommodation,"[509] that relief should be given with a labour test. Right down to February 1886, the Central Authority declared that it "would not feel justified in relaxing" the regulations which prohibited relief to able-bodied men, however temporary and undeserved might be their want of employment, "without any such test of destitution as is provided by admission to a properly managed workhouse, or the performance of an adequate task of work." To cope with the distress caused by unemployment, the Holborn Guardians on 9th February 1886 were, in fact, expressly told to hire a stoneyard.[510]

[503] Local Government Board to Bristol Union, 16th January 1879,
_Local Government Chronicle_, 25th January 1879, p. 69.

[504] Local Government Board to Bedminister Union, January 1881;
in _Local Government Chronicle_, 8th January 1881, p. 35.

[505] Letter, Local Government Board to Warrington Union, March
1878; in _Local Government Chronicle_, 30th March 1878, p. 253.

[506] Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report,
1871-2, p. 67; _see_ Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.

[507] Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.

[508] Instructional letter to inspectors (?) December 1878; cited
by Mr. Culley (inspector), to Newcastle Board of Guardians, _see_
MS. archives, 28th December 1878.

[509] Local Government Board letter to Holborn Union, 9th February
1886, in House of Commons, No. 69 of 1886, p. 40.

[510] _Ibid._ pp. 40-1.

(iv.) _The Modified Workhouse Test Order_

In one union there was an attempt, to which the Central Authority in 1887 gave its approval by Special Order, to substitute for the labour test provisions of the Out-relief Regulation Order, a special application of the "Workhouse Test."[511] This Order, limited in duration to twelve months, permitted outdoor relief to be given to the wife and family of an able-bodied man, without a labour test, on condition that the man himself entered the workhouse. This device was intended to get over the three principal obstacles to the universal adoption of the "Workhouse Test" for the able-bodied, viz. the lack of sufficient accommodation in workhouses; the objection to "breaking up the home"; and the undesirability of bringing the wives, and especially the children, under workhouse influences. This Order, which was not renewed on its expiry, and not issued to any other union for nearly twenty years, was, as we have said, asked for as a means of making the administration of relief more stringent than it was under the Out-relief Regulation Order. Combined with the establishment of a special "Test Workhouse," which we shall presently describe, it might come near to being a penal alternative. But it is, as we shall see afterwards, important rather as a precedent capable also of application in an entirely humanitarian way.

[511] Special Order to Whitechapel Union, 18th April 1887. This
new departure was not mentioned in the Annual Report, and the
Order has not, as far as we know, been generally published.

(v.) _The Test Workhouse_

It must be noted that, whilst the inspectorate was in these years doing its utmost to insist on "the offer of the house" to all able-bodied persons, it was also encouraging boards of guardians to make the workhouse for such persons an exclusively disciplinary institution. This had, as we have mentioned, been suggested by Mr. Corbett in 1868. The pressure on the accommodation of the Metropolitan workhouses, and the mixing together of so many different classes of inmates, made it impossible, Mr. Corbett had pointed out, "to apply the workhouse as a test of destitution to single able-bodied men."[512] "In urging upon boards of guardians in the Metropolis," repeated his successor, Mr. Longley, "as I have lately had occasion to do almost daily, the application of the workhouse test, I have not infrequently been met by the startling admission that the workhouse is attractive to paupers; that there are many persons in the workhouse who could maintain themselves out of doors; and, in short, that the workhouse furnishes no test of destitution. All arguments in support of the workhouse test which assume the existence of a 'well-regulated workhouse' (to use the language of the Poor Law Commissioners of Inquiry, 1833) must fail at once when addressed to guardians whose workhouse offers attractions to the indolent. And I have reason to think that the aversion to the proper and free use of the workhouse which distinguishes many Metropolitan boards of guardians, is in some measure due to the failure of the workhouses, as at present administered, to satisfy the essential conditions of their establishment."[513]

[512] Mr. Corbett's Report of 14th January 1868, in Twentieth
Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1867-8, p. 126; repeated in
his Report of 10th August 1871.

[513] Office Minute by Mr. Longley, 1873. Much the same words
occur in his Annual Report. The "lax discipline of the workhouse"
in London is described as tending "to deprive it of its function
as a test" (Mr. Longley's Report in Third Annual Report of the
Local Government Board, 1873-4, p. 166).

Mr. Longley was told to prepare an elaborate report on indoor relief in the Metropolis, and in this he expressed his emphatic opinion that "the deterrent discipline ... fails at present to be duly enforced in London workhouses almost without exception.... The general tone of their administration is that of the _almshouse_ rather than of the _workhouse_ system."[514] He traced this inconvenient laxity to the very nature of the general workhouse for all classes, which the Central Authority had substituted for the series of specialised institutions recommended in the Report of 1834. "The presence in a workhouse," he said, "of the sick, or of any class in whose favour the ordinary discipline must be relaxed, and who receive special indulgences, has an almost inevitable tendency to impair the general discipline of the establishment."[515] The very improvement in the workhouses, which, under the Central Authority's own pressure, was taking place in these years, had, in fact, brought to light the inherent drawback of the general workhouse. Hence the able-bodied, like the children and the sick, were now to be accommodated by themselves. Thus we find, from 1871 onwards, the idea of the "Test Workhouse," an institution set apart exclusively for the able-bodied, where they could be subjected (to use Mr. Longley's words) to "such a system of labour, discipline, a nd restraint as shall be sufficient to outweigh," in the estimation of the inmates, "the advantages" which they enjoy. Mr. Longley declared that the main object of the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 had been, not exclusively, or even principally, the better accommodation of the sick, but the introduction of classification by institutions, with the double object of, on the one hand, an improved treatment of the sick, and, on the other, "the establishment of a stricter and more deterrent discipline in workhouses."[516] Circumstances, he said, had delayed the accomplishment of the latter purpose, but it was now time for the Central Authority to "urge upon guardians the establishment in workhouses of a more distinctly deterrent system of discipline and diet than has hitherto been secured," involving "a reconsideration of the conditions of pauper labour and service in workhouses."[517]

[514] Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis; in
Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. 49.

[515] _Ibid._ p. 42.

[516] Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis, in
Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. 43.

[517] _Ibid._ p. 47. We have not verified the statement that the
intention of the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 included the
allocation of separate workhouses exclusively for the able-bodied.
We see that in January 1868 Mr. Corbett was suggesting it as if it
were an idea of his own. "I am more than ever convinced," he says,
"that one of the great wants of the Metropolis is the
establishment of new, or the appropriation of existing workhouses
for the able-bodied classes of _groups_ of unions, in each of
which one sex only should be received; a far more complete system
of classification maintained than has hitherto been attempted, at
least in Metropolitan workhouses; and strict discipline enforced
under proper regulations and superintendence" (Mr. Corbett's
Report of 4th January 1868, in Twentieth Annual Report of the Poor
Law Board, 1867-8, p. 126). Whether or not this was exactly in the
mind of the legislature or of the Central Authority in 1867, it
seems true, as Mr. Longley pointed out, that the provisions of the
Metropolitan Poor Act were extensive enough to cover, "whether
directly or indirectly," not merely an improvement in workhouse
sick wards, but "the reception in distinct buildings of separate
classes of paupers or ... classification, not in a workhouse, but
by workhouses" (Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the
Metropolis, in Fourth Annual Report of the Local Government Board,
1874-5, p. 42).

Under the influence of the inspectorate, we see half the unions in London gradually agreeing to take advantage of the powers given by the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867, and to make use, for their able-bodied paupers, of the workhouse of the Poplar Union, which now sent its sick to the new "sick asylum," its children to the district school, and its aged and infirm to the workhouse of another union.[518] This establishment of a test workhouse for the able-bodied received at first the warm commendation of the Central Authority.[519] The Poplar workhouse, with its rigid discipline, its absolutely limited diet and its severe task of monotonous toil (oakum-picking and stone-pounding), measured not by time but by a prescribed quantity, became a terror. For the next seven years, we see the guardians offering, sometimes to "troublesome" paupers, sometimes to all able-bodied applicants, male or female--not outdoor relief upon a labour test--but "an order for Poplar." "Notwithstanding the considerable number of unions which have availed themselves of this privilege, the number ... who have accepted the relief, or having accepted it, have remained in the workhouse, has been so small that, although the workhouse will contain 768 persons, there were in it at the close of last year only 166 inmates."[520] In 1878, however, the Metropolitan police magistrates seem to have expressed disapproval of the penal character which the institution had assumed. A woman brought up for refusing to do her task of oakum-picking at Poplar was discharged, with the observation that such work was not a fit task to set to women in receipt of Poor Law relief. On these sentiments becoming known, as the Poplar Guardians informed the Central Authority, "the master of the workhouse has a very considerable amount of trouble in getting any work done now by the inmates." The Central Authority, in reply, sympathised with the difficulty, but could, after six weeks' deliberation, do nothing but express the hope that the Poplar Guardians would be able to convert the magistrates to their views.[521]

[518] Special Order to Poplar and Stepney, 19th October 1871;
Special Order to Poplar, 6th March 1872 (extending the use of the
Poplar Workhouse to the able-bodied of any Metropolitan union);
Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.

[519] First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. xxiv; Second Annual Report,
1872-3, pp. xxvi-xxvii.

[520] Second Annual Report, 1872-3, p. xxvii.

[521] Letters, Poplar Guardians to Local Government Board, 4th
November 1878; Local Government Board to Poplar Guardians, 19th
December 1887. Even this very strict Board of Guardians had, in
1871, used, as a labour test for women, "a task of work in a
_needle-room_ ... provided by the guardians," and this had been
recommended even by Mr. Corbett (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th
August 1871). But oakum-picking had apparently been substituted
for needlework, and the Central Authority, in 1878, did not see
its way to any alternative. "With regard to the objection ... to
oakum-picking as an employment for women ... very great difficulty
was experienced in finding labour which shall not interfere with
the market for the work of the independent poor, and ... even
oakum-picking is not altogether free from this objection.... Work
of this description is in use in workhouses in various parts of
the country, not as punishment ... but as one of the most
available means of employing the able-bodied indoor paupers....
General experience has shown that it is not physically injurious,
and in this particular workhouse it is found that many of the
female paupers can pick the prescribed quantity with ease.... It
is erroneous to suppose that a particular description of work is
necessarily degrading because it happens to be exacted in gaols,
since there are but few kinds of menial work in all large
institutions to which the same objection may not also be applied;
and it should be added that, unless this kind of employment is
resorted to, it would not be practicable to find sufficient
occupation for the female inmates of the workhouses, and that
enforced idleness is more demoralising than even disagreeable
work" (Local Government Board to Poplar Union, 19th December 1878,
in _Local Government Chronicle_, 4th January 1879, pp. 8-9).
Twenty years later the official view, as we shall see, completely
changed.

The difficulty seems to have continued, for, in 1881, the Central Authority issued an Order permitting the Poplar Guardians to use their workhouse for other than the able-bodied, thus bringing the experiment to an end.[522]

[522] Special Order to Poplar Union, 4th February 1881; Local
Government Board to Poplar Guardians, 9th February 1881; MS.
Minutes, Poplar Guardians, 18th February 1881.

It is to be noted that, in spite of the Poplar experience, the policy of a special "Test House," devoted exclusively to the able-bodied, continued to be pressed on guardians by the Inspectorate. The Birmingham Guardians established such a "test house," in 1880, but it seems to have been opened to other classes in 1887.[523] In the latter year, notwithstanding this renewed abandonment, we see Mr. Henley pressing the same policy on the Manchester Guardians, leading them to visit Birmingham to inspect the test house there.[524] In the Metropolis, the inspectorate got the Kensington workhouse made use of in 1882, in substitution for that of Poplar, though only for males; and able-bodied applicants were, for thirteen years, referred thither. This arrangement came to an end in 1905, greatly to the regret of the inspectorate. This Kensington test house, it was said, "for many years did useful work as a place where really able-bodied men were received from all parts of London, and kept hard at work under strict surveillance. As the Kensington Guardians now need the workhouse for their own purposes this arrangement has of necessity ceased.... The number of really able-bodied men in the London workhouses at one time is never very large, but it is large enough to make it extremely desirable that there should be at least one workhouse exclusively for such a class, to which, and to which only, they might be admitted."[525]

[523] Special Orders of 13th October 1880, 24th August 1881, and
11th February 1887.

[524] MS. Minutes, Manchester Guardians, July and August 1887. The
Manchester Guardians did not act on this, but ten years later
united with the Chorlton Guardians in setting aside (under the
Poor Law Act 1879) one workhouse for the double purpose of a
casual ward and "a test house for able-bodied paupers" (See
Special Orders to Manchester and Chorlton, dated 20th March 1897,
and 9th April 1898; Twenty-Seventh Annual Report, 1897-8, pp.
127-8). This still continues. The whole experience of these
Able-bodied Test Workhouses is reviewed in the Minority Report,
1909.

[525] Mr. Lockwood's Report, in Thirty-fifth Annual Report,
1905-6, p. 446. Already in 1898, however, the Central Authority
had told its inspectors to urge that oakum-picking, which had been
the staple of the test workhouse, should be given up, as an
occupation for workhouse inmates, especially for women; and did
not suggest any possible alternative (Twenty-eighth Annual Report,
1898-9, p. lxxxiv). "Oakum-picking by the inmates of the
workhouses should be discontinued," said Mr. Chaplin (_Hansard_,
23rd May 1898, vol. 58, p. 326). This was a complete reversal of
policy. As recently as 1890 the Central Authority had actually
invited the Poplar Board of Guardians to undertake some
oakum-picking for the Government, and the board had undertaken to
pick 30 tons at £3 per ton (Local Government Board to Poplar Board
of Guardians, 9th July 1890). By 1904, not only oakum-picking, but
also corn-grinding with a piecework task, was given up. "As
regards the proposed task of corn-grinding, the board states that
in cases where their consent is necessary they do not sanction a
task of corn-grinding by quantity, and they consider that a time
limit should be fixed for such work. As to oakum-picking, they are
of opinion that, on account of its associations, it is open to
objection as a task for workhouse inmates, and as far as
practicable, it should be discontinued for all inmates of
workhouses" (Local Government Board to Islington Union, September
1904; _Local Government Chronicle_, 8th October 1904, p. 1049).

As an adjunct of the policy of the deterrent workhouse for the able-bodied, we have to note the coming-in of compulsory detection. This, of course, had been entirely absent from "the principles of 1834," according to which every inmate of the workhouse was to be free to quit it, with no more notice than was required for the convenience of the establishment. "Much evil," said a Circular of 1871, "has arisen, and ... the discipline of the workhouse has been seriously impaired by the frequent exercise of the power which the inmates have hitherto possessed of discharging themselves from the workhouse at short and uncertain notice, claiming re-admission as might best suit their inclination and convenience." This was remedied by a statute in 1871 which gave the guardians a power to detain, with which we shall deal in our section on the workhouse.[526]

[526] 34 & 35 Vic. c. 108, sec. 4; Circular of 18th November 1871,
in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 54.

(vi.) _The Provision of Employment_

In the midst of all the efforts of the inspectorate to secure stricter administration, made apparently with the ungrudging support of the Central Authority, there came, in February 1886, an altogether incongruous intervention by the new President (Mr. Chamberlain), who had then been only a few weeks in office. On 19th February 1886, he addressed a public letter to the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works, saying that "there is considerable distress amongst workpeople of a class above that of the persons who usually apply for poor law relief"; and urging the Board "to expedite as far as practicable the commencement of any public works which they may be contemplating, so that additional employment may be afforded."[527] Four weeks later this policy was embodied in a circular to all boards of guardians, which may be said to have begun, for good or for evil, a new era as regards the treatment of such of the able-bodied as were classed as "the unemployed." Whilst nominally upholding the workhouse test and, when that is impossible, the labour test,[528] for the relief of the able-bodied pauper, the circular lays it down emphatically that an altogether different provision must be made for the unemployed wage-earner. The President was "convinced that in the ranks of those who do not ordinarily seek poor law relief there is evidence of much and increasing privation," among persons "usually in regular employment." It was, in his view, "not desirable that the working classes should be familiarised with Poor Law Relief;" and the guardians were recommended "to endeavour to arrange" with the local municipal authorities for the execution of such public works as the laying out, paving and cleansing of streets, sewerage and water works, the laying-out of recreation grounds and new cemeteries, and "spade husbandry on sewage farms." The men to be selected from among the special class referred to were to be engaged by the municipal authorities upon the recommendation of the guardians. They were to be paid wages, though at somewhat below the ordinary rates; every encouragement being given to the municipal authorities to raise loans for the purpose. The men would thus not be paupers, nor in receipt of anything from the Poor Rate, the intervention of the guardians being confined to inciting the local municipal authorities to undertake the work, and to recommending the candidates for employment.[529]

[527] Mr. Chamberlain to Metropolitan Board of Works, 19th
February 1886, in House of Commons, No. 69 of 1886, p. 44.

[528] The Circular incidentally criticised the character of the
labour test usually imposed on the able-bodied applicant for poor
relief, as being unfit for skilled artisans. Spade labour was
suggested as "less objectionable"; and "the board will be glad to
assist the guardians by authorising the hiring of land for the
purpose" of setting a task of work to able-bodied paupers on
outdoor relief (Circular of 15th March 1886, in Sixteenth Annual
Report, 1886-7, p. 6). This has now been done at Leicester, where
the board of guardians hires land on which to set the able-bodied
to dig (Thirty-third Annual Report, 1903-4, p. 205).

[529] Circular of 15th March 1886, in Sixteenth Annual Report,
1886-7, pp. 5-7.

The policy thus laid down by Mr. Chamberlain, of finding municipal work for the unemployed, was, it will be seen, a revival of the expedient adopted in the Lancashire Cotton Famine. But Mr. Chamberlain omitted to safeguard his proposal in the way in which the works started out of the Government loans to the Lancashire municipal authorities in 1863-6 had been (in practice, though not explicitly in terms) safeguarded. It was not explained--perhaps it was not realised--that the conditions of success in the Lancashire experiment had been: (i.) that no pretence should be made of taking on the unemployed as such, and, in particular, that the casual labourer class, whether temporarily unemployed or not, should be definitely excluded; and (ii.) that the direct advantage to unemployed workmen should be limited to the taking on, to do the unskilled labourer's work, of a restricted proportion of selected applicants, not of the labouring but of the skilled artisan class. These necessary conditions were not expounded by the Central Authority either in 1886 or in subsequent years. Successive presidents repeated Mr. Chamberlain's suggestions, with no more limitations than he had laid down. Mr. Ritchie, for instance, in the following year, told a deputation of Boards of Guardians that, although they could not legally give employment, as distinguished from poor relief, they "might assist the local authorities, if the latter undertook public works, by sending to them persons applying for relief, who would no doubt prefer to be relieved by temporary employment rather than by becoming a burden on the rates."[530] In 1891 (a year of "good trade," by the way) Mr. Ritchie sent a circular to the Metropolitan vestries and district boards, urging them to provide employment by street cleaning, etc., "in concert with the Boards of Guardians," who were to be "afforded the opportunity of recommending for employment persons who from their previous circumstances and condition it is most desirable should not be placed under the necessity of receiving relief at the cost of the rates."[531]

[530] Mr. Ritchie to deputation as to children in workhouses,
_see_ _Local Government Chronicle_, 17th December 1887, p. 1058.

[531] Circular of 16th January 1891, in Twentieth Annual Report,
1890-91, p. 206; Local Government Board to Poplar Board of
Guardians, 21st January 1891 (_see_ for the action thereon of
Boards of Guardians, MS. archives, Poplar Board of Guardians,
January 1891).

Similar letters were sent to the Boards of Guardians. In November 1892, Mr. Fowler, afterwards Lord Wolverhampton, reproduced Mr. Chamberlain's Circular of 1886, and recommended municipal works, "in order that the pauperisation of those persons whose difficulties are occasioned only by exceptional circumstances arising from temporary scarcity of employment ... may as far as practicable be avoided."[532] In 1893 again, under Mr. Shaw Lefevre's presidency, similar circulars were sent out.[533] In 1895, Mr. Shaw Lefevre, afterwards Lord Eversley, again issued circulars using the very phrases of that of 1886, which were addressed, first to all the boards of guardians, and then to all the rural and urban district councils, asking the former about the distress, and urging the latter to undertake works, in conference with the boards of guardians, in order to afford employment to artisans and others, reduced to want through the prolonged frost.[534] The House of Commons, two days later, appointed a Committee to consider what could be done, at the request of which circulars were sent to all municipalities and district councils asking what had been done.[535] Called upon to justify itself by the Committee presided over by Mr., afterwards Sir Henry, Campbell-Bannerman, the Central Authority explained what had been done, both in the way of Presidential Circulars about unemployment, and in the way of Poor Law relief to the able-bodied. It did not in this emergency suggest or issue any new General Orders, but it sanctioned "departures from the rules as regards outdoor relief in particular cases."[536] Moreover, there was, as Sir Hugh Owen explained, "no indisposition on the part of the Local Government Board to comply with an application from a board of guardians for the issue of the Outdoor Labour Test Order when the circumstances have appeared to be such as to require it."[537] Meanwhile the public controversy that was taking place, the reports of the proceedings of the Committee, and above all the circulars demanding information from all the local authorities in the Kingdom, enormously stimulated the idea that the unemployed had got to be specially dealt with in such a way as to "prevent the stigma of pauperism, and the consequent loss of citizenship."[538] The Committee, after making elaborate inquiries, practically endorsed the policy of Mr. Chamberlain's Circular of 1886, of bringing municipal work to the aid of the unemployed, and carried it even further. They definitely recommended the adoption, as a constant feature of municipal work, though only in respect of the annually recurring slackness of employment in the winter months, of the policy of using the public orders in such a way as to regularise the aggregate volume of employment. As regards the Metropolis, it was recommended that individual boards of guardians might contribute, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, out of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, half the cost of the works undertaken by the vestries or district boards at their instance.[539] Moreover, as it had been discovered that the Acts of 1819 and 1830 had not been repealed, which authorised the local Poor Law authorities to purchase or hire not exceeding 50 acres of land on which to set the poor to work at reasonable wages--statutes which the Central Authority had persistently ignored as obsolete, and had refused to make the rules under which alone they could be made operative--the Committee recommended: "That the Local Government Board should consider the application of such powers, and make rules for the use of boards of guardians in relation thereto."[540]

[532] Circular of 14th November 1892, in Twenty-second Annual
Report, 1892-3, p. 38.

[533] Circulars of 27th March and 30th September 1893,
Twenty-third Annual Report, 1893-4, pp. lxiv-lxv; Board of Trade
Report on Agencies and Methods for dealing with the Unemployed,
1893 (C. 7182), pp. 187-206.

[534] Twenty-fourth Annual Report, 1894-5, pp. lxxi-lxxiii. The
local authorities were taking action before the Circular was sent;
_see_, for instance, MS. Minutes, Bradford Board of Guardians, 4th
February 1895, showing that they had decided on a deputation to
the town council on 23rd January; and that the town council, on
25th January, had agreed to find work in clearing away snow.

[535] _Ibid._ p. lxxiii; First, Second, and Third Reports of the
Select Committee on Distress from Want of Employment, 1895.