Chapter IV: The Local Government Board (3)

[605] _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government
Board_, vol. ii. 1883, p. 258.

It is interesting to trace the growth of opinion with regard to the provision for the children of means of enjoyment. For half a century after 1834 the Central Authority allowed no toys whatever for all its tens of thousands of indoor children of all ages. An auditor in 1883 disallowed sums spent on toys for sick children, and Mr. Hibbert was questioned in Parliament. He said "there have been similar disallowances previously, and the Local Government Board, while relieving the persons surcharged of their liability, have held that expenditure of this character should be defrayed by private liberality, rather than out of rates compulsorily levied." The disallowances had therefore hitherto been confirmed, the payments being thus decided to be actually illegal. "The subject," continued Mr. Hibbert, "had been considered in connection with the recent surcharge, and it is proposed to hold that the expenditure was within the legal powers of the guardians, and the auditor will be communicated with, with a view to a reversal of his decision."[606] It is not clear which of these conflicting decisions of the Central Authority was in accordance with law.

[606] _Ibid._ vol. iii. 1888, p. 55; _Hansard_, 13th March 1883,
vol. 277, p. 365.

In 1891 the Board wrote: "The supply of illustrated books and periodicals of children is especially desirable. Admirable publications of this class can now be obtained at a very small cost, and where it appears to be necessary an expenditure by the guardians for this purpose should, in the Board's opinion, be urged upon them. The question of the provision of bats, balls, skipping-ropes, etc., for the children and toys for the infants, is also one which the Board are desirous should receive the attention of the inspectors on the occasion of their inspections of the workhouses."[607]

[607] Circular, "Supply of Books, Newspapers, etc.," 23rd January
1891, in Report of Royal Commission on the Aged Poor, 1895, vol.
iii. No. C. 7684, ii. p. 967; Twentieth Annual Report, 1890-1, p.
xc.

"Special care should be taken that a sufficient part of each day is set apart for recreation only, and that the children should be allowed to take exercise frequently outside the workhouse premises, and that they should be encouraged in healthy games of all sorts."[608] The guardians were allowed to take girls from the Forest Gate Schools to see the sights of London, provided the places visited were approved by the school inspector,[609] and also to pay a donation to the funds of a Band of Hope, when the Poor Law children were allowed to share in the work of the society.[610]

[608] Circular Letter of 29th January 1895, on "Workhouse
Administration," in Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 1895-6, p. 110.

[609] _Local Government Chronicle_, 18th August 1900, p. 841.

[610] _Ibid._ 14th June 1902, p. 614.

In recent years, we see the inspectorate urging that even children of tender years ought not to live in the workhouse. This is a new idea which has not yet received more formal endorsement. As children under three may not, by the Central Authority's own order of 10th February 1899, be sent to a separate Poor Law school, there is as yet no place for them but the workhouse. "Nothing has been said," observed Mr. Jenner Fust, in 1901, "about the nursery children, at present retained at the workhouse till three years old, or even more, though the case of these requires attention as much as that of the older ones. They are almost always largely under the care of inmates, and the conditions are seldom improved even when these inmates are their own mothers.... I cannot but think that nursery homes with trained nurses as foster-mothers should form part of the equipment of all cottage homes, or, if a separate receiving home be established, the nursery children might conveniently be placed there, the removal from the workhouse not being delayed beyond the period when a child is able to walk."[611]

[611] Mr. Jenner Fust's Report, in Thirtieth Annual Report,
1900-1, p. 147.

With regard to the education of the older workhouse children the Central Authority has changed its policy. It does not actually forbid the guardians to arrange for a school within the workhouse, which was the policy of 1850. But the plan now favoured is to send them out to the public elementary schools, as is also done when they are placed in scattered homes. At first the Central Authority only sanctioned this course with reluctance, only when the number of such children was small, and with special recommendations as to the appointment of officers to supervise the children out of school hours and impart industrial training.[612] In the case of one union, they "urged the guardians to reconsider the question, with a view to the appointment either of a caretaker of the children or a porter, who could give that attention to the boys when in the workhouse which was of such importance to their future welfare."[613] Later, perhaps, when the principle of paid "caretakers" had become more fully accepted, the Central Authority gave the system much more hearty support, noted its prevalence with satisfaction, and considered it highly desirable that children in Poor Law establishments should thus be given opportunities of mixing with other children.

[612] _Local Government Chronicle_, 22nd June 1878, p. 489.

[613] _Hansard_, 6th September 1886, vol. 308, p. 1316.

When there is a choice of elementary schools, each child should be sent to the one conducted according to its own religious creed, and it was also recommended that the children should be sent out to Sunday schools of their own denomination. This denomination is ordinarily that of the child's parents, but if the religion is not known, he is to be brought up in the Church of England:[614] if the father changes his creed, that of the child changes also.[615]

[614] _Local Government Chronicle_, 2nd July 1904, p. 707.

[615] _Ibid._ 8th November 1902, p. 1126.

While in the workhouse the children are to receive instruction in industrial and manual work, but the Board strongly resisted proposals for sending them out to work in factories.[616]

[616] _Hansard_, 21st June 1888, vol. 327, pp. 809-10; _Selections
from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board_, vol ii.
1883, p. 139.

Subject to these conditions, the 21,526 children living in the workhouse remain there to the knowledge and with the sanction of the Central Authority--at least, this is what the guardians contend, and, so far as we can discover, there is no order, circular, or minute to the contrary.[617]

[617] We ought perhaps to add that the Central Authority is found
putting pressure on boards of guardians who refuse to make any
adequate provision for their children. In 1898 it is reported
that, because the Darlington Board of Guardians refused to make
such provision, the Central Authority had refused to sanction any
alteration of the workhouse whatsoever until such provision had
been made (_Local Government Chronicle_, 19th February 1898, p.
175).

The 21,526 workhouse children appear to be made up of: (_a_)
infants under three; (_b_) children between three and fourteen,
scattered in groups of a dozen to as many as seventy in the
workhouses of the unions having no separate schools of their own
(in the York Workhouse there are usually about seventy children);
and (_c_) children temporarily in the workhouse on their way to
separate schools, boarding-out, being apprenticed, etc. In another
classification they are: (_a_) the newly-born infants of the women
in the lying-in ward; (_b_) children between three and fourteen,
who are orphans or deserted; (_c_) children of indoor paupers, who
are either (i.) permanent residents; or (ii.) "ins-and-outs." We
cannot find any expression of policy of the Central Authority with
regard to any of these classes. In the Metropolis, it should be
said, provision has been made for the relegation to special
institutions of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, not only of
children suffering from ophthalmia, etc., but also of children
temporarily remitted to the care of the guardians by the police
("remand children"), who had heretofore been sent to the
workhouses (Circulars of 19th January and 5th April 1897, and
General Order of 2nd April 1897, Twenty-seventh Annual Report,
1897-8, pp. 8-9). We do not gather that any corresponding
provision has been made for such children outside the Metropolis.

Meanwhile the guardians are pressed to bestow on them an amount of salaried care and expensive attention that surprises the more old-fashioned among them, who have not yet quite abandoned the principle of "less eligibility." "One matter of some interest," says Mr. Baldwyn Fleming in 1902, "is the curious reluctance displayed by country guardians to have the children's teeth cared for." The argument used is, "The ratepayers do not take their children to the dentist, and why should we do so?" (in the case of the indoor Poor Law children.)[618]

[618] Mr. Baldwyn Fleming's Report in the Thirty-first Annual
Report, 1901-2, p. 91.

(iv.) _The Education of the Indoor Pauper Child_

Down to 1897 the Central Authority had contemplated and recognised in its orders and circulars that the pauper children would spend only about half the school time in ordinary school subjects, the other half being devoted to what was euphemistically called "industrial training."[619] This meant, in practice, the employment of the children in domestic work, gardening, mending clothes or boots, and so on, the persons selected as "industrial trainers" not being required to have any pedagogic qualifications or power to teach, and being paid in fact only at workmen's rates. In 1897, the rapid abandonment of the half-time system outside the workhouse led to a great advance. By the Order of that year,[620] which governs all Poor Law schools, whether they are in workhouses or district or separate schools, the half-time system is greatly discouraged. Industrial training takes a subordinate place. The Order fixes the number of hours during which the children are to be under school instruction, and provides for a ten minutes' rest in every attendance of two hours or more, limits the number of hours which may be occupied in manual or industrial work, and provides for one whole holiday or two half-holidays in each week, in addition to allowing six weeks' holidays in the year if the guardians choose to grant it. One object of the Order was to secure that children should not be unduly pressed with manual or industrial work in addition to the school instruction. The religious teaching required by any Orders in force is to be given in addition to the school hours. In 1877 it had been ordered that any time which might be devoted to drill or industrial training, other than a reasonable time for needlework, in the case of girls, should not be included in the time prescribed for attendance.[621] The present Order, in more general terms, allows school instruction to include "any of the subjects for which grants may be made under the Code of Regulations of the Education Department, for the time being in force, except cookery, laundry work, dairy work, or cottage gardening." Of the time allowed for needlework, not more than one-third is to be spent in mending; the rest is to be occupied in plain needlework, knitting, and cutting out and making garments. When children attend school for half-time, it is preferred that they shall receive the school instruction in the morning, and the industrial training in the afternoon.[622] There is now no superior limit to the education that may be provided for a pauper child within the proper ages. As early as 1878 payment for the attendance of the workhouse girls at a school of cookery was held to be legal. Guardians are allowed to pay the fees for the instruction of the children at a technical institute when they see fit to do so,[623] quite irrespective of whether or not the children of the poorest independent labourer can get such advantages.

[619] There was not much pretence of technical instruction in the
earlier Orders. What was aimed at was putting the children to
work, chosen for its utility, not for its instructiveness (_i.e._
digging rather than gardening, mending the shoes of the
establishment rather than learning the art of shoemaking). In the
Special Order to the Walsall and West Bromwich School District of
1st July 1871, it was laid down that the children might be
employed (under certain circumstances, wholly employed) "upon
works of industry." In an amending Special Order of 20th July
1893, the age was raised, but the phrase was retained.

[620] Order of 30th January 1897 in Twenty-seventh Annual Report,
1897-8, pp. 5-8; _see_ for its effect Thirty-third Annual Report,
1903-4, p. 256.

[621] General Order "prescribing attendance" as regards workhouse
schools, 30th October 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p.
204.

[622] Circular Letter, 1st February 1897, in Twenty-seventh Annual
Report, 1897-8, p. 5.

[623] _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government
Board_, vol. i. 1880, p. 224; _Local Government Chronicle_, 30th
January 1904, p. 113.

It may be noted that a Special Order of 30th April 1887 (not mentioned in the Annual Reports, or otherwise communicated to boards of guardians) enables the Forest Gate District School to allow a class of the elder girls to go out and buy their food, spending not more than 3s. 6d. a week each, and prepare it for their own consumption, so as to get some practical experience of ordinary life. By another Order of 5th August 1889, the children in this one school are allowed to buy their own outfits (up to £3 10s.). We do not find that the Central Authority has yet made these privileges general, nor extended them to any other indoor pauper children.[624]

[624] By a General Order of 20th May 1881, corporal punishment is
absolutely forbidden in Poor Law Schools as regards "any female
child" of any age. This rule has not yet been made by the Board of
Education for the schools attended by non-paupers nor by most
local education authorities.

On 1st April 1904, the responsibility for the inspection of the education of the Poor Law Schools, and of pauper children in certified schools, was transferred to the Board of Education thus reverting to the policy prior to 1863.[625]

[625] Thirty-third Annual Report, 1903-4, p. 256.

(v.) _Boarding-out_

The boarding-out system was in 1871 still on its trial, having been authorised for scarcely a year, and the Central Authority was very guarded in expressing any opinion on its merits; it gradually won favour, but while mildly encouraging it the Central Authority would do nothing to force its growth. In 1900 it was referred to as one method of removing children from the workhouse,[626] but it was never thought likely to become a practical means for dealing with the mass of pauper children, as a substitute either for ordinary outdoor relief or for Poor Law schools.[627]

[626] Circular Letter of 4th August 1900, on Aged Deserving Poor,
in Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1901, p. 18.

[627] _Hansard_, 8th May 1894, vol. 24, p. 598.

Boarding-out beyond the union had been first regulated by the Order of 25th November 1870. In 1877 it was found that boarding-out within the union was being largely practised, it being, as the Central Authority had itself held, legally only ordinary out-relief, requiring no sanction. This also was then regulated by a General Order.[628] Both these Orders were re-issued with slight modifications in 1889, the former to every union in the country, the latter to all but the most populous town unions. Again, in 1905, the Order for boarding-out beyond the union was slightly altered and re-issued.[629]

[628] 10th September 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, pp.
193-200.

[629] Macmorran and Lushington's _Poor Law Orders_, second
edition, 1905, p. 1331.

The operation of these Orders was limited to certain classes of children; in 1877 to those deserted by their parents, or whose parents were dead, undergoing penal servitude, suffering from mental disease, or out of England; by the Orders of 1889, children whose parents were permanently bedridden or disabled were added to the list; and in 1905 children adopted by the guardians were formally included, as such children could previously only be boarded out if they were also orphan or deserted according to the definition. The Central Authority refused its sanction to a proposal to board out the illegitimate children of able-bodied women in the workhouse.[630] It was twice decided that when out-relief is given to a child living with a person not legally liable for its support, such child must be considered as boarded out.[631] There is no age limit for boarding-out within the union, but a child may not be first boarded out beyond the union under two, nor when over ten, unless in the same home with a brother or sister under that age.

[630] _Local Government Chronicle_, 16th August 1902, p. 825.

[631] _Ibid._ 27th April 1889, p. 338; _Hansard_, 2nd July 1897,
vol. 50, p. 966; _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local
Government Board_, vol. ii. 1883, p. 94. On the other hand, a
contrary decision seems to have been given in 1885 (_ibid._ vol.
iii. 1888, p. 187).

In view of this gradual adoption of the boarding-out system as a permanent form of the treatment of children under the Poor Law, it is instructive to compare the requirements which the Central Authority makes to ensure the proper maintenance of the boarded-out children with the policy just described in respect of the children on ordinary outdoor relief.

The various Orders all lay practically the same duties on the foster-parent. He is to sign an undertaking that: "He will bring up the child as one of his own children, and provide the child with proper food, lodging and washing, and endeavour to train the child in habits of truthfulness, obedience, personal cleanliness and industry, as well as in suitable domestic and outdoor work, so far as may be consistent with the law; that he will take care that the child shall attend duly at church or chapel according to the religious creed to which the child belongs, and shall attend school according to the provisions of the law for the time being; that he will provide for the proper repair and renewal of the child's clothing, and that in case of the child's illness he will forthwith report such illness to the guardians and to the boarding-out committee; and that he will at all times permit the child to be visited and the house to be inspected by any member of the boarding-out committee, and by any person specially appointed for that purpose by the guardians or by the Local Government Board. The undertaking shall also contain an engagement on the part of the foster-parent that he will, upon the demand of a person duly authorised in writing by the boarding-out committee, or by the guardians, give up possession of the child."[632] The 1905 undertaking is slightly different in terms, the chief variation being an omission of the reference to "domestic and outdoor work," because cases had occurred in which these words had been pleaded as an excuse for overtaxing the working capacity of the children.[633]

[632] Boarding out without the Union Order, 1889, in Nineteenth
Annual Report, 1889-90, p. 49. The "within the Union Order"
contains some modifications for the case where there is no
committee.

[633] Circular Letter, 9th December 1905, in Thirty-fifth Annual
Report, 1905-6, p. 328.

Foster-parents may never be persons in receipt of relief, or whose only means of support is the allowance made for the children. Children should not, except in special cases, be boarded with relations, nor in any home where the father is employed in night work; foster-parents employed in outdoor work are preferred to those occupied in sedentary labour.[634] They should also (both, in the case of married couples) be of the same religious creed as the child,[635] live within two miles from the school where the child is to attend, and within five miles--preferably three--from the house of some member of the committee. Attention is to be paid to decent accommodation in the homes, and to the separation of the sexes in the sleeping-rooms. Children over seven are not allowed to sleep in the same room with married couples. No child is to be boarded out in a house where sleeping accommodation is afforded to an adult lodger.[636]

[634] Memorandum of the Local Government Board, June 1900. See
_Local Government Law and Legislation_, by W. H. Dumsday, 1900, p.
126.

[635] _Local Government Chronicle_, 31st October 1903, p. 1070.

[636] Memorandum of the Local Government Board, June 1900, _Local
Government Law and Legislation_, by W. H. Dumsday, 1900, p. 126.

The number of children to be placed in any one home was at first limited to two--or four, if all were brothers and sisters,--but it was soon found that further restrictions were necessary for the prevention of over-crowding. Accordingly, it is ruled that not more than one child may be placed in a home where a child is boarded by any other agency and none where there is more than one such child; no child is to be boarded in a home where, with him, there would be more than five children resident. The clothing provided for a boarded-out child is to be of a good, ordinary character, with no suggestion of a workhouse uniform. The highly expensive but most advantageous service of dentistry may be paid for by the guardians. The Central Authority strongly disapproved of a proposal made to it, under which a child was to be sent out to work, and earn wages, while the full allowance was still being paid by the guardians. "If a boarded-out child is eligible under the Education and Factory Acts for employment, the boarding-out committee should report the case to the guardians, who should obtain the consent of the Local Government Board to any proposal to relieve the child whilst in receipt of regular wages. A foster-parent should not be permitted to allow a child to go to work for wages unless the guardians, with the assent of the Board, have previously assented thereto."[637]

[637] _Local Government Chronicle_, 12th March 1904, p. 290.

Prior to 1877 the Central Authority held that children boarded out within the union, being merely cases of outdoor relief, did not require these precautions. From 1877 onward similar precautions were required in their cases. Such children became thus differentiated from other children on outdoor relief, on whose behalf no such requirements are insisted on. For the boarded-out children a payment was approved of 4s. a week each (afterwards raised to 5s.), a sum to be contrasted with the 1s. or 1s. 6d. for each child which is the usual sum allowed for each child on ordinary outdoor relief.[638]

[638] The rate of 1s. and one loaf for the support per week of
each child on outdoor relief was deliberately sanctioned, in 1869,
by a Conference of Metropolitan Guardians, presided over by Mr.
Corbett (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871, as reprinted
for official circulation in 1873 by the Central Authority). The
dividing line between children merely on this outdoor relief, and
those "boarded out" at 4s. or 5s. per week, it must be remembered,
is not kinship, but whether or not the person with whom the child
lives is legally liable for its maintenance. Thus, the policy of
the Central Authority has been that children living with a
stepfather and stepmother, with a widower stepfather, with a
widowed stepmother, or even with a brother, a sister, an uncle, or
an aunt (none of whom is legally liable for their maintenance)
require all this elaborate supervision and protection; whereas if
the children live with their own mother and father, with their
widowed mother, with their widower father, with any or all of
their grandparents, or exposed to the tender mercies of a father
and stepmother, no such supervision and protection is insisted on.
But although this is the rule, we are informed that the Central
Authority, in practice, now makes no difficulty, if applied to, in
sanctioning the transfer of children living with grandparents,
uncles and aunts, or brothers and sisters, from the category of
ordinary outdoor relief to the more regulated and more richly
endowed category of boarding-out. It still objects in the case of
parents (_Selections from the Correspondence of the Local
Government Board_, vol. iii. 1888, p. 187; _Decisions of the Local
Government Board_, 1903-4, by W. A. Casson, 1905, p. 78).

In equally marked contrast with its attitude with regard to the other children on outdoor relief, the Central Authority has been vigilant to secure for the boarded-out children systematic inspection. Mr. Chaplin said in Parliament: "I approve of, and warmly sympathise with boarding-out, subject to one condition, which is of surpassing importance, namely, that the inspection of the children boarded out shall be adequate and effective. I cannot conceive a position of greater misery and hardship than that of some poor unfortunate little child boarded out to some one who takes care of it, not for love of the child, but simply for the purpose of making a gain and a profit out of it.... So far as it is possible to promote that adequate inspection ... and wherever it is possible to board out on these conditions, the Board gives its assistance."[639]

[639] _Hansard_, 8th August 1898, vol. 54, p. 576.

The children boarded within the union are to visited by the medical officer quarterly, whether or not they are reported ill, and by the relieving officer--who pays the foster-parents at their residence,--ordinarily weekly, and may also be visited by the guardians or any other person appointed for the purpose by the guardians or the Local Government Board. If there is a boarding-out committee (which is permissive under the 1889 Boarding-out in Unions Order) a member thereof must visit every six weeks; the inspection by the medical officer may then be dispensed with, and the system becomes more nearly like that for boarding outside the union. Under the latter, the responsibility is thrown on the committee, and unless they fail the guardians are not allowed themselves to inspect. The Local Government Board also sends an inspector from time to time, with the object of discovering how the committees do their work, for it is on the efficiency of the committees that the whole system of boarding-out depends.[640]

[640] Circular Letter, 29th May 1889, in Nineteenth Annual Report,
1889-90, pp. 36-41.

When the children are thus thoroughly supervised by the committees, and the committees are kept up to their work by the general inspectors, the Board do not favour any further inspection by the guardians. "One of the main objects of the boarding-out system is that pauper children should become merged in the general population; but if a child boarded out is to be examined regularly by a medical man, supervised by a committee of the guardians, and inspected by a Government inspector, it would appear to imply that no confidence whatever is to be placed in the boarding-out committees under whom the children are placed, although for any success attending the boarding-out system it is on these committees that we must rely."[641] Besides, "where children are boarded out by guardians at a long distance from their own union or parish, it may often be inconvenient, except in the case of many children being placed in the same neighbourhood, for the guardians to arrange for the visitation of the children by their own officer as frequently as the Board deem indispensable, when inspection by members of the committee has ceased. It follows, therefore, that if the voluntary boarding-out committees should allow their vigilance or their interest to flag, the guardians will, in all probability, seldom have any alternative but to take back the children."[642]

[641] Mr. Ritchie, President of the Local Government Board,
_Hansard_, 4th July 1887, vol. 316, pp. 1598-9.

[642] Circular Letter, 29th May 1884, in Nineteenth Annual Report,
1889-90, p. 44.

The boarded-out children, thus elaborately inspected and expensively provided for, had, by 1st January 1906, slowly risen to 8,781;[643] but they were even then only one-seventh of those in institutions, and only one-twentieth of those on ordinary outdoor relief.

[643] Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, p. cxxxii.

(vi.) _Apprenticeship_

We may note a tendency to enlarge the responsibilities, powers and duties of the guardians for successfully launching the children in the world--an enlargement which plainly loses sight altogether of the principle of "less eligibility." We see the Central Authority making elaborate suggestions for the care of children apprenticed or in service, and issuing an Order enabling the guardians to provide outfits when children were sent out, without previously asking for sanction, which had before been necessary under some of the Orders. When the Central Authority had been asked for such sanction it had taken the opportunity of objecting to a child being sent to service without money wages, or to an inn or public-house (unless in exceptional circumstances), or to any place where the conditions of service seemed unsatisfactory, and of requiring to be satisfied that the child was qualified for employment as required by the Education Acts. By allowing guardians to obtain outfits without obtaining express sanction the Central Authority relinquished this opportunity of control over the conditions of service. It therefore referred to these points in the Circular on the Order, and expressed its confidence that the guardians would see that all was satisfactory in these respects.[644] It did not approve of the Poor Law children being engaged as servants to officers of Poor Law establishments--situations which, like those in public-houses, etc., were left to be filled by the less carefully protected children of independent parents or those on outdoor relief--considering it desirable that the children should be severed from all connection with pauper surroundings as soon as possible after attaining an age at which they can secure employment.[645]

[644] Circular on "Outfits for Children sent to Service," 14th
July 1897, in Twenty-seventh Annual Report, 1897-8, p. 26.

[645] _Local Government Chronicle_, 18th October 1902, p. 1051.

When children are first apprenticed they receive very low wages or more often none at all, and there is frequently a difficulty in providing for their maintenance. We have already referred to the doubt of the Central Authority as to how to treat the experiment of the Norwich Guardians on this point. Though these Guardians kept their homes this doubt apparently continued. The Keighley Guardians wished to use one of their cottage homes as a residence for working boys from the workhouse, but the Central Authority refused its assent, stating that it had no power to render such a course legal. Nevertheless it allowed a lad who received no wages, but was entirely engaged in learning his trade, to reside in the workhouse during the term of his apprenticeship,[646] and to children earning low wages insufficient to support them outdoor relief may be given. "In such cases the Board have required to be furnished with an assurance that the guardians had satisfied themselves that the amount allowed by them would, with the weekly wages paid by the master, be adequate to provide for the maintenance and clothing of the apprentice, either alone or in association with other boys. They also required a statement of the weekly wages ordinarily paid in the locality to apprentices in the particular trade, and to be informed (_a_) of the amount of weekly relief the guardians proposed to grant; (_b_) the period during which such relief should continue; and (_c_) whether, as the apprentice's wages increased, the relief would be correspondingly reduced."[647]

[646] _Ibid._ 31st October 1903, p. 1070.

[647] _Local Government Chronicle_, 31st January 1903, p. 102.

In 1904 the Central Authority was prepared to acquiesce, subject to the details of the scheme proving satisfactory, in a proposal to establish a home for boys over whom the guardians had acquired parental rights, the boys receiving board and lodging therein for so long in each case, as the wages were insufficient to enable them to obtain suitable accommodation elsewhere.[648]

[648] _Ibid._ 15th October 1904, p. 1072; _Decisions of the Local
Government Board_, 1903-4, by W. A. Casson, 1905, p. 118.

The Central Authority had, in 1873, been doubtful how far a relieving officer should interfere if he found, when visiting a servant or apprentice, that the master or mistress, _instead of paying the stipulated wages_, gave clothing, which might be old, useless, or valued at an exorbitant rate. It merely told the guardians that he should make a special inquiry, and report if the practice appeared to be actually injurious to the personal condition of the child, so as to amount to "cruel or illegal treatment in any respect."[649]

[649] Circular Letter of 31st May 1873, in Third Annual Report,
1873-4, pp. 3-4.

Apprenticeship to the sea service[650] had, previously to 1894, been left outside the scope of the orders regulating other apprenticeships, being subject to special provisions under the Merchant Shipping Acts, and also regulated by the Board of Trade. That Board made some alterations in the form of indenture in 1895, and the Local Government Board issued a circular to guardians calling attention to the changes. The master was required to pay to the superintendent any balance of spending money, share of salvage and other perquisites due to an apprentice after his daily or weekly allowance had been paid, and the superintendent was to apply such sums for the boy's benefit in the expenses of holidays, payment of fines, or other ways. This provision was considered by the Local Government Board to be of great importance, as it would "enable the magistrates in many cases to punish a boy for breaches of discipline, without committing him to prison." The new form of indenture also required the master to allow each apprentice a reasonable holiday in every year.

[650] _See ante_, p. 17.

The same circular referred to recommendations made by Mr. Davy and Mr. Berrington, in a Report on the Fishing Apprenticeship System, as to the desirability of continued supervision by the guardians after the boys were apprenticed, and of arranging for reports to be made to the guardians in cases of absconding or other grave offence on the part of the boys, and also as to the expediency of giving future apprentices some preliminary instruction in cooking.[651]

[651] Circular of 2nd March 1895, in Twenty-fifth Annual Report,
1895-6, p. 118.

So far as we can make out from the published documents, the use of the power of apprenticeship is--in the view of the guardians and the Central Authority alike--practically limited to the children maintained in Poor Law institutions (indoor paupers), numbering 50,669 on 1st January 1906, together with those outdoor pauper children who are either "boarded out" (in the technical sense), numbering 8,781, or maintained in certified schools, etc., numbering 9,364, making an aggregate total of 68,814 children to whom the Central Authority's policy of apprenticeship is assumed to be applicable.[652] We do not find any suggestion that any similar policy is applicable to the other 166,258 children on outdoor relief,[653] about the starting in life of whom we can find no documents.

[652] Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, pp. cxxx, cxxxi.

[653] Omitting children receiving medical relief only; and the
casuals and insane (_ibid._ p. cxxxi).

(vii.) _Adoption_

From 1871 to 1889 the powers and responsibilities of Poor Law authorities with regard to children whose parents claimed the control of them were, as against the parents, extremely limited. The Central Authority clung to the principle of parental authority. In 1887, Mr. Ritchie said:

"No doubt there are some instances in which the interests of children are prejudiced by their parents claiming them from the guardians, but I should not be prepared to propose legislation which would enable a board of guardians to withhold a child from its parent when claimed by him."[654]

[654] _Hansard_, 28th May 1887, vol. 315, p. 857. The policy of
the Central Authority was apparently against allowing the
guardians to assume parental responsibilities. In 1889 Mr. Ritchie
had prepared a Bill "to provide that, on application to the
justices, an Order might be made detaining a child already under
the care of the guardians or boarded out" (_Local Government
Chronicle_, 23rd March 1889, p. 238), but not extending the duties
or responsibilities of the guardians.

Two years later Parliament over-rode this contention of official irresponsibility, and passed the first of a series of Acts under which guardians might themselves assume parental responsibilities and unsuitable parents might be deprived of the custody of their children; and the guardians of the poor might become _in loco parentis_, even up to eighteen years of age. By the Act of 1889, "where a child is maintained by the guardians of any union and was deserted by its parent," or if the "parent is imprisoned under a sentence of penal servitude or imprisonment in respect of an offence committed against a child," "the guardians may at any time resolve that such child shall be under the control of the guardians until it reaches the age, if a boy, of sixteen, and, if a girl, of eighteen years"; such a resolution of the guardians is not irrevocable; they may rescind it, or, without rescinding it, "permit such child to be either permanently or temporarily under the control of such parent, or of any other relative or of any friend." If the parent is aggrieved by the resolution, he may appeal to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, and the Court, if satisfied "that the child has not been maintained by the guardians, or was not deserted by such parent, or that it is for the benefit of the child that it should be either permanently or temporarily under the control of such parent, or that the resolution of the guardians should be determined, may make an Order accordingly, and any such Order shall be complied with by the guardians, and if the Order determines the resolution, the resolution shall be thereby determined." The "powers and rights" of a parent which the guardians may assume are subject to one limitation, in that no resolution can authorise them to have the child educated in any religious creed other than that in which the child would otherwise have been educated, _i.e._ that of its parents.[655]

[655] Poor Law Act 1889, 52 & 58 Vic. c. 56. sec. 1.

The Central Authority duly commended the Act among other legislation of the session to the notice of the boards of guardians in an official circular.[656]

[656] Circular of 28th September 1899, in Twenty-ninth Annual
Report 1889-1900, p. 48.

Such was the original form of this law; but the experiences of the Central Authority and the guardians as to its working led them to get passed successive measures developing its details in various respects. The Court's power of determining the resolution of the guardians was limited by the Act of 1890, which provides that: "where a parent has (_a_) abandoned or deserted his child; or (_b_) allowed his child to be brought up by another person at that person's expense, or by the guardians of a Poor Law union, for such a length of time and under such circumstances as to satisfy the Court that the parent was unmindful of his parental duties, the Court shall not make an order for the delivery of the child to the parent unless the parent has satisfied the Court that, having regard to the welfare of the child, he is a fit person to have the custody of the child." Under this law, therefore, not only the Poor Law guardians, but any other person who has brought up the child at his own expense may acquire the right of custody in the place of the parent. This Act is not to "affect the power of the Court to consult the wishes of the child ... or diminish the right which any child now possesses to the exercise of its own free choice." The Court was also given the power to make such order as it may think fit, "to secure that the child be brought up in the religion in which the parent has a legal right to require that the child should be brought up."[657]

[657] Custody of Children Act, 54 Vic. c. 3, secs. 3, 4.

The class of children to which the law applies was, at the instance of the Central Authority, considerably enlarged in 1899, and it is worth considering how extensive it now is. "Where a child is maintained by the guardians of a Poor Law union, and: (i.) the child has been deserted by its parent; or (ii.) the guardians are of opinion that by reason of mental deficiency, or of vicious habits, or mode of life, a parent of the child is unfit to have the control of it; or (iii.) a parent is unable to perform his or her parental duties by reason of being under sentence of penal servitude or of being detained under the Inebriates