Chapter III: The Poor Law Board (1)

We have seen that between 1834 and 1847 the Central Authority settled down to a certain empirical policy as to the administration of relief, which was embodied, as regards workhouse management throughout the whole country, in the General Consolidated Order of 1847; and (as regards outdoor relief in the different geographical regions into which England and Wales had been divided) in the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844, in that Order coupled with a Labour Test Order, and in the series of separate Orders to be presently consolidated in the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852. The policy thus adopted was, as we have seen, in various important respects not that of the "principles of 1834." It is significant of the difficulty which was experienced in putting those principles into operation that there was, during the whole period 1847-71, no attempt to bring the general policy into conformity with that of the Report of 1834. We see no attempt at revision--indeed practically no criticism or desire for revision--of the great Orders of 1844, 1847 and 1852. What happened was a slow and almost unselfconscious development of a supplementary policy in respect to certain favoured classes of paupers, notably children and the sick--classes which had been practically ignored in the 1834 Report. This supplementary policy was avowedly based, not on the principle of a minimum relief of destitution with deterrent conditions, but on that of supplying whatever was necessary for adequate training or treatment, without objecting to the incidental result that this meant placing out in the competitive world the persons thus dealt with in a position of positive advantage as compared with the lowest class of independent labourers, who plainly could get no such training or treatment. It does not appear necessary, for this period, to separate the analysis of the statutes from that of the orders of the Central Authority. Though the Acts of Parliament are numerous--one or two for every session--they relate principally to the machinery of administration,[286] and (except in the case of children) deal only slightly with policy. Parliament had, in fact, ceased to be interested in the Poor Law, and furnished for many years practically neither independent criticism nor initiative. "The Poor Law Board," observed Sir George Cornewall Lewis in 1851, "has now become purely administrative and has no character or policy of its own."[287] It got from Parliament just what additional powers it chose to ask for.[288] We may therefore include in one analysis both the statutes and the orders relating to relief policy.

[286] It is a noticeable fact that certain classes of paupers are
never mentioned in the legislation of this period, presumably
because Parliament was satisfied with the result of giving wide
powers to the Central Authority, and did not wish to interfere
with its discretion. Apparently there is no single clause dealing
with the treatment either of the able-bodied or of the aged. Women
are almost equally ignored, wives only being referred to, and they
merely in connection with questions of chargeability, and in such
a way as to indicate their complete dependence on their husbands.
Children, on the other hand, are the subject of numerous
enactments, and the sick, lunatics and vagrants also obtain
recognition.

[287] Lewis to Head, 19th May 1851, in _Letters of Sir G. C.
Lewis_, edited by Sir G. F. Lewis, 1870, p. 245.

[288] Thus, under the Poor Relief Act, 1849, the Commissioners
might make rules "for the management and government of any house
or establishment wherein any poor person shall be lodged, boarded
or maintained, for hire or remuneration, under any contract or
agreement entered into by the proprietor, manager or
superintendent, ... with any guardians," unless such an
institution be a county lunatic asylum, a hospital registered or
house licensed for the reception of lunatics, or a "hospital,
infirmary, school or other institution, supported by public
subscriptions, and maintained for purposes of charity only" (12 &
13 Vic. c. 13, secs. 1, 2). By the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867 (30
& 31 Vic. c. 6), they were given power to combine Metropolitan
unions and parishes into districts for the provision of sick,
insane, infirm or other asylums (see sections on the sick and
lunatics) and to direct the erection or adaptation of the
necessary buildings; what use the Central Authority made of these
powers will be seen presently. Another Metropolitan Poor Act in
1871 extended the application of the former to "any ship, vessel,
hut, tent, or other temporary erection which may be used by the
managers, with the approval of the Poor Law Board, for the
reception of paupers, or otherwise for the purposes of the asylum"
(34 Vic. c. 15, sec. 1). The Central Authority was also enabled
(by the Paupers Conveyance Expenses Act 1870) to "direct in what
cases (other than those expressly provided for by law) and under
what regulations, the guardians ... may pay the reasonable
expenses incurred ... in conveying any person chargeable ... from
one place to another in England" (33 & 34 Vic. c. 48, sec. 1).

_A._--_The Able-bodied_

So far as may be gathered from new statutes, new general orders, or new circulars of the Central Authority, there was, between 1847 and 1871, no new policy prescribed to the local Poor Law authorities[289] for the relief of the able-bodied. It is true that in August 1852, revised in December 1852, we have a great General Order (still in force), the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, which permitted outdoor relief to the able-bodied, unconditionally for women, and subject to test work for men. This, however, was but a codification, with slight amendments, of the separate Outdoor Labour Test Orders that had been issued between 1835 and 1852. It might, therefore, be inferred that the Central Authority did not, between 1847 and 1871, change its policy.[290]

[289] The episode of the Lancashire Cotton Famine, and its relief
works, in which the boards of guardians were concerned only as
nuisance-abatement authorities, will be dealt with under the head
of Municipal Work for the Unemployed.

[290] It should perhaps be said that the Central Authority sought
to widen the category of able-bodied, so as definitely to include
persons over sixty, but in no way disabled (_Official Circular_,
April 1849, No. 24, N.S., p. 63); and also "Children competent to
render service" (Poor Law Board to Evesham Union, 3rd April 1869,
in Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p. 5).

(i.) _National Uniformity_

No attempt was made to secure national uniformity with regard to the treatment of the able-bodied.

Union after union was brought under one or other of the three systems which we have already described until, by 1871, with half-a-dozen exceptions, the whole area was covered. The Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844 (forbidding, with certain exceptions, outdoor relief to the able-bodied, whether men or women) continued in force in, or was issued anew to, certain unions. This Order, coupled with an Outdoor Labour Test Order (sanctioning outdoor relief to able-bodied men and their families subject to test work by the man, but prohibiting outdoor relief to able-bodied independent women), continued in force in, or was issued anew to, certain other unions. To a third set of unions there was issued the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order (permitting outdoor relief to able-bodied women unconditionally, and to able-bodied men subject to test work). These three systems of outdoor relief to the able-bodied remained, between 1847 and 1871, essentially as they had been elaborated between 1834 and 1847.

But meanwhile a great change in the policy of the Central Authority was silently taking place. The areas over which the three systems were applied completely shifted in relative importance. In 1847 the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, issued alone, which may be said to come nearest to the "principles of 1834," had been imposed on 396 unions; the two other systems standing out only as relatively small exceptions, temporarily applicable to 142 places in all.

It is clear that at that period the Central Authority was "of opinion that where there is a commodious and efficient workhouse, it is best that _the able-bodied paupers_ should be received and set to work therein."[291]

[291] Circular of 25th August 1852 in Fifth Annual Report, 1852,
pp. 21-2. Note the limitation which we have italicised.

Yet for the next twenty years the part of England and Wales to which the Central Authority sought to apply this policy steadily shrank. In 1871, the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, issued alone, applied only to 307 unions, containing a steadily declining proportion of the total population.

That Order was mitigated in 217 unions, comprising a steadily increasing population, by being accompanied by a Labour Test Order. Finally, the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, since 1852 adopted as a permanent policy, had crept over the Metropolis, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, and the majority of urban centres elsewhere, to the number of no fewer than 117. In these important districts the Central Authority had become convinced, to use its own words, that it was "_not expedient ... to prohibit out-relief to any class of paupers_."[292]

[292] _Ibid._ p. 22.

The able-bodied in the workhouse remained under the General Consolidated Order of 1847 essentially as we have already described them.

(ii.) _Municipal Work for the Unemployed_

We must here mention the episode of the public works undertaken in 1863-6 by the municipal and public health authorities of Lancashire, etc., as a means of relieving the distress caused by the cotton famine. As this has been so clearly described by various writers, it will suffice here to draw attention to the fact that although directed by the Poor Law Board, these works of municipal improvement formed no part of its Poor Law policy. The Central Authority began by sanctioning "a large amount of relief given at variance with the provisions of the General Relief Regulations Order."[293] The problem was then tackled by extensive charitable funds. Finally the Poor Law Board itself came to the conclusion that "it appeared highly desirable that the large bodies of able-bodied men who had been so long deprived of their usual employment should not continue to be relieved either in idleness, or on the performance of a task of unremunerative labour, but should rather, if possible, have work at adequate wages placed within their reach which would enable them to obtain an independent livelihood."[294] What was then adopted was the policy of using public orders for necessary work as a means of partially filling the gap in the aggregate volume of employment caused by the stoppage of the mills. Various minor relief works, in the ordinary sense of the term, were started by local committees and private persons. But the main experiment, fostered by Government loans of nearly two millions, and the advice of a Government engineer, took the form of the execution by the municipalities, and other local authorities, of necessary works of public improvement, which, far from being artificially created in order to give employment, would in any event have had to be executed, and were, in fact, long overdue.[295] There was no attempt to set all the unemployed to work, and no desire to confine to them the staff that was engaged. As a matter of fact, about a third of the men taken on were workmen skilled in the particular work to be done, and these do not appear to have been drawn from the unemployed class at all. But for the mere unskilled manual work volunteers were (in some, but not all the cases) asked for among the distressed cotton operatives, from amongst whom the necessary number of labourers were selected, to be engaged _at labourers' rates of pay_. Thus, although in this utilisation of public orders to regularise the volume of employment there was just this element of relief works, that in some of the towns and some of the works use was made, for the unskilled manual labour, of the services of selected unemployed cotton operatives, the Lancashire authorities escaped what we have elsewhere called the essential dilemma that attends the artificial employment of the unemployed. As they were in the exceptional position of having to offer unskilled labourers' work to skilled and normally highly-paid operatives--and as they did not pretend to take on "the unemployed" as such, but merely asked for so many volunteers from among the cotton operatives to the exclusion of the actual labouring class--the wages that they gave, though sufficient for livelihood, offered no attraction to any of those whom they employed who had the alternative of returning to their accustomed occupation. The boards of guardians were concerned in these works only in their capacity as public health authorities. But the fact is important that in this emergency, the Poor Law Board itself, beginning with a mere relaxation of its regulations, turned then, as an alternative, to even less strictly regulated charity, and finally came to the conclusion that the best policy was to use the municipal orders for waterworks, sewers, and paving works, as far as possible, to make up a definitely ascertained deficiency in private orders. It was, we suggest, just because these were not relief works in the usual sense of the term, but merely public works of utility and even of necessity that were long overdue, and because they were, in the main, executed as such by labourers engaged at wages in the ordinary way, and not with a view of offering work to all who demanded it, that the Poor Law Board could come unhesitatingly to the conclusion that the experiment had been a great success. The success, however, of the Government loan of nearly two millions lay at least as much in the stimulus given to sanitary improvement and municipal enterprise as in the comparatively small amount of relief thereby directly afforded to the distressed cotton operatives.[296]

[293] Fifteenth Annual Report, 1862-3, p. 14.

[294] Sixteenth Annual Report, 1863-4, p. 15. The boards of
guardians did not, in this emergency, always turn round as quickly
as did the Central Authority. Thus, in December 1863, the
Manchester Town Council, which was building its Prestwich
Reservoir, and applying for a loan of £130,000 under the new Act,
offered to the Manchester Board of Guardians to take on any
able-bodied paupers as labourers. That body, instead of gladly
accepting under proper arrangements, passed a series of abstract
resolutions, to the effect "that this Board conceives that the
payment by boards of guardians of wages in return for labour to
poor persons chargeable or seeking to become chargeable upon the
rates, or the holding themselves responsible for the providing of
such labour for wages--thus impairing the self-reliance of the
poor--is opposed to the whole spirit and intent of the Poor Law,
and it is inexpedient both upon social and economical grounds."
The town council (which duly received its share of the Government
loan from the Poor Law Board) persisted in its desire to be
helpful in the great crisis, and let the work to a contractor, who
undertook to employ only such unemployed operatives as were
recommended by the board of guardians or any other body to be
named by the town council, but with full control and right of
dismissal. We do not find evidence that the guardians named any
one (MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 3rd and 10th
December 1863).

[295] "No work has been executed ... which was not desirable as a
work of permanent utility and sanitary improvement, altogether
independent of the circumstances which, during the existence of
the cotton famine, gave rise to the special Acts of Parliament....
During the rapid growth of these towns works necessary to health,
comfort and trade, such as main sewering ... had not been executed
as rapidly as they were required" (Rawlinson's Report of 12th
January 1866, in Eighteenth Annual Report of the Poor Law Board,
1865-6, pp. 44, 46).

[296] For this, the leading case in England of national relief
works, see Professor Smart's Memorandum on the Poor Law Board, in
Report of the Poor Law Commission, 1909, Appendix, vol. 12; Annual
Reports of the Poor Law Board, 1862-3 to 1865-6 inclusive;
_History of the English Poor Law_, by T. Mackay, 1899, vol. iii.,
pp. 398-424; _The Facts of the Cotton Famine_, by Dr. John Watts,
1866; _History of the Cotton Famine_, by R. A. (afterwards Sir
Arthur) Arnold, 1864; _Lancashire's Lesson_, by W. T. M'Cullagh
Torrens, 1864; _Public Works in Lancashire for the Relief of
Distress_, 1863-6, by Sir R. Rawlinson, 1898.

An incident of this great experiment is worth recording, as possibly affording a hint and a precedent. In October 1862--before the Government loans had actually started the municipalities engaging in municipal works--the Central Authority authorised the Manchester Board of Guardians to give outdoor relief to able-bodied men for whom a labour test could not be provided, on condition that they attended educational classes arranged by the guardians. This permission was largely acted upon. One whole trade union (the Society of Makers Up), asked "to be sent to school, instead of to labour." Not only were reading and writing taught, but what we should now term university extension lectures were delivered (by Professor Roscoe, etc.).[297]

[297] MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 30th October,
20th November, and 3rd December 1862.

_B._--_Vagrants_

We left the Poor Law Commissioners, in 1847, at last awake to the fact that the policy of the Report of 1834--that vagrants should be treated like any other able-bodied male paupers, and offered "the House"--had been a conspicuous failure. The new "union workhouses," rising up all over the country, afforded to the habitual tramp a national system of well-ordered, suitably situated, gratuitous common lodging-houses, of which he took increasing advantage.[298] Confronted by this growth of vagrancy, the Poor Law Commissioners, towards the end of their term, had pressed on boards of guardians a new vagrancy policy--that of making the night's lodging disagreeable to the wayfarer. By statute and order the Central Authority had authorised compulsory detention for four hours and the exaction of a task of work. This policy had not been generally adopted, nor particularly successful where tried. In the bad years of 1847-9 vagrancy was still increasing at a dangerous rate, and one of the first duties of the new Poor Law Board was to issue instructions on the subject.

[298] Reports and Communications on Vagrancy, 1848.

The instructions given by Mr. Charles Buller, the first President of the Poor Law Board, adumbrated in the guise of a policy what were really two distinct and inherently incompatible lines of action. The Central Authority, on the one hand, pressed on boards of guardians the advisability of discriminating between the honest unemployed in search of work and the professional tramp--"the thief, the mendicant and the prostitute, who crowd the vagrant wards"--even to the extent of refusing all relief whatsoever to able-bodied men of the latter class, who were not in immediate danger of starvation. It seems as if the Central Authority was at this point almost inclined to press on boards of guardians the Scottish Poor Law policy of regarding the able-bodied healthy male adult as ineligible for relief. "As a general rule," it was laid down, the relieving officer "would be right in refusing relief to able-bodied and healthy men; though in inclement weather he might afford them shelter if really destitute of the means of procuring it for themselves."[299] Acting on this suggestion many boards of guardians closed their vagrant wards,[300] and the Bradford Guardians decided to "altogether dispense with" the meals heretofore given "at the vagrant office."[301] The honest wayfarer in temporary distress might, it was suggested, be given a certificate showing his circumstances, destination, object of journey, etc., upon production of which he was to be readily admitted to the workhouses, and provided with comfortable accommodation.[302]

[299] Minute of Poor Law Board, 4th August 1848, in _Official
Circular_, 1848, No. 17, N.S., p. 271.

[300] _On Vagrants and Tramps_, by T. Barwick L. Baker (Manchester
Statistical Society, 1868-9, p. 62).

[301] MS. Minutes, Bradford Board of Guardians, 23rd November
1849. On this, the Central Authority evidently felt that it had
gone too far. It informed the Bradford Guardians that the
resolution must be rescinded; that "in affording relief to
vagrants the guardians should be governed by the same rule that
applies to relief in other cases, namely, the nature of the
destitution and the amount of the necessity of the applicant. If
the guardians or their officers are satisfied that there is no
actual necessity, no danger to health or life, they will be
justified in refusing to give more than shelter [Mr. Buller's
circular had suggested refusing even shelter in weather not
inclement]; but if the applicant appears to be really in want of
food, it must be supplied" (Poor Law Board to Bradford Union, 29th
November 1849; MS. Minutes, Bradford Board of Guardians, 30th
November 1849).

[302] _Official Circular_, No. 17, N.S. July and August 1848, p.
270.

To aid in this discrimination, it was suggested that a police constable, who had knowledge of habitual vagrants and was feared by them, would be useful as an assistant relieving officer.[303] Nevertheless the other policy, that of the casual ward, admitting to its disagreeable and deterrent shelter every applicant who chose to apply for it, was not abandoned by the Central Authority. The orders and instructions about casual wards still remained in force, and continued to be issued or confirmed. These involved, not the refusal of relief to the able-bodied healthy male adult, but systematic provision for it, coupled with detention and a task of work.

[303] _Ibid._ p. 271.

Ten years later we find the Central Authority definitely abandoning, so far as the Metropolis was concerned, both its policy of discrimination among wayfarers and that of refusing, at any rate in weather not inclement, relief to the healthy able-bodied male vagrant. The London workhouses had become congested "by the flocking into them of the lowest and most difficult to manage classes of poor."[304] They were now to be entirely relieved of the annoyance and disorganisation caused by the nightly influx of casual inmates. All persons applying for a night's lodging were to be subjected, whatever their antecedents, character, or circumstances, to a uniform "test of destitution," by being received only in "asylums for the houseless poor," six of which, conducted on a uniform system of employment, discipline, and deterrent treatment, were to be established in London apart from the workhouses.[305] This was admittedly a revival of the project of 1844,[306] which had failed from the "want of co-operation on the part of several of the boards of guardians."[307] The revived policy proved for six years equally unsuccessful and for the same reason. The six "asylums for the houseless poor" did not get built, and vagrants continued to be dealt with haphazard in the forty Metropolitan workhouses. In 1864 the Central Authority took what proved to be a decisive step. The Metropolitan Houseless Poor Acts, 1864 and 1865, made it obligatory on Metropolitan boards of guardians to provide casual wards for "destitute wayfarers, wanderers, and foundlings."[308] At the same time it bribed them to adopt that policy for all wayfarers by making (in accordance with a recommendation of the House of Commons Select Committee on Poor Relief of 1864) the cost of relief given in the casual wards a common charge upon the whole of London.[309] The casual wards so made a common charge had to be conducted under rules to be framed by the Central Authority; and these we have in the Circular of October 26th 1864, recommending that the new casual wards should consist of two large "parallelograms," each to accommodate in common promiscuity as many of one sex as were ever expected; furnished with a common "sleeping platform" down each side, on which the reclining occupants were to be separated from each other only by planks on edge; without separate accommodation for dressing or undressing; and with coarse "straw or cocoa fibre in a loose tick," and a rug "sufficient for warmth."[310] To this was added, by the General Order of March 3rd 1866, a uniform dietary "for wayfarers" in these wards of bread and gruel only,[311] thus definitely marking the abandonment, so far as London was concerned, of all attempt, either at refusing a night's lodging to able-bodied healthy males, or at doing anything more or anything different for the honest unemployed wayfarer than for the professional tramp.

[304] Mr. Sotheron Estcourt (President of Poor Law Board), 15th
July 1858, _Hansard_, vol. 151, p. 1500. "The nightly occupants of
the vagrant ward interfere with the regular inmates, harass the
officers, and at some seasons and in some workhouses render it
impossible to preserve the order or to carry out the ordinary
regulations of the establishment" (Circular of 30th November 1857,
in Eleventh Annual Report, 1858, p. 29).

[305] _Ibid._ pp. 30-31.

[306] Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, 15th July 1858; _Hansard_, vol. 151,
p. 1500.

[307] Minute of 23rd December 1863, in Sixteenth Annual Report,
1863-4, p. 31.

[308] 27 & 28 Vic. c. 116 (1864); 28 & 29 Vic. c. 34 (1865);
Circular of 26th October 1864, in Seventeenth Annual Report,
1864-5, p. 77.

[309] The first expedient was to cause the sums so expended to be
refunded by the Metropolitan Board of Works. In 1867 this was
replaced by the Common Poor Fund.

[310] Circular of 26th October 1864, in Seventeenth Annual Report,
1864-5, p. 78. It may be added that from 1863 onward, the police
acted as assistant relieving officers for vagrants in the
Metropolis. The police complained of the filth and vermin brought
to the police stations by applicants for relief, and they were
relieved of the duty in 1872 (Report of Departmental Committee on
Vagrancy, 1906, Cd. 2852, vol. i. p. 12). The police also acted
for some rural boards of guardians, the police stations serving as
"vagrant relief stations," e.g. at Bakewell, where they were
discontinued in 1869 (MS. Minutes, Bakewell Board of Guardians,
15th March 1869).

[311] General Order of 3rd March 1866, in Nineteenth Annual
Report, 1867, p. 37.

Notwithstanding the apparent decisiveness of policy as to vagrants embodied in the Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act of 1864, we find the Central Authority, disturbed by the steady growth of vagrancy throughout the country,[312] still continuing to talk about discrimination. In 1868, Sir M. Hicks-Beach, in announcing that the Poor Law Board contemplated extending to the whole country the Metropolitan system of dealing with vagrants, added, with an inconsistency which we do not understand, that "it would be required ... that guardians should take the responsibility of a sound and vigilant discrimination between deserving travellers in search of work and professional vagrants not really destitute, by the appointment of officers capable of exercising such discrimination; and that, where practicable, the police should be appointed assistant relieving officers. The forthcoming Order would likewise suggest, in cases where it might be practicable, that the accommodation for deserving travellers should be different from that given to professional vagrants."[313] Yet even for the professional vagrant the promiscuous London casual ward of 1864 was not to be extended. "It was," said the President of the Poor Law Board in 1868, "very desirable that ... each person should have a separate or divided bed place."[314] The new policy, which the President seems to have thought was the London policy of 1864, but which was really a revival of Mr. Charles Buller's policy of 1848, was embodied in a Circular, which admittedly reproduced, in all essentials, the Minute of 1848--the necessity of discrimination, the employment of the police, the issue of tickets to genuine honest wayfarers, their comfortable accommodation in workhouses without task of work, and the desirability of uniformity of treatment in the different unions.[315]

[312] Reports on Vagrancy made to the President of the Poor Law
Board, 1866.

[313] Sir M. Hicks Beach, 28th July 1868 (_Hansard_, vol. 193, p.
1910).

[314] Sir M. Hicks Beach, 28th July 1868 (_Hansard_, vol. 193, p.
1910).

[315] Circular of 28th November, 1868, in Twenty-first Annual
Report, 1868-9, pp. 74-76. It is curious that the dietary
suggested in this Circular allowed (without explanation), the
guardians to give male adults eight ounces of bread and a pint of
gruel, whereas the General Order to the Metropolitan Unions of the
preceding year had definitely limited adult males to six ounces of
bread and a pint of gruel.

It must be added that, before the end of its tenure of office, the Poor Law Board had become convinced that it had as completely failed to solve the problem of vagrancy as had the Poor Law Commissioners. In the Metropolis it was forced on its attention that "the great increase in the pauper population may be traced to the operation of the Houseless Poor Act, which has practically legalised vagrancy and professional vagabondism."[316] Throughout the whole country the number of vagrants nightly relieved in the workhouse, which had between 1858 and 1862 always been under 2000, rose between 1862 and 1870 to between five and six thousand, and to a maximum of 7946 on 1st July 1868, though falling to less in the exceptionally good trade of 1870-1.[317] The fact is that the boards of guardians felt themselves between the horns of a dilemma, against which the inconsistent see-saw policy of the Central Authority was no protection. If they refused relief to those whom their relieving officers deemed worthless loafers, these bad characters became "masterful beggars," pertinacious tramps, and sources of danger to the countryside, whilst in the bad times of 1866 some of those refused relief suffered hardship and even death.[318] Hence the general reversion to a policy of relief. The Central Authority, under Mr. Goschen's presidency, was at this point considering a new policy, that of penal detention after relief. Mr. Goschen explained to the House of Commons that this would amount, practically, to "a kind of imprisonment," and be "a stronger measure than the administration by the police of the law as at present existing," which had also been proposed, but "if Parliament were inclined to concede power to detain paupers for a longer period than they were now detained, and to keep them at work, he believed that would be a very effectual means of diminishing vagrancy and pauperism."[319]

[316] St. George's, Hanover Square, to Poor Law Board. The numbers
of "casual and houseless poor" relieved in the Metropolis went up
from 1086, on 1st July 1866, to 2085 on 1st July 1868, and 1760 on
1st July 1870 (Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, p. xxiv).

[317] _Ibid._ pp. 394-5.

[318] _On Vagrants and Tramps_, by T. Barwick L. Baker (Manchester
Statistical Society, 1868-9, p. 62).

[319] Mr. Goschen (President of Poor Law Board), 13th May, 1870,
_Hansard_, vol. 201, pp. 660-2.

_C._--_Women_

Women, of whom there were always between 80,000 and 100,000 on outdoor relief, were almost wholly ignored in the Poor Law Legislation of 1847-71, as in the Orders of the Central Authority. The policy of the Central Authority, so far as it appears from the documents, continued to be to permit able-bodied independent women unconditionally to receive outdoor relief, whether or not they were in receipt of wages, so far as concerned the unions under the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order; and to forbid outdoor relief to such women in unions under the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, whether or not this Order was accompanied by an Outdoor Labour Test Order (for men).[320]

[320] The prohibition was made even more embracing in the
_Official Circular_ for April and May 1848 (Nos. 14 and 15, N.S.,
pp. 227-8), where the term "able-bodied" (though the Central
Authority expressed itself as willing to consider relief by gifts
of clothing in special cases) was held to include females, not
sick or disabled, who were nevertheless unable to earn sixpence a
day at field work; "young females" just emancipated; persons of
weak constitution, or having frequent ailments, but in receipt of
"full wages"; and persons not of weak constitutions, but employed
at low wages from inaptitude to labour. Thus, for outdoor relief
in the part of England to which this Order applied, the term
"able-bodied" ceased to have any relation to any physical
conditions whatsoever, but was used as a term covering a
heterogeneous class of men and women, strong or weak, healthy or
subject to epileptic fits, able or unable to earn complete
sustenance. On the other hand, within the workhouse, as we have
seen, the same term was becoming more and more definitely
restricted to adult persons on normal diet, requiring no medical
treatment.

The women dependent on able-bodied men, whether themselves able-bodied or not, might be maintained in their homes, on condition of their husbands being employed in test work, not only in all unions under the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, but also in those in which the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order was accompanied by a Labour Test Order. On the other hand, such women, however feeble or infirm, were not allowed to be maintained in their homes, even if their husbands were willing to do test work, in those unions in which the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order was alone in force. No reason appears for these differences in policy as to the method of relief of identical categories of women in the different geographical regions into which the Central Authority had divided England and Wales. But although the policy of the Central Authority with regard to women remained, in each of the three regions into which England was divided by these Orders, apparently unchanged, the regions themselves, as we have mentioned, were being silently altered. The great enlargement of the territory to which the laxer Order was applied and the narrow limitation of the territory governed by the stricter Order, involved an enormous extension of the outdoor relief to women permitted by the Central Authority.

In that part of England and Wales which was under the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, a widow without children continued to be allowed to receive outdoor relief only during the first six months of her widowhood. In all the rest of the country she continued to be allowed to receive outdoor relief indefinitely. Widows with children continued to be allowed to receive outdoor relief under all the Orders.

We have, however, in these years, the first recognition (so far as we can trace) of the difficulty of the problem presented by the inadequate earnings of independent able-bodied women.[321] In Bermondsey, in 1850, where there was no Order in force as to outdoor relief, the Central Authority was forced to face the problem presented by "widows and other females who, though in very constant work as sempstresses or shirtmakers," obtained so trifling a remuneration as to be unable to live. The Central Authority admitted that it was lawful to grant them relief, but discouraged this course, "persuaded that the practice of making up insufficient earnings by outdoor relief must tend to produce and perpetuate the evil." The guardians were advised to refuse partial relief, so that some of the women might be wholly maintained in the workhouse and so taken off the labour market, when pressure of competition on the others would be thereby relieved and their wages would rise. The Central Authority did not, however, take the responsibility of issuing an Order specially enforcing this policy; and it is to be noted (as already mentioned) that by gradually substituting the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order for the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, the Central Authority was, in fact, retreating from the advice to the Bermondsey Guardians of 1850.[322]

[321] Besides the widows and deserted wives, and the unmarried
mothers, the class of able-bodied single women unencumbered by
children, in receipt of relief, was not insignificant. In 1859
there were 5173 such in receipt of outdoor relief (Twelfth Annual
Report, 1859-60, p. 15; _see_ also corresponding figures in
Thirteenth Annual Report, 1860-1, p. 13).

[322] In 1861, indeed, when the guardians asked advice of the
Central Authority, the recommendation to offer relief in the
workhouse was distinctly limited to able-bodied males (Poor Law
Board to St. James's, Westminster, 19th January 1861, in
Thirteenth Annual Report, 1860-1, p. 35).

Not until 1869 (so far as we can trace) did the Central Authority face the problem presented by the widow with children. Mr Goschen's celebrated Minute of November 20th 1869, incidentally referred (as a frequent exception to the rule against a "rate in aid of wages") to the grant of partial relief "in the case of widows with families, where it is often manifestly impossible that the woman can support the family." Mr. Goschen does not appear to have made any definite suggestion of an alternative policy in these cases. He seems to have regarded it as merely an exception, of no great importance. But the Holborn Board of Guardians, in their reply to the Circular, pointed out that "the exception of widows would of itself constitute so large a proportion that the rule is virtually swallowed up thereby." The Holborn Guardians, apparently understanding that the Central Authority was hinting at the stoppage of outdoor relief in these cases, also pointed out that "it would be impossible to find workhouse accommodation for over 20,000 widows in the Metropolis and their 60,000 children." These figures were indeed exaggerated; but it was incidentally observed by the Central Authority itself that "the amount of destitution in the country generally, caused by the death, absence, or desertion of the male head of the family ... we should estimate ... to be 35 per cent of the whole."[323] In 1858, the "able-bodied widows relieved out of doors" in the whole country numbered 50,468, and the children dependent on them 126,658, making together over 25 per cent of the total pauper population.[324] In the Metropolis alone, out of an outdoor pauper population in 1869 of 121,012 (excluding lunatics and vagrants), the women relieved because of the death or absence of their husbands numbered 11,851, and their children 28,569, making a total of 40,420, or one-third of the whole outdoor pauperism.[325] It was perhaps in view of such statistics that the Central Authority, in reporting on the reply of the Holborn Board of Guardians, among other replies, made no criticism of the grant of outdoor relief to widows with children, and offered no suggestion of an alternative policy. The only suggestions made were that there should be more relieving officers to check the overlapping of outdoor relief and private charity, and that the outdoor relief granted should be "adequate."[326] A special Commissioner (Mr. Wodehouse) was told off to make an official inquiry into the administration of outdoor relief, in which the facts were again laid bare.[327] We do not find that the Central Authority--now fully aware that the category of widows with children, "where" (to use Mr. Goschen's words) "it is manifestly impossible that the earnings of the woman can support the family," comprised about 177,000 persons, and made up at least a quarter of the whole outdoor pauperism--issued any order prescribing what ought to be done in these cases, or ever made any authoritative suggestion on the subject. The Holborn and other boards of guardians had therefore warrant for believing that the grant of outdoor relief to widows with children, even in supplement of earnings, permitted as it was by the Orders, continued, as from 1834 onwards, to have the sanction of the Central Authority.

[323] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxviii, 9, 17-22.

[324] Eleventh Annual Report, 1858, p. 166; _see_ the
corresponding statistics in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Annual
Reports.

[325] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p. xxi.

[326] _Ibid._ pp. xxxii-xxxiii, 9-30.

[327] Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. 32-93.

_D._--_Children_

It was with regard to children that the policy of the Central Authority in this period made the greatest advance. This, however, applies chiefly to the 40,000 children who were being relieved in institutions. With regard to the children being maintained on outdoor relief--who were at least five times as numerous--we do not find that the Central Authority in this period took any cognisance of their condition,[328] except to some small extent with regard to their schooling. Even this was a new feature. In 1844, as already mentioned, the Central Authority had expressly refused to allow 2d. a week to be paid for the schooling of such a child, or even to permit that sum to be added to the outdoor relief to the parent with the same object.[329] This decision was emphasised by a Circular in 1847, laying down that pauper children living at home were not to be educated at the expense of the poor rate.[330] For years the Manchester Board of Guardians, under the leadership of Mr. Hodgson, had tried to get some of their outdoor pauper children to school, the guardians actually maintaining a primitive day school of their own for this purpose. The Central Authority refused to sanction this experiment, forbade its extension, questioned the lawfulness of the guardians' action, and between 1850 and 1855 seems always to have been complaining about it.[331] In 1855, however, Parliament reversed the policy of non-responsibility for outdoor pauper children, so far as to allow the boards of guardians, if they chose, to pay for the schooling of such children between the ages of four and sixteen.[332] They were, however, expressly forbidden to make it a condition of relief that the child should attend school, for fear of exciting religious jealousies, all schools being then denominational. The Central Authority, in transmitting this statute ("Denison's Act") to the boards of guardians, laid stress on its permissive character. No instructions or suggestions were given as to the kind of school to be chosen, though if the guardians in their exercise of their discretion did pay the fees of any children, they were to satisfy themselves of their due attendance.[333] But it trusted that "it will be soon brought into extensive operation," and presently 3986 out of the 200,000 outdoor pauper children were at school.[334] Special efforts were made during the Lancashire cotton famine to get the Act carried out,[335] and gradually more of the boards of guardians adopted the policy.[336] In 1870 the Elementary Education Act made education compulsory over a large part of the country, and authorised boards of guardians not only to pay fees, but also to make attendance at school a condition of relief. This, however, came as part of the educational policy of Parliament, not as part of the Poor Law policy of the Central Authority. So far as these children were concerned (though nominal fees continued to be paid out of the poor rate until 1891), the provision of schooling became merged in the general communistic provision of schooling for the whole population. By this beginning of communistic provision of education for the whole population (completed by the Free Education Act of 1891), the Poor Law authorities were enabled to escape--so far as education was concerned--from the embarrassing dilemma of either placing the pauper child in a position of vantage, or of deliberately bringing up the quarter of a million pauper children in a state of ignorance similar to that of the children of the poorest independent labourer prior to 1870. In respect of everything but education the problem remained. So far as regards the couple of hundred thousand children maintained on outdoor relief, the Central Authority left the boards of guardians without advice on this dilemma.

[328] The Central Authority observed in 1858 that "more than
one-third of the paupers are children under sixteen." The numbers
at that date were 44,989 indoors, and 263,994 out of doors, or
37·4 per cent of the whole (Eleventh Annual Report, 1858, p. 166).
It is not clear to us whether this total of children on outdoor
relief includes in all cases the children of men in receipt of
medical relief only.

In 1869, in answer to Mr. Goschen's Minute, the Holborn Board of
Guardians forced on the attention of the Central Authority the
fact that they, like the other Metropolitan guardians, were
allowing for each child on outdoor relief 1s. and one loaf of
bread. "No one can pretend," they said, "that this amount is of
itself adequate support" (Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p.
20). The Holborn Board of Guardians practically defied the Central
Authority to find any other policy. The Central Authority did not
reply to this challenge.

[329] _Official Circular_, 31st January 1844, No. 31, pp. 178-9.

[330] _Ibid._ 1st September 1847, No. 9, N.S. p. 131.

[331] MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 1850-5.

[332] 18 & 19 Vic. c. 34 (Education of Poor Children Act 1855).
"An enactment involving the important admission that want of
education was a form of destitution, which ought to be adequately
relieved" (_History of the English Poor Law_, by T. Mackay, 1899,
vol. iii. p. 428).

[333] Circular of 9th January 1856, in Ninth Annual Report, 1857,
pp. 13, 15. In 1856 it was reported that there were in Lancashire
and the West Riding 48,412 children on outdoor relief, of whom
about 30,000 ought to be at school. Yet down to December 1855, the
boards of guardians had taken no steps to get them to school, in
spite of the inspector's protests (Eighth Annual Report, 1855, p.
63).

[334] House of Commons Return, No. 437 of 1856; Ninth Annual
Report, p. 8. Newcastle-on-Tyne adopted it at once (MS. Minutes,
Newcastle Board of Guardians, 10th October 1855).

[335] Fifteenth Annual Report, 1862-3, p. 18; Circular of 29th
September 1862.

[336] MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 9th October
1862. The Manchester Guardians, whose early school experiment we
have already mentioned, largely nullified their own action (and
apparently contravened the spirit, if not the letter of the law),
by insisting on the attendance of the outdoor paupers exclusively
at the guardians' own school, which gave "undenominational"
religious instruction, and refusing to pay fees for children to go
to any other schools (except for a short time in 1862-3 when their
own schools were over-full). In vain did the Roman Catholics and
the Manchester and Salford Education Aid Society protest, pointing
out that the children were in consequence growing up untaught
(_ibid._ 26th May, 23rd and 30th June, and 10th November 1864;
19th June 1865). The Central Authority does not appear to have
intervened.

Passing now to the 40,000 children in Poor Law institutions, we have described how, between 1834 and 1847, the Central Authority, in disregard of the recommendations of the 1834 Report,[337] had adopted the policy of having one common workhouse for each union, under a single head, and with an almost identical regimen for all classes of inmates. It was necessarily incidental to the policy of the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order which was then widely prevalent, that the wife and children of the destitute man should be relieved only in the workhouse. These institutions came, therefore, to be the homes and places of education of not only orphans and foundlings, but also of tens of thousands of other children, who were often immured in them from birth until they could be placed out in service. Apparently the idea of one general workhouse for each union, under one uniform discipline, was too deeply rooted in the Poor Law Commissioners to allow of any provision being made for children in the Orders concerning workhouse management. No provision was made for the children going out for walks or games or play.[338] No Order required the guardians to appoint a qualified schoolmaster, or, indeed, any teacher at all, or to buy any school-books. Year after year the returns from many unions continue to state "No teachers in workhouse," without evoking from the Central Authority any compulsory Order.[339]

[337] That the children should be accommodated in a separate
building, under a separate superintendent, and educated by "a
person properly qualified to act as a schoolmaster" (page 307 of
Report of 1834, reprint of 1905).

[338] The children in the Bakewell Workhouse were found, in 1855,
to be in a dreadful state of health, owing to the literal
application throughout the workhouse of the principles of the
General Consolidated Order of 1847. The inspector protested at
last, and recommended special arrangements for the children in the
way of more nourishing diet and outdoor exercise. The guardians
framed a new dietary, ordered "the swings, etc. recommended by the
inspector," and directed the schoolmistress "to take the girls out
for a walk every day when the weather is fine" (MS. Minutes,
Bakewell Board of Guardians, 1st October 1855 and 29th September
1856.)

[339] From 1846 onwards the Committee of the Privy Council on
Education had, as part of the nation's educational policy,
actually made grants to the boards of guardians to pay the
salaries of qualified workhouse schoolmasters and
schoolmistresses. In 1848 it was announced to the boards of
guardians that, whereas "no comprehensive effort has hitherto been
made" to raise the standard of efficiency, henceforth the
inspector of pauper schools will examine the schools and the
qualifications of the teachers as part of the conditions for
sharing in the grant (MS. Minutes, Newcastle Board of Guardians,
31st March 1848).

It is to the credit of the new Poor Law Board that it at once admitted that the much-vaunted general workhouse system was, so far as the children were concerned, simply manufacturing paupers. "Too many of those brought up in the workhouse," said Mr. Charles Buller in 1848, "were marked by a tendency to regard the workhouse as their natural and proper home.... They had been accustomed to the workhouse from their earliest infancy and ... to the confinement, ... and when they became adults there was nothing to deter them from entering it."[340] The remedy now proposed was the removal of all children from the workhouses to separate Poor Law schools, and their education, irrespective of cost, in such a way "as may best tend to raise them from the class of paupers to that of independent labourers _and artisans_."[341] To attain this end the Central Authority secured another statute in amendment of the hitherto abortive Act of 1844, permitting the establishment of "district schools" by combinations of unions.[342] But what enabled this policy to be begun in the teeth of persistent opposition was a terrible outbreak of cholera at Mr. Drouet's establishment at Tooting, where the pauper children of many parishes had continued (as a survival of the old Poor Law, not yet interfered with by the Central Authority) to be "farmed out."[343]

[340] Hansard, vol. 100, p. 1217 (8th August 1848).

[341] Third Annual Report, 1850, p. 6. Few children of independent
labourers' families could at that date rise to be artisans.

[342] Poor Law (Schools) Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vic. c. 82).

[343] Second Annual Report, 1849, p. 13. The Central Authority,
which had for fourteen years let the establishments alone, now
used its influence against them. Mr. Drouet's was closed. Another
similar contractor's establishment (Mr. Aubin's at Norwood) was
presently taken over by the Committee of the Central London School
District and continued as a district school, with Mr. Aubin as
salaried superintendent. Three or four other small places were
discontinued. Two others at Margate, used for sick and
convalescent young paupers, continued with the approval of the
Central Authority. An act of Parliament (12 & 13 Vic. c. 13) was
passed for their regulation (Second Annual Report, 1849, pp.
16-17).

In the course of the same year the Central Authority succeeded in forming half-a-dozen school districts, and approved the establishment of a gigantic boarding-school for each of them, accommodating 800, and even 1000 children. The General Order issued in 1849 for the government of these "district schools" did not prescribe the details of administration so precisely as did the General Consolidated Order of 1847; and much latitude was left to the enterprise of the governing body. Against the formation of these school districts the boards of guardians successfully rebelled, much preferring to have a separate school for each union, and outside London this was the system generally adopted by the more populous unions. These separate schools, which were in all cases distinct from the workhouse, were regulated by special Orders, providing in similar general terms for the elements of good administration, but also leaving much to the discretion of the guardians.[344] The Central Authority now pressed the policy of separate schools on the boards of guardians at every opportunity.[345] In 1856, for instance, we find it saying to the Holborn Guardians that it cannot "too strongly urge upon the guardians the importance of the children being so brought up as to preserve them, as far as possible, free from the habits and associations contracted in a workhouse; and of their receiving such instruction as will fit them to earn their own livelihood. These objects will be best secured by the removal of the children to a separate school."[346] The Central Authority made useful suggestions, and it also encouraged improvements by laudatory description of the best schools in the _Official Circular_ and the Annual Reports.[347] When it was objected by some boards of guardians that to teach writing and arithmetic to the pauper children was to give them advantages superior to those of the children of the independent labourer, the Central Authority replied that the provision of a good education for the children was not likely to encourage voluntary pauperism in the parents, and therefore there was no need to apply the principle of less eligibility in this case.[348]