Chapter III: The Poor Law Board (3)

[428] _Ibid._ Norwich Board of Guardians, 5th October 1852.

[429] _Ibid._ 7th December 1852.

Accompanied by about twenty-five members of Parliament, the deputation waited on the Poor Law Board, and specially urged their objection to being compelled to give a third of all outdoor relief in kind. After two hours' argumentative discussion, Sir John Trollope said that the board would reconsider the whole Order, which need not in the meantime be acted upon; and he hinted at a probable modification of the Article relating to relief in kind.[430] In response to these objections, the Central Authority does not seem even to have suggested that outdoor relief to the aged and infirm was contrary to its principles. It first intimated its willingness to modify the Order if its working proved to be "accompanied with hardship to the aged or helpless poor"[431] and then within a few weeks withdrew the provision altogether as regards any but the able-bodied.[432] It was expressly explained that the Order, as re-issued, was intended as a precaution "against the injurious consequences of maintaining out of the poor rate _able-bodied labourers and their families_ in a state of idleness," and that the Central Authority left to the boards of guardians "full discretion as to the description of relief to be given to indigent poor of every other class."[433] From that date down to the abolition of the Poor Law Board in 1871, we can find in the documents no hint or suggestion that it disapproved of outdoor relief to the aged and infirm. On 1st January 1871, nearly half the outdoor relief was due to this cause.[434]

[430] _Ibid._; also Circular of 14th December 1852, in Fifth
Annual Report, 1852, pp. 28-31. The Salford Union took part in a
meeting of Lancashire Guardians on the subject (Salford Union to
Poor Law Board, 26th October 1855, in Eighth Annual Report, 1855,
p. 50).

[431] Letter to Board of Guardians, Ashton-under-Lyne Union, 8th
October 1852; in House of Commons, No. 111 of 1852-3, p. 14.

[432] General Order, 14th December 1852, and Circular of same
date, in Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 24, 29.

[433] Circular of 14th December 1852, in Fifth Annual Report,
1852, p. 29.

[434] Out of a total of outdoor paupers on 1st January 1871
(exclusive of vagrants and the insane) of 880,709, the destitution
was "caused by old age or permanent disability" in the case of
423,206, viz. 117,681 men, 265,638 women, and 39,887 children
dependent on them (Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, p. 378).

_I._--_Non-Residents_

There was no change in the policy of preventing relief to paupers not resident within the union. The Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852 embodied the prohibition with the same exceptions as had been contained in the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844, omitting, however, that of widows without children during the first six months of their widowhood. But, as has been already mentioned, at the very end of the period the Boarding-Out Orders of 1869, etc., permitted children to be maintained outside the union.

_J._--_The Workhouse_

We have seen that between 1834 and 1847 the Central Authority turned directly away from the express recommendations of the 1834 Report with regard to the institutional accommodation of the paupers. Instead of a series of separate institutions appropriately organised and equipped for the several classes of the pauper population--the aged and infirm, the children, and the adult able-bodied--the Central Authority had got established, in nearly every union, one general workhouse; nearly everywhere "the same cheap, homely building," with one common regimen, under one management, for all classes of paupers.

The justification for the policy which, as we have seen, Sir Francis Head induced the Central Authority to substitute for the recommendations of the 1834 Report, may have been his confident expectation, in 1835, that the use of the workhouse was only to serve as a "test," which the applicants would not pass, and that there was accordingly no need to regard the workhouse building as a continuing home.[435] This was the view taken by Harriet Martineau, who, in her _Poor Law Tales_, describes the overseer of the de-pauperised parish as locking the door of the empty workhouse when it had completely fulfilled its purpose of a test by having made all the applicants prefer and contrive to be independent of poor relief. By 1847, however, it must have been clear that, even in the most strictly administered parishes, under the most rigid application of the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, there would be permanently residing in the workhouse a motley crowd of the aged and infirm unable to live independently; the destitute chronic sick in like case; the orphans and foundlings; such afflicted persons as the village idiot, the senile imbecile, the deaf and dumb, and what we now call the mentally defective; together with a perpetually floating population of acutely sick persons of all ages; vagrants; girls with illegitimate babies; wives whose husbands had deserted them, or were in prison, in hospital, or in the Army or Navy; widows beyond the first months of their widowhood and other women unable to earn a livelihood; all sorts of "ins and outs"; and the children dragging at the skirts of all these classes. The workhouse population in 590 unions of England and Wales on 1st January 1849, was, in fact, 121,331.[436] The condition of these workhouse inmates, and the character of the regimen to which they were subjected, had been brought to public notice in 1847 in the notorious Andover case. The insanitary condition of the workhouses of the period as places of residence, and, in particular, their excessive death-rate, was repeatedly brought to notice not only by irresponsible agitators, but also by such competent statistical and medical critics as McCulloch and Wakley.[437] But the very idea of the general workhouse was now subjected to severe criticism. "During the last ten years," said the author of an able book in 1852, "I have visited many prisons and lunatic asylums, not only in England, but in France and Germany. A single English workhouse contains more that justly calls for condemnation in the principle on which it is established than is found in the very worst prisons or public lunatic asylums that I have seen. The workhouse as now organised is a reproach and disgrace peculiar to England; nothing corresponding to it is found throughout the whole continent of Europe. In France the medical patients of our workhouses would be found in 'hopitaux'; the infirm aged poor would be in hospices; and the blind, the idiot, the lunatic, the bastard child and the vagrant would similarly be placed each in an appropriate but separate establishment. With us a common _Malebolge_ is provided for them all; and in some parts of the country the confusion is worse confounded by the effect of Prohibitory Orders, which, enforcing the application of the notable workhouse-test, drive into the same common sink of so many kinds of vice and misfortune the poor man whose only crime is his poverty, and whose want of work alone makes him chargeable. Each of the buildings which we so absurdly call a workhouse is, in truth (1) a general hospital; (2) an almshouse; (3) a foundling house; (4) a lying-in hospital; (5) a school house; (6) a lunatic asylum; (7) an idiot house; (8) a blind asylum; (9) a deaf and dumb asylum; (10) a workhouse; but this part of the establishment is generally a _lucus a non lucendo_, omitting to find work even for able-bodied paupers. Such and so varied are the destinations of these common receptacles of sin and misfortune, of sorrow and suffering of the most different kinds, each tending to aggravate the others with which it is unnecessarily and injuriously brought into contact. It is at once equally shocking to every principle of reason and every feeling of humanity, that all these varied forms of wretchedness should be thus crowded together into one common abode, that no attempt should be made by law to classify them, and to provide appropriate places for the relief of each."[438]

[435] It must be remembered that, as already mentioned, it was no
part of the policy of the Central Authority to relieve in the
workhouse any of the aged and infirm or of the sick who preferred
to remain outside, and who were (so far as the published documents
show) to continue to receive outdoor relief.

[436] Second Annual Report, 1849, p. 159.

[437] _Life and Times of Thomas Wakley_, by S. Squire Sprigge,
1897. _See_, for a contemporary indictment, _The Russell
Predictions on the Working Classes, the National Debt and the New
Poor Law Dissected_, by John Bowen, 1850.

[438] _Pauperism and Poor Laws_, by Robert Pashley, Q.C., 1852,
pp. 364-5.

During the period now under review, 1847-71, we see the Central Authority becoming gradually alive to the drawbacks of this mixture of classes. At first its remedy seems to have been to take particular classes out of the workhouse. We have already described the constant attempts, made from the very establishment of the Poor Law Board, to have the children removed to separate institutions and to get the vagrants segregated into distinct casual wards. It was the resistance and apathy of the boards of guardians that prevented these attempts being particularly successful,[439] and the Central Authority appears not to have felt able to issue peremptory orders on the subject. The policy of the Lunacy Commissioners drew many lunatics out of the workhouses, but this was more than made up by the increasing tendency to seclude the village idiot, so that the workhouse population of unsound mind actually increased.

[439] On 1st January 1871 we estimate that of the 55,832 children
on indoor relief, only 4979 were in district schools, and some
9000 in union boarding schools, leaving about 40,000 living in the
workhouses.

We do not find that there was during the whole period any alteration of the General Consolidated Order of 1847, upon which the regimen of the workhouse depended. In spite of the increasing number of the sick and the persons of unsound mind, the seven classes of workhouse inmates determined by that Order were adhered to, and received no addition, though the Poor Law Board favoured the sub-division of these classes so far as it was reasonably possible in the existing buildings, especially in the case of women. In a letter of 1854[440] it lamented the evil which arose "from the association of girls, when removed from workhouse union schools, with women of bad character in the able-bodied women's ward," and wished that it could be prevented. At the same time it stated that in the smaller workhouses it was "often impracticable to provide the accommodation" which would be necessary in order to maintain a complete separation; and while pointing out that it was legally competent for the guardians (with its approval) to erect extra accommodation, by means of which this contamination could be avoided, the Central Authority did not even remotely suggest that it was the guardians' duty so to do. By 1860 it "had given instructions that every new workhouse should be so constructed as to allow of the requisite classification."[441]

[440] Regulations relating to the Classification of Workhouse
Inmates, in House of Commons, No. 485 of 1854.

[441] Mr. C. P. Villiers, _Hansard_, 4th May 1860, vol. clviii. p.
694.

From about 1865 onwards we note a new spirit in all the circulars and letters relating to the workhouse. The public scandal caused by the _Lancet_ inquiry into the conditions of the sick poor in the workhouses, and the official reports and Parliamentary discussions that ensued, seem to have enabled the Central Authority to take up a new attitude with regard both to workhouse construction and workhouse regimen. From this time forth the workhouse is recognised as being, not merely a "test of destitution" for the able-bodied, which they were not expected long to endure, but also the continuing home of large classes of helpless and not otherwise than innocent persons. "Able-bodied people," reported the Medical Officer in 1867, "are now scarcely at all found in them during the greater part of the year.... Those who enjoy the advantages of these institutions are almost solely such as may fittingly receive them, viz. the aged and infirm, the destitute sick and children. Workhouses are now asylums and infirmaries."[442]

[442] Dr. E. Smith, Medical Officer to Poor Law Board, in
Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, p. 43.

From now onwards we see the Central Authority always striving to improve the workhouse. In the Circulars of 1868 much attention was paid to the sufficiency of space and ventilation. It was required that parallel blocks of building should be so far apart as to allow free access to light and air; blocks connected at a right or acute angle were to be avoided.

Ordinary wards were to be at least ten feet high and eighteen feet wide, the length depending on the number of inmates; 300 cubic feet of space were required for each healthy person in a dormitory, 500 for infirm persons able to leave the dormitory during the day, and 700 in a day and night room.[443] The Visiting Committee was to "ascertain not merely whether the total number for which the workhouse is certified has been exceeded, but whether the number of any one class exceeds the accommodation available for it."[444] No wards were to be placed side by side without a corridor between them; the corridors were to be six feet wide, and ordinary dormitories were to have windows into them. Windows and fanlights into internal spaces were to be made to open to be used as ventilators, and ventilation was also to be "effected by special means, apart from the usual means of doors, windows, and fire-places," air-bricks being recommended as a simple method.[445] No rooms occupied by the inmates as sleeping-rooms were to be on the boundary of the workhouse site. Hot and cold water was to be distributed to the bath-rooms and sick wards. Airing yards for the inmates were to be "of sufficient size"--with a rider that "if partially or wholly paved with stone or brick or asphalted or gas-tarred they are often better than if covered with gravel."[446] Yards for the children, sick, and aged were to be enclosed with dwarf walls and palisades where practicable, presumably with the object of giving a look-out, and making the yard slightly less prison-like.[447] "Small yards, and a work-room, and a covered shed for working in in bad weather," were to be provided for vagrants.[448] For workhouses having a large number of children the Poor Law Board recommended, "in addition to the school-rooms, day-rooms, covered play-sheds in their yards, and industrial work-rooms."[449] The staircases were to be of stone; the timber, Baltic fir and English oak; fire escapes were to be provided; these and many other details were laid down, all tending to make the building solid and capacious.[450] There was no mention of ornament, no regard to appearance, no hint that anything might be done to relieve the dead ugliness of the place; but it must be recognised that the Central Authority had, by 1868, travelled far from the "low, cheap, homely building" which it was recommending thirty years before.[451]

[443] Circular of 15th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, pp. 48-9; Circular of 29th September 1870, in Twenty-third
Annual Report, 1870-1, p. 9. This was the more important as Dr.
Smith held that "_during the night at all seasons_, and during a
large part of the day in cold and wet weather, the windows cannot
be opened with propriety" (Report of Dr. E. Smith on Metropolitan
Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Wards, in House of Commons, No. 372
of 1866, p. 53).

[444] Circular Letter of 6th July 1868, in Twenty-first Annual
Report, 1868-9, p. 55.

[445] Circular of 15th June 1868, in _ibid._ pp. 48-50.

[446] _Ibid._ p. 50.

[447] _Ibid._

[448] _Ibid._ p. 51.

[449] _Ibid._ p. 49.

[450] Circular of 15th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, p. 51.

[451] We soon see the effect of this action by the Central
Authority in the rapid growth of the capital expenditure of the
boards of guardians. The annual reports of the next few years
record extensive new buildings. In the thirty-one years down to
1864-5, the total sum authorised for the building, altering, and
enlarging of workhouses and schools had reached £6,059,571, or an
average of £195,541 a year (Seventeenth Annual Report, 1864-5, pp.
328-9). Within six years this had risen to £8,406,215
(Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. 446-53). Of the new
capital outlay in these six years of no less than £2,346,644 or
£391,108 a year, half had taken place in the Metropolis, and a
quarter in Lancashire.

Separate dormitories, day-rooms, and yards (apparently not dining-rooms) were required for the aged, able-bodied, children, and sick of each sex, and these were the only divisions laid down as fundamental, but the Circular went on to recommend provision (1) "so far as practicable for the sub-division of the able-bodied women into two or three classes with reference to moral character, or behaviour, the previous habits of the inmates, or such other grounds as might seem expedient," and (2) "in the larger workhouses" for the separate accommodation of the following classes of sick--

Ordinary sick of both sexes.
Lying-in women, with separate labour room.
Itch cases of both sexes.
Dirty and offensive cases of both sexes.
Venereal cases of both sexes.
Fever and small-pox cases of both sexes (to be in a separate building
with detached rooms).
Children (in whose case sex was not mentioned).[452]

[452] Circular of 15th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, pp. 47-8.

In the furnishing of the wards the simplicity of 1868 was equally far removed from that of 1835. Ordinary dormitories contained beds 2 feet 6 inches wide, chairs, bells, and gas where practicable. Day-rooms were to have an open fireplace, benches, cupboards (or open shelves, which were preferred), tables, gas, combs, and hairbrushes. "A proportion of chairs" were to be provided "for the aged and infirm"; and of the benches, likewise, "those for the aged and infirm should have backs, and be of sufficient width for reasonable comfort." In the dining-rooms were to be benches, tables, a minimum of necessary table utensils, and if possible gas and an open fireplace. The sick wards were to be furnished with more care, and with an eye to medical efficiency. It is unnecessary to go into the long and detailed list of the medical appliances which were required. There is even some notice of appearances in a suggestion that "cheerful-looking rugs" should be placed on the beds, and of comfort in the arm and other chairs "for two-thirds of the number of the sick." There were also to be short benches with backs, and (but these only for special cases) even cushions; rocking-chairs for the lying-in wards, and little armchairs and rocking-chairs for the children's sick wards.[453] Dr. Smith had further recommended a Bible for each inmate, entertaining illustrated and religious periodicals, tracts and books, games, and a foot valance to the bed to "add to the appearance of comfort,"[454] These suggestions were not specifically taken up by the Central Authority, but Dr. Smith's report was circulated to the guardians, without comment.[455] We have the beginning, too, between 1863 and 1867, of the improvement of the food, which was regulated in each workhouse by a separate Special Order, prescribing a dietary, differing widely from union to union.[456] In 1866 the report of the medical officer in favour of skilled cooking, by a professional cook, instead of by a pauper inmate, really hot meals (even to the use of "hot water dishes"), and efficient service, so as to increase the comfort of the inmates, was circulated to the boards of guardians.[457] After many reports and elaborate inquiries, the Central Authority in 1868 issued a Circular of very authoritative suggestions for a general improvement in the workhouse dietaries. After a protest that no cause had been shown for any fundamental change in the principles which had been hitherto recommended, it was urged that there were various points which the guardians should remember in framing dietaries. The first of these points was the addition of several classes who were to have separate dietaries, viz.:--

(_a_) The aged and infirm not on the medical officer's book.

(_b_) Inmates on the medical officer's book for diet only and not on
the sick list.

(_c_) Inmates allowed extra diets on account of employment, and
those allowed alcohol for the same reason.

(_d_) Children aged nine to sixteen, if the guardians thought they
should be separately dieted.

(_e_) Sick diets to be framed by the medical officer as before.

(_f_) Imbeciles and suckling women to be dieted as the aged, "with
or without the substitution of milk porridge and bread at
breakfast or supper or at both meals."

[453] Circular of 13th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report,
1868-9, pp. 44-6.

[454] Report of Dr. E. Smith on Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries
and Sick Wards, in House of Commons, No. 372 of 1866, pp. 51-2.

[455] Circular of 20th July 1866, in Nineteenth Annual Report,
1866-7, p. 39.

[456] It appears from a Minute of Lord Ebrington that, on entering
the Poor Law Board, he was much struck by there being no
physiological information available in the office as to the proper
amount of food required or as to the physiological equivalents of
different foods. The dietaries had apparently all been sanctioned
without reference to such an inquiry. He called for a report, and,
we believe, had an investigation made by Dr. Lyon (afterwards
Lord) Playfair. The Report (signed Thomas Harries, and dated June
1st 1850) reveals the most astounding differences between the
amounts of food, the proportions and amounts of nitrogenous
materials, and the cost of the dietaries sanctioned for 529
unions. (Eighty-four unions had no dietary sanctioned.) In
Berkshire, for instance, the Central Authority had approved of the
pauper in the Cookham Union getting only 15-9/10 oz. of
nitrogenous ingredients (per day?), whilst the pauper in the
Wokingham Union was allowed 24-1/10 oz. In the Metropolis, the
inmates of the West London Workhouse had been directed to exist on
14-7/10 oz. a day, whilst those in the Bermondsey Workhouse had
been permitted to consume 27-6/10 oz. It was found, contrary to
the common belief, that the dietaries of the workhouses in the
Metropolis and the great towns were, on an average, lower than
those of rural unions. There had, moreover, been a total lack of
quantitative definition of the ingredients of soups, puddings,
etc., with the result of extraordinary diversity. Sometimes
able-bodied women were allowed the same quantities as men;
sometimes much smaller quantities. We cannot trace whether any
action was taken on this Memorandum. No General Order or Circular
was issued on the subject at the time, or, indeed, for more than a
dozen years; and the workhouse dietaries remained extremely
diverse. But the Central Authority doubtless acted on the
information in its possession. In September 1850, for instance, it
demurred to approving a dietary proposed by the Bradfield
Guardians, on the ground that it was "so decidedly less nutritious
than those of other unions, in fact, only half what is given in
some, and more than a quarter less than the general average." The
Bradfield Guardians triumphantly retorted that their proposed
dietary for paupers provided more nourishment than the independent
labouring classes of the neighbourhood got in their own homes!
(MS. Minutes, Bradfield Board of Guardians, 10th September 1850);
which, considering the wages of the Berkshire farm labourers, is
not unlikely to have been true.

[457] Circular of 14th September 1866, in Nineteenth Annual
Report, 1866-7, pp. 395-6.

Then followed various detailed suggestions, some of which dealt with ingredients and methods of cooking. Soup or broth dinners were not to be given more than twice a week; nor were bread and cheese or suet pudding dinners, except to the able-bodied. Fresh vegetables were to be provided, if possible, five times a week, and boiled rice alone was not to be made a substitute for them. Rice pudding was not to be given as a dinner except to children under nine, and to them not more than twice a week. Children were not to have tea or coffee, except for supper on Sunday, but milk at breakfast and supper, and they were to be given two or three ounces of bread at 10 A.M. It was "suggested that tea, coffee, or cocoa, with milk and sugar, and accompanied by bread and butter or bread and cheese, should be allowed to all the aged and infirm women at breakfast and supper, and the same to aged and infirm men, or milk porridge with bread" might be given at one of those meals. The ordinary rations were--of meat (cooked, without bone), for men four ounces, for women three ounces; of soup, one to one and a half pints (containing three ounces of meat) for an adult; and of bread at breakfast or supper, six ounces for able-bodied men, for the aged, women, and children over nine five ounces, and proportionately less for younger children.[458]

[458] Circular of 7th December 1868, in Twenty-first Annual
Report, 1868-9, pp. 41-4. In the different Metropolitan workhouses
the Central Authority sought to obtain absolute uniformity, and to
this end had a model drawn up which was submitted to the guardians
for their adoption. It is strange that this dietary allowed less
bread and more meat than was recommended by the Board in the
circular just described, only a few months later--perhaps because
larger allowances of meat were made in the dietaries already in
force in London unions. This dietary, prepared by Dr. Markham,
contained tables for the able-bodied, the aged, and inmates
engaged on extra labour, in each case of both sexes, but not for
the other classes named in the above-mentioned circular. The
points chiefly dwelt upon were the necessity of good cooking, of
giving reasonable quantities of food, sufficient but not wasteful,
and of obtaining materials of good quality, so as to attain the
greatest possible economy (Circular of 23rd April 1868, in _ibid._
pp. 35-41). It is to be noted that the Central Authority issued no
order on the subject. The result was that in most cases the
guardians practically ignored the suggestions, and continued in
their diversity. Camberwell, for instance, continued to allow the
able-bodied pauper 107 oz. of bread per week, whereas the Poor Law
Board had suggested 76 oz. only. The hated oatmeal porridge and
suet pudding were minimised (Report of Mr. J. H. Bridges, 15th May
1873).

The movement for the improvement of the workhouse thus initiated by the Central Authority in 1865-70 represents a vast departure, not only from the policy of the Poor Law Commissioners of 1835-47, but also from that of the Poor Law Board itself from 1847 to 1865. Unfortunately, in the absence of any embodiment of the new policy in a General Order, it was left to the slow and haphazard discretion of the six hundred boards of guardians how far it was carried into practice.[459] There is, however, evidence that by 1872, at any rate, the Metropolitan workhouses were reported to have become "attractive to paupers," and to contain "many persons ... who could maintain themselves out of doors; and, in short, that the workhouse furnishes no test of destitution."[460] Moreover, though the Central Authority sought to improve the physical conditions of workhouse life, and even to promote the comfort of the classes who now formed the great bulk of the workhouse population, it does not seem to have had any idea of remedying the mental deadness of the workhouse, the starvation of the intellect, the paralysis of the will, and the extinction of all initiative to which such an existence inevitably tended. The only hint that we can find during the whole period of any consciousness that the hundred and fifty thousand workhouse inmates had minds is a statement by Mr. C. P. Villiers in 1860 that "the board had readily consented to establish libraries" for the inmates.[461] We cannot find any order authorising the provision of workhouse libraries, or any circular suggesting them; nor do we discover their existence from such local records as we have been able to consult.

[459] The average cost of in-maintenance throughout the Kingdom
(apart from buildings, repairs, rates, salaries, etc.) appears to
have risen between 1863 and 1870 from £4·340 for the half-year to
£4·781, or by over 10 per cent. The 125,368 indoor paupers on 1st
July 1863 cost £521,292 for the half-year ended Michaelmas 1863
(Seventeenth Annual Report, 1864-5, pp. 189 and 198); whereas, the
144,470 indoor paupers on 1st July 1870 cost £690,812 for the
half-year ended Michaelmas 1870 (Twenty-third Annual Report,
1870-1, pp. 349 and 367). In the Metropolitan unions the average
cost for the half-year rose from 5·077 to 5·588, or by slightly
over 10 per cent. We gather that the corresponding amounts for
1905 were not much above £6 for the whole country and £7 for the
Metropolis, which does not seem a great further advance for a
quarter of a century.

[460] Office Minute of 1873. This had been pointed out by Mr.
Corbett in 1868. "In none of these workhouses is it possible to
apply the workhouse as a test of destitution to single able-bodied
men, nor can indoor relief be afforded to those with families in
many instances in which it would be desirable" (Mr. Corbett's
Report, 4th January 1868, in Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, p.
126).

[461] Mr. C. P. Villiers, President of the Poor Law Board, 4th May
1860, _Hansard_, vol. clviii. p. 694.

_K._--_Emigration_

Emigration was not made the subject, during this period, of statute, order, or circular. At first we find the Central Authority continuing the favour to it which had been expressed in the 1834 Report and in the documents and action of the Poor Law Commissioners. In 1849 the Central Authority got a Bill through Parliament increasing the powers of promoting and assisting emigration,[462] in support of which the Manchester Board of Guardians petitioned in characteristic phraseology.[463] In the same year the Central Authority even approved the sending out of a convict's family to join him; "the transportation of the convict is not a voluntary desertion of the family, and when the Government promotes the sending out of the family ... the expenditure of the poor rate in furtherance of that object may properly be sanctioned."[464] By 1852 the number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate had risen to 3271 in a single year, four-fifths going to the Australian Colonies.[465] By this time the total number of persons assisted to emigrate at the expense of the poor rates, between 1834 and 1853, had mounted up to nearly 24,000.[466] The policy then changes. The number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate suddenly declines, falling from 3271 in 1852 to 488 in 1853.[467] In 1854 it is recorded that the Central Authority had "declined during the past year to sanction any expenditure from the poor rate in aid of emigration to the Australian Colonies (except in ... special circumstances), on the ground that the condition of those colonies [appeared] to be such as of itself to attract largely voluntary and independent emigration"[468]--a reason, we may observe, which does not seem relevant to a discussion of the advantage or disadvantage of emigration as a means of reducing pauperism at home. It does not appear that the change of policy was due, as it might have been, to a conviction that a colony in a period of excitement over "gold rushes" was not a suitable place to which to send a young person in whose welfare one took a personal interest. It may be that the real reason was a political one, viz. objections expressed by the Australian colonies themselves. Whatever the motive, however, rate-aided emigration remained in disfavour. "We must consider," said the Poor Law Board in 1860, "that at present emigration cannot be considered as any practical remedial measure for the repression of pauperism."[469] In 1863, Mr. Villiers, speaking as President of the Poor Law Board, gave a new reason for the disfavour into which emigration had fallen. "I do not mean to say," he protested, on a discussion about the distress caused by the Lancashire Cotton Famine, "that the Government should discourage emigration.... [But] when we know the large amount of capital in the country, and the great increase of it, and are also cognisant of the demand for labour a few years since, I do not think it would be wise of the Government to expend public money in the promotion of emigration."[470] For the next seven years emigration at the expense of the poor rate practically ceases, the number of persons so assisted falling in 1866-7 to eighteen.[471] In the following year, 277 persons were sent from Poplar, then exceptionally distressed,[472] but there was no general resumption of the policy, so far as adults were concerned. In 1869 the Central Authority, whilst disavowing any intention of reviving the policy, tried to simplify the procedure with regard to emigration, but found the representatives of the colonies adverse.[473] In 1870 there was, however, a slight revival, accompanied by the new feature of the emigration to Canada of orphan or deserted children (Miss Rye's scheme),[474] destined to become thenceforth a constant feature, though not in any one year attaining any considerable magnitude. The total number of persons emigrated at the expense of the poor rate in the seventeen years between 1853 and 1870 was between three and four thousand, as contrasted with nearly 24,000 in the preceding nineteen years.[475]

[462] 12 & 13 Vic. c. 103, sec. 20; Second Annual Report, 1849, p.
12.

[463] "Your petitioners having had practical proof of the tendency
of labour to accumulate beyond the bounds of remunerative
investment for capital, consider that a well-arranged system of
emigration is the present most feasible mode of preserving a
correct equilibrium between the supply and demand for labour" (MS.
Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 12th July 1849).

[464] Second Annual Report, 1849, p. 12.

[465] Fifth Annual Report, 1852, p. 7.

[466] _See_ the total given years later, in Ninth Annual Report,
1856, p. 119.

[467] Sixth Annual Report, 1853, p. 6.

[468] Seventh Annual Report, 1854, p. 8.

[469] Twelfth Annual Report, 1859-60, p. 19.

[470] Mr. C. P. Villiers, President of Poor Law Board, 27th April
1863, _Hansard_, vol. clxx. pp. 814-15.

[471] Nineteenth Annual Report, 1866-7, p. 19.

[472] Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, pp. 33, 398.

[473] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. lvi.-lvii.

[474] Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. xlvi., 441.

[475] _See_ the total in Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-1, p.
441.

_L._--_Relief on Loan_

We may note that the Central Authority did not advise making use of the statutory power to grant relief in the form of a loan, as a means of discouraging applicants, but regarded it solely as a way of saving the rates. Such relief was to be granted with due consideration and the _bona fide_ intention of recovering.[476] Relief could not be given on loan if it would be contrary to Order to grant it not on loan.[477] In fact, what might not lawfully be given, was not to be lent.[478] Whatever was granted on loan should always be strictly recovered in due time. "The power of lending is only to be exercised where the guardians think fit to do something less than absolutely give the relief applied for in cases where the application is lawful."[479] As examples of occasions suitable for relief on loan, the Central Authority adduced that of a mentally defective person having a regular and sufficient income, but yet occasionally destitute from incapacity to manage his expenditure.[480] Other cases are those of wives or children found destitute, when the relief may be made on loan to the husbands or parents.[481] A further instance is supplied by relief applied for by the mother of an illegitimate child who is entitled to periodical payments from the putative father. The putative father may be asked to make his payments in such a way as to facilitate the recovery of the loan from the mother.[482] We find no revival of the idea mooted in 1840 of granting medical relief on loan.

[476] Letter of 8th April 1850, in _Official Circular_, July 1850,
No. 39, N.S. p. 108.

[477] Outdoor Relief Regulation Order, 25th August 1852, and 14th
December 1852, in Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 19, 26; General
Order of 1st January 1869, in Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9,
p. 81.

[478] Circular of 25th August 1852, in Fifth Annual Report, 1853,
p. 23.

[479] _Ibid._

[480] Letter of May 1849, in _Official Circular_, No. 25, N.S.
1849, p. 71.

[481] Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 25th August and 14th
December 1852, in Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 19, 26; General
Order of 1st January 1869, in Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9,
p. 81.

[482] _Official Circular_, September 1850, No. 41, N.S. p. 131.

_M._--_Co-operation with Voluntary Agencies_

A noteworthy feature of the very end of this period was the emphasis suddenly laid upon the importance of systematic co-operation between the Poor Law and voluntary charitable agencies. This was the novel feature of Mr. Goschen's celebrated Minute of 20th November 1869. His object was "to avoid the double distribution of relief to the same persons, and at the same time to secure that the most effective use should be made" of voluntary funds. With this view he sought "to mark out the separate limits of the Poor Law and of charity respectively, and [to find out] how it is possible to secure joint action between the two." He suggested that voluntary agencies should undertake the following:--

(_a_) The necessary supplementing of insufficient incomes--and
he does not here distinguish between earnings,
dividends, pensions, and family contributions--"leaving
to the operation of the [Poor] Law the provision
for the totally destitute."

(_b_) Donations of bedding, clothing, or other similar articles
not provided by the guardians (as distinguished
from food or money)[483] to persons in receipt of outdoor
relief.

(_c_) Services to such persons which are beyond the power
of the guardians (such as the redemption from
pawn or the purchase of tools or clothes, and the
expenses of migration).

It was suggested that charitable agencies and the relieving officers should bring to each other's notice all cases falling within each other's spheres, in order that none might be overlooked; systematically giving each other also information of all cases that were being relieved, so as to prevent any overlapping. Mr. Goschen seems to have thought it beyond the power of the Poor Law Board to do anything to set going any joint action between the Metropolitan boards of guardians and charitable agencies. He did not convene a conference or initiate a joint committee, or even circulate his proposal to the Metropolitan charities; though he had evidently been advised that the services both of the officers of the Poor Law Board and of those of the guardians could legally be used "to assist in systematising ... relief operations in various parts of the Metropolis," and "to facilitate the communication between the official and private agencies"; and that Poor Law funds could be drawn on for remuneration for their extra work and for the necessary printing. He confined himself literally to sending his Minute to the Metropolitan boards of guardians, with a request for their views upon it. In reply, he got little beyond a series of expositions of the apparent impracticability of his proposals. In commenting on these replies, the Central Authority did not pursue Mr. Goschen's suggestions, but urged only "increased vigilance and the appointment of more relieving officers" on the one hand,[484] and on the other the grant of "more adequate relief."[485] There the matter rested, for though systematic co-operation between charities and the Poor Law has since been assumed to be the policy of the Central Authority, we cannot find that there has ever been any second official statement on the subject.[486]

[483] The policy of the Central Authority seems, down to this
date, to have contemplated the supplementing of outdoor relief,
not only by charitable gifts in kind, but also by money. At
Poplar, in 1868, a special committee draws attention to the
"instruction" of the Poor Law Board that when relief is given to
persons in receipt of charitable relief, the relief given must be
only so much as, with the assistance of the charitable relief,
will suffice for the relief of such person's actual necessities
(MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 22nd September 1868).

[484] The number of relieving officers in the Metropolis had
already increased from 102 in 1866 to 161 in 1870. It now rose
further to 190 in February, 1873 (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th
August 1871, as reprinted for circulation in 1873). The number is
now (1907) about 205.

[485] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xxxii-xxxiv, 9-30.
Mr. Goschen directed an inspector to make a special inquiry into
the administration of outdoor relief in the Metropolis, and this
was followed by similar inquiries in the provinces (Twenty-third
Annual Report, 1870-1, pp. ix-xxi, 32-173; First Annual Report of
the Local Government Board, 1871-2, pp. xv, 88-215; Second Annual
Report, 1872-3, pp. xvi-xviii; Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp.
xx, 66-116, 136-209). The reports that resulted revealed many
defects and some malpractices, but we do not find that there was
any action by the Central Authority.

[486] It should perhaps be mentioned that in the Third Annual
Report, 1873-4 (pp. xvii. and 126-35), reports by Miss Octavia
Hill and Colonel Lynedoch Gardiner, on the Co-operation of Charity
with the Poor Law in Marylebone, are given and commended.

To the historian of Poor Law policy, Mr. Goschen's Minute is important as the first indication of what we shall see developing in the ensuing period--an attempt to restrict the range of operations of the Poor Law, which here began to battle with the opposite tendency to extend the range of those operations, and to improve their quality, which, as we have seen, had marked the whole reign of the Poor Law Board with regard to children and persons of unsound mind; and which had, from 1865, taken such a stride onwards in the provision of hospitals and dispensaries for the sick, and improved accommodation for the workhouse inmates.

_N._--_The Position in 1871_

In 1867 the Poor Law Board, which had been continued from time to time by temporary statutes, was made permanent,[487] and in 1871 it was merged in a new and permanent department, the Local Government Board, established to take over not only the Poor Law business, but also the Local Government Act Department of the Home Office and the growing public health service, which had, since the abolition of the General Board of Health, been under the Privy Council. This amalgamation, which was not brought about by anything to do with the Poor Law side, does not mark any significant epoch in Poor Law policy. It is therefore unnecessary to attempt any summary of the whole policy of the Poor Law Board as such. It need only be noted at this point that the new establishment of the Central Authority on a permanent basis, no longer dependent on temporary statutes, but definitely one of the departments of the national executive, with its President more frequently than not a member of the Cabinet, greatly strengthened the authority and augmented the confidence with which it dealt with boards of guardians. And this authority was in these years being fortified by the growth of an official staff, on a more permanent basis than the temporarily serving inspectors and assistant inspectors of a professedly temporary board. We are already conscious, at the end of this period, of a growing firmness of touch and an increasing consciousness of there being once more a deliberate policy, which the new department will strive to carry out and enforce.

[487] The Liverpool Vestry and various boards of guardians
objected to the Poor Law Board being made permanent, as its very
existence tended to lessen the sense of responsibility of the
local Poor Law authorities (Report of Special Vestry Meeting,
Liverpool, in _Liverpool Mercury_, 27th June 1867).