Chapter XI (2)

June 21, 1615. An agreement was made with John Kirby. He agrees to "diligently teach, instructe and bringe upp all such youthes, children and other persons as shalbe sent or committed into the saied Howse of Correccon in some honest and true labour soe longe as they shall remayne there vnder his chardge and government and shall fynde and allowe vnto them convenient meate, drynke, apparell and other necessaries vnlesse they bee lame and impotent and nott able to worke." For Manchester and Preston see Earwaker, _Constables' Accounts_, Vol. I., pp. 39, 54 and 65.

[553] _D. S. P._, Chas. I. Vol. 349, 72, Hayridge etc. Devon. _Ib._ Vol. 349, 12, Hartesmere, Suffolk. _Ib._ 192, 79, Blofield, Norfolk. _Ib._ Vol. 250, 42, Arundel, Hants. _Ib._ Vol. 426, 67, Bastable and Becontree, Essex, &c. The justices of Somerset write "It was presented to us that many persons lived out of service w^{th}in certayne parishes whome wee sent to the Howse of Correccon at Shepton Mallet," _Ib._ Vol. 194, 20. At Chichester it is reported that "there is a house of Correccon neere the common prison in the said Cittie w^{ch} is parcell of the said provision and that such prisoners as are thether committed are employed to worke duringe the tyme of their restraynt. _Ib._ Vol. 190, 67.

[554] _Ib._ Vol. 188, 34.

[555] _Ib._ Vol. 189, 13. Eight years later this house at Buntingford was still in existence and reported to be doing much good in the country. _Ib._ Vol. 426, 73. July, 1639.

[556] _Cal. of State Papers_, May 15, 1623.

Their character seems to have been much the same as in the preceding century. They provided a temporary lodging for stranger vagrants and a house of detention in which the idlers and offenders convicted for small causes could be made to work hard and were possibly reformed. Coarse kinds of labour were used at the London Bridewell, mainly the beating of hemp, but sometimes other plans were tried and the prisoners were put under the care of undertakers who agreed to keep them all at work and made such profit as they were able[557].

[557] _Remembrancia_, II. 254.

But there were many other ways in which the unemployed were provided for. The modern remedy of emigration was adopted, pressure was put upon employers and there were various ways in which money could be lent to set a young householder up in business.

[Sidenote: 7 _e_. Emigration.]

It was about this time, and partly in connection with Bridewell, that the remedy offered by emigration was adopted. It was the age in which several of our colonies were founded and first developed. The earliest vagrant emigrants were sent to Virginia. We hear of a payment of 12_s._ 3_d._ from a London parish "towards the transportacon of a hundred children to Virginia by the Lord Maior's appointment," in 1617 and in 1619[558]. Again, in 1622 and 1635, vagrants were detained in Bridewell for Virginia, who were usually paid for by municipal funds and collections, though in a few cases we are told that the parochial officials sent particular people and paid their expenses. A few years later some vagabonds were sent to sea, and others were put to work in the Barbadoes[559]. The emigrants did not come only from London; three boys of Barnstaple departed in 1633-4, and probably there were many more both from Barnstaple and other places. The emigrants thus sent out were bound apprentice for some years to some employer, and at the end of their term of years they were to have the opportunity of making plantations for themselves. There is a declaration made in 1647, by the Earl of Carlisle, who was Lord of the Caribee Islands, in which it is stated that there was not land enough in Barbados for all who had served their time[560], and that every freeman unprovided with land may have a grant in his other island of Antigua.

[558] W. A. Bewes, _Church Briefs_, p. 96, 1617, quoting the Records of St Alphage, London Wall.

[559] Court Books of Bridewell, Feb. 24th, 1619. Sixteen vagrants are entered as "sent to Virginia," and entries of the same kind follow at the next meetings.

1622. Vagrants are again "kept for Virginia."

April 1635. It is ordered "that if Mr George Whitmore and the Treasurer shall think fit to send any vagrants beyond seas, what reasonable they shall consent unto shall be allowed." At the same meeting some parishioners agreed to pay for a certain inhabitant of their parish to go beyond seas.

At the meetings held later in the month on April 15th and 29th several people are destined for Virginia and others for the Barbadoes.

Other entries occur in 1639.

The names of all these vagrants are given, and the descendants of several of them occupy good positions in America. An enterprising American has endeavoured to enlighten his countrymen on the subject, but the publication of names is now forbidden as the descendants did not care to be enlightened.

[560] A declaration of the Lord of the Caribee Islands touching servants who had served their time and could not get land. _King's Pamphlets_, British Museum, 669 f. 11, f. 106.

In the midst of all the abuse heaped upon the vagrant in his own time and in our own, it is interesting to remember that he sometimes did something useful when he got the chance. Even in the days of the Stuarts he and his descendants played a part in developing the British Empire and in founding the settlements which led to the existence of the United States.

[Sidenote: 7 _f_. Pressures on employers.]

But work was also provided for the unemployed by means of pressure exercised on employers. We have already seen how both in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Privy Council endeavoured to compel cloth manufacturers to continue to carry on their trade, and how cloth merchants were called before the justices and judges and ordered not to dismiss their men[561]. Another instance of the same kind of interference occurred soon after the outbreak of the Civil War. After Bristol was captured by the Royalists, Prince Rupert endeavoured to relieve the distress of the time by ordering the clothiers to keep their workpeople employed for one month at least[562].

[561] See above, pp. 85, 147 seq., p. 153.

[562] Seyer's _Memoirs of Bristol_, Vol. II., p. 420. 1643.

In another case we can see the justices exercising pressure on particular individuals not because of a fluctuation of trade, but in order to carry out the ordinary provisions of the poor law. Hitchen was the centre of an agricultural district, there was no manufacture in which men could be employed: wages were very low and many were out of work. The justices therefore ordered the "richer sort" to give employment, but they thereby only occasioned complaints, for in this part of the country there seems to have been a permanent difficulty in finding work for the poor[563].

[563] _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 385, No. 43.

At other times municipal rulers exerted their influence in favour of the inhabitants of a particular town. Thus in 1623 at Reading certain poor complained; the clothiers were warned to appear and thirty of them came to the Guildhall. It was arranged that two clothiers should be appointed to consult with the overseers and see that the poor were set to work. However the complaints still continued, and both at this time and in 1630 the difficulty was met by ordering the clothiers to have all their work done in the town and not to send it into the country. The distress at Reading was thus lessened at the expense of the surrounding district[564].

[564] _Records of Reading_, Vol. II., p. 153, Vol. III., p. 39.

That the public authorities of state and town thought they had a right to exercise pressure of this kind is evident, and many incidental sayings show us that the employers considered they had a duty in the matter. Thus at Norwich the hosiers, finding that they cannot sell their stocks, tell the town rulers that though they have not yet dismissed their men their money is exhausted and they find it is impossible for them to go on much longer[565]. They thus intimate that it was their interest to have dismissed their men sooner but that they held on as long as they could. In another case an employer writes to Nicholas about some payment, and hopes he will be used well by the Council because during a bad time, when most men stopped work, he continued his manufacture and kept nearly one thousand people at work, although he lost heavily by so doing[566].

[565] Norwich Court Books, 22nd Feb. 1630/1, f. 326, Vol. 16.

[566] _Dom. S. Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 184, 65.

All this shows that the employers recognised some sort of responsibility for the men whom they usually employed. The continuance of business would save much hardship if the cause of distress was merely a temporary fluctuation in trade. In the cloth-manufacture this was often the case, and therefore the pressure brought to bear on employers in this direction must be considered a real method of helping the poor.

But there was another way in which pressure was put on employers. We occasionally find that the town, instead of providing a stock of materials to set the poor to work, reported that the inhabitants found employment for them or that the inhabitants provided hemp and tow and flax and set the poor to work themselves[567]. This not improbably points to some plan like that of the roundsman system of later days. A man in want of work, on applying to the parish authorities, was sent round to different employers and was set to work by each of them for a short period. This plan does not seem to have been much used, for in most cases the justices mention that the overseers had raised stocks of money in order to provide work for the ablebodied, and thus imply their intention of giving direct employment.

[567] Eastwicke. "The poore are set on worke by the inhabitants."

Hundred of Braughing, 4th April, 1631. "Noe stoeke to sett the poore on worke but they are sett on worke by the inhabitants to spinn towe at iiii_d._ the pound." _Dom. S. P._, Charles I., Vol. 189, No. 80. See Appendix.

[Sidenote: 7 _g_. Advancement of capital without interest.]

Perhaps the charity which was most peculiar to the seventeenth century was that of lending sums of money to set young tradesmen and artificers up in business for themselves.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries capital was growing a more and more important factor in production and it was becoming an increasingly difficult thing for the young journeyman to become a master.

We must remember that six to twelve per cent. was the ordinary rate of interest at the time. The difficulty of paying so much probably prevented many poor young men from starting business. Moreover all through the Middle Ages lending money for interest was considered contrary to Christian morality, and many men still held to the old opinion. In great numbers of places therefore funds were bequeathed to what have been termed "Lending Cash Charities." Sums were lent to young men, or sometimes to older men who had lost their capital, either for no return or at what was then a low rate of interest, and the borrowers had to find security for the repayment of the original sum. Many of the City Companies are responsible for the administration of very considerable sums of this kind. The Haberdashers' Company alone possesses £2510 which ought to be lent gratis and which was bequeathed by many different donors between the years 1569 and 1638. The Mercers' Company possesses at least twenty-one gifts of this kind. One of the most considerable of these is that of Lady Campbell, who in 1642 bequeathed £1000 which was to be lent gratis on good security to eight young men of the Mercers' Company; shopkeepers of the mercery were to be preferred, and next to them silkmen[568].

[568] _Haberdashers' Company Char. Com. Rep._ X. p. 230. _Mercers' Company Char. Com. Rep._ VI., pp. 285, 291, 307.

Specimens.

David Appowell, 1508. £100 to be lent to two young men for seven years in consideration of four cart-loads of coal every year.

Alice Blundell, 1570. £100 to be lent to two young men who were to give 1_s._ 1_d._ every week to thirteen poor folk of the parish of St Lawrence Jewry.

Richard Fishborne, 1625. £1000 to be lent to five young men free of the Company £200 each for five years gratis with three good securities.

Not only the City Companies but also the town rulers of most provincial towns and sometimes parish authorities were trustees for such charities. At Ipswich bequests of this kind are especially numerous; they are much smaller in amount than those of London, but they are typical of the kind of charity that once existed in almost every town in which old records remain. In common with twenty-three other towns, Ipswich had an interest in Sir Thomas White's will and received in its turn £100 to be lent to four poor tradesmen. Besides this no less than eleven other legacies of this sort were received before 1635. Amongst these Mrs Alice Scrivener gave £100 to be lent gratis to ten people for four years, Christopher Cock gave £100 to be lent to four clothiers for five years, and John Barrett £20 to four shoemakers without interest[569]. At Reading the same kind of thing was done; in 1626 Mr Ironside left £100 to be lent gratis to two clothiers and two shopkeepers, and in 1633 Richard Johnson gave £100 for four tradesmen for twelve years[570]. At Oxford there were once many sums for such loans, but these have most of them either been lost or are used for other purposes[571].

[569] _Legacies to charitable uses in Ipswich_, p. 74 seq.

Other Cash Charities of the same kind for the benefit of the inhabitants of Ipswich were as follows:--

1579. Mrs Rose Bloise £20 to four handicraftsmen for two or three years.

1583. Mr John Tye £25 to five or more persons who are inhabitants for not longer than three years without interest.

1595. Mr Thos. Goodwin £40 for four poor occupiers for two years without interest.

1608. Mrs Alice Bloise £40 to six young men, being freemen for three years.

1616. Mr Willm. Birden £20 to four poor occupiers for four years.

1616. Mr Willm. Acton £80 to four clothiers for four years.

Mr J. Acton added £20 to be lent in the same manner.

1621. Mr Rich. Martin left overplus of certain revenues to be lent to clothiers.

[570] _Char. Com. Report_, 32, Pt. 1, p. 43. Ironside's Charity.

_Reading Records_, Vol. III., p. 170. Richard Johnson.

Other charities of the kind existed in Reading. See Barbor's and Winche's _Charities Rep._, 32. Pt. 1, p. 43. [571] _Rep._ VI., p. 397 seq.

Among the lost charities of Oxford are the following:--

Jane Fulsey, 1603. £40 to be lent to four poor tradesmen for three years.

Robert Wilson, 1640. £20 to be lent in two, three or four equal portions for seven years. _Ib._ p. 404.

There are sixteen other lost charities of the kind either without date or of later date than 1640, and three or four other lending charities which are still wholly or partially in existence.

In Barnstaple, Bristol, Newbury, Lichfield, Wolverhampton and Colchester[572] there were similar bequests, and apparently in most towns charitable funds of this kind were in existence during the reigns of the earlier Stuarts. It was one of the ways in which the philanthropists of the time endeavoured to give employment, only in this case it was not to the vagrant, but to the householder or skilled workman. Usually these sums were given by private people and administered by the town. But at Hitchin we find something of the kind suggested as a method of poor relief. The justices in their report recount the sufferings of the poor during the plague, and say that "three poore tradesmen who were shutt up And haue lost their custome and spent their meanes haue petitioned for stock to put them into Trade againe[573]." The matter was not yet decided, but from the justices' language it is clear that they regarded it as quite within their power to grant relief in this manner. John Lock, tailor of London, bequeathed gifts of £5 to £10 to the apprentices of Bridewell with a similar object, and, having regard to the circumstances of the time, few charities would probably have had a better effect if they had been honestly administered.

[572] See _Reports of the Charity Commissioners_.

Among these sums at Bristol were the following:--

Alderman Thorne's Gift £500 in 1532 to "succour young men that were minded to cloth making."

John Heydon, 1579. £100 for two young men trading over seas at interest of £3. 6_s._ 8_d._

Alderman Whitson, 1627. £500, £250 to five young men for seven years at interest of ten shillings, £250 to twenty tradesmen for seven years, &c. _Report_ VIII., p. 597 seq.

Such bequests were also sometimes in the hands of parochial officials.

St Mary, Aldermary. John Kemp in 1569 gave £100 to the churchwardens that they might lend the same to ten poor occupiers without interest.

Anthony Sprott in 1607 gave £20 to the churchwardens and parishioners to be lent by them to a young occupier at 16_s._ a year. _Rep._ VI., p. 201.

[573] _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 349, No. 70.

We thus see that many different methods were employed to relieve the old, to train the young and to give work to the able-bodied. The examples we have already given afford some evidence that legal poor relief had become well established in many districts, but it was not equally well administered at all times and in all places. We will now inquire when and how the administration of the law was improved, and the answer to this question may suggest the reason why the history of the English Poor Law is different to that of the rest of Western Europe.