The Poor Law in Hereford (1836-1851).
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During the reign of Elizabeth I various attempts were made to try to deal with the problem of poverty. Acts were passed to try to improve poor relief and to force people to give money to their parish authorities for the care of the poor. In 1601, Elizabeth's Government sought to bring all the different Acts together and create one nationally recognised system. This was known as the Poor Law Act.
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This Act allowed 'sturdy beggar's and vagabonds to be stripped from the waist up and whipped until bloody and then sent back to the parish where they were born or the last parish that they had lived in. When they had been sent back to this parish they were to be put to work for a whole year. The 'sturdy beggar' was someone who it was believed was able to work but was too idle to do so. Vagabonds (wandering beggars) had become a major problem in the 16th century and the government was extremely concerned with the trouble that these people could create. It was thought that punishing them harshly would deter others from begging in this way. |
The Government of Elizabeth I recognised that not all the poor and destitute were on the take and able to work. The Poor Law Act of 1601 set out national guidance for poor relief for the sick, disabled, elderly and young - the so-called 'impotent poor'.
To enable each parish to look after their own poor a 'Poor Rate' was collected. In the parish men were selected as overseers of the poor. They needed to decide how much money was needed to care for the poor, how much each household could afford to contribute and then collect it. They were also responsible for meeting the paupers and deciding who was deserving of the help available. The 'impotent poor' would be given relief, the able-bodied poor would be put to work and the vagabonds would be punished and sent on their way.
The Poor Law Act did not solve the problem of poverty in England but it did ensure that every parish in the country looked after their poor to the best of their ability. One of the biggest problems with the enforcement of the Poor Law Act was money. The only way to obtain money for poor relief was to collect it from those who did not classify as paupers themselves. This system often made those who had to pay very angry, especially when it was people from outside of their parish who tried to claim it.
The English Government recognised that people did not want to provide poor relief for paupers who did not come from their parishes. So, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1662 (Charles II), which allowed the overseers of the poor to send away from their parish anyone who did not have 'settlement' rights there, i.e. who did not belong there.
| A person was said to have 'settlement' in a parish if he had been born there, or had moved there to take up an apprenticeship and had worked in the parish for over a year. A wife would take on the settlement of her husband at marriage and any children that they had under the age of 16 would also take their father's settlement. This was to ensure that pauper families would not be broken up when returned to the parish of their 'settlement'. This system did not mean that people could not move around the country and find work elsewhere. If a man wished to work in another parish he needed a certificate that stated that his birth parish would have him back if he ever required poor relief. The system was designed to prevent people from moving to parishes where the poor relief may be more substantial than in their own, thus creating a build up of paupers in one area. |  |
In Herefordshire there was a problem with extra-parochial areas. These were areas that fell outside of the parish boundaries and where no parish was responsible for. Haywood Forest in Hereford was one of these areas.
In the beginning this Act meant that anybody who arrived in a parish looking like they might need relief would be refused and made to return to their settlement parish. This law was later changed so that only those who had applied to receive relief from a parish could be sent away. This change in the law also brought about one other change - everyone who was receiving poor relief had to wear a special badge to identify themselves. In Hereford settlement was eventually extended to those who had lived and worked in a parish for more than five years.
Many places, such as Hereford, had a problem with vagrants. Initially these people were housed in an old vagrants house in the parish of St Nicholas and a constable was appointed to oversee them. By May 1838 the Board of Guardians decided that 2 rooms should be built on to the workhouse for the reception of vagrants who would then be placed under the care of the workhouse master.
Ratepayers of Hereford were given tickets that they could hand out to anyone begging in the City that would allow them access to the workhouse. By December 1847, it was decided that vagrants should work in return for the relief that they received. For one days relief it was expected that men would break stones for half a day and women for two hours. This was so that other vagrants realised that they would be expected to earn their relief and perhaps discourage them from taking it.
(The Poor Law in Hereford - Sylvia A Morill, Woolhope vol XLI, 1974 pgs 239-252)
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Between the time of the reign of Elizabeth I and the nineteenth century there was a marked rise in the number of people applying for poor relief. This led to a belief that many of the people claiming relief were work-shy and idle. in 1723 an Act of Parliament was passed that aimed to deal with this problem. This set out a system by which parishes, or a group of parishes could provide a workhouse where the able-bodied poor might be set to work. If they refused to enter the workhouse they could be refused poor relief. This Act was called The Workhouse Test Act. |
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Pembridge poorhouses |
By 1776 there were over 2,000 workhouses in the country but the problem of distinguishing between those who deserved aid and those who were too idle to care for themselves remained.
In 1772 the government had to set out a new Act that tried to distinguish between the different types of poor claiming relief. The Act was introduced to Parliament by Thomas Gilbert, an MP from Staffordshire. His aim was to allow parishes to combine into groups to build a workhouse that would serve all their poor. This would enable poorer parishes to join with richer ones and help evenly distribute the burden of poor relief.
This new workhouse system also employed ways of dealing with the different classes of poor: The sick, old or orphaned would be housed in the workhouse and fed and watered. All others who claimed relief would be given money but expected to look after themselves, this was called 'outdoor relief'.
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The Poor Law of 1601 had been created when the majority of the population in England worked in the countryside. It had been adapted slightly over the decades as the population and industry grew but as time went on the system became more and more outdated and unable to cope with the changing society of post-medieval England. During the 18th century, England was undergoing huge advances in industry and agriculture and the population was booming. The poor relief system that was in existence at this point failed to deal adequately with the poor in the new industrial towns and the rise in unemployment and poverty in the farming areas. |
In the 16th century the population in England had been about 4 million, by the time of the first official census in 1801 it had risen to nine million, by 1834 it was over 14 million. As all control of the distribution of poor relief was done at local level, there was no central administration responsible for dealing with the increase in paupers or the new problems in the industrial and agricultural areas.
In 1776, the amount spent on poor relief throughout the country was £1,520,000, less than 60 years later this amount stood at £6,317,000, over four times the amount.
| So what had caused such a rise in the number of people applying for poor relief? Between 1793 and 1815 Britain was at war with France. In 1806, Napoleon Bonapart, the Emperor of France, had put a blockade on trade with Britain, which prevented food, and other provisions from reaching England. This meant many of the farmers in Britain had a monopoly on the goods that they produced and with no competition from abroad were able to keep their prices high. The larger farmers prospered, but those buying the goods soon began to struggle. |  |
More problems arose in the country because of the new system of enclosing common and waste land in villages in the Midlands. This meant that villagers no longer had any rights to gather wood or graze animals on common land.
(The Workhouse System 1834 - 1929 'The History of an English social institution' - M.A. Crowther,1981, Batsford)
The Corn Law
The end of the French Wars did not bring about the economic relief that Britain
was hoping for. Industry was at a low, bad harvests had forced prices up and
the returning soldiers made unemployment statistics worse. Added to this,
the Government refused to allow corn in from abroad, unless British corn was
sold at famine prices (very high cost). This meant that no foreign corn would
be allowed into Britain unless British corn reached the price of 80 shillings
per quarter. As a result of this law farmers had no need to lower their prices
and the poor were forced to hungry. This law was known as The Corn Law. In
many places the anger caused by this law, and the poverty stricken state it
helped to cultivate, turned to violence and protests.
The 'Swing' Riots
In 1830 the political situation in Britain took a turn for the worse
when many agricultural workers turned to violence and hay-rick burning. They
were protesting against low wages, poor conditions and new machinery - which
they believed was slowly replacing them. At this time labouring classes were
not able to vote and so they had to get their opinions across via different,
and often violent, means.
The 'Swing Riots' were named after the man who is supposed to have led them. It is thought that these riots were responsible for the Royal Commission Report undertaken in the early 1830's into the working of the Poor Law.
The result of the Royal Commission was a serious overhaul of the Old Poor Law system. The greatest change was that there was to be a Central Poor Law Commission that would oversee the running of the poor relief system. The chairman of this new Commission was Thomas Frankland Lewis, a former Tory MP. he was assisted by two other Commissioners: John Shaw Lefever, a barrister, and George Nicholls, who had been an overseer of the poor in Nottinghamshire.
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Under the new Poor Law parishes were to group themselves into Unions and each Union then had to elect a 'Board of Guardians' made up of representatives of each of the parishes. This Board of Guardians was then responsible for the building and administration of a workhouse. All paupers who could not support themselves and were unable to take part in outdoor relief (subsistence of food and money, given to those who worked for low wages) were to be admitted to the workhouse. |
| Bromyard Union Workhouse |
The workhouse was split into 4 separate sections - one for each of the recognised classes of pauper:
