The First Century of Welfare

UAS Conference Series 2013/14
The First Century of
Welfare
Jonathan Healey
Kellogg College
26 June 2014
14 September 2010
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The Banks of Hawkshead
• William Bank, born Hawkshead, 1639. Father
died, 1681, styled ‘yeoman’.
• Married Agnes Wilson, 1660. Had seven
children (1661-73), 4+ survived infancy.
• Agnes died, 1676. William gets another
woman, Dorothy Dodgson, pregnant. Marries
her in 1677. Four children (1677-87).
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The Banks of Hawkshead
• 1679: heavily in debt; sold tenement at
Wadbarrow for £55 10s to a man from Kendal.
• 1681: working as farm servant for one
Thomas Rawlinson.
• 1704: got pension of 9d pw.
• 1704-11: He and son, Abraham get irregular
relief.
• 1706: given 2s 1d to bury his wife.
• 1712: William gets 9d pension again, died
1717.
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The English ‘Old’ Poor Law, 1598-1834
• Series of statutes under Tudors,
culminating in 1598/1601 acts for the
relief of the poor.
• Each parish appoints ‘overseers of the
poor’, who tax wealthy households and
transfer money to the poor.
• Pensions: weekly or monthly doles in
money.
• Various occasional doles: money
payments in times of hardship; goods
in kind.
• Total of around £400,000 being spent
in the 1690s, enough to feed 5% of the
population.
Page 5
The Accounts of
Overseers of the
Poor
Slimbridge,
Gloucestershire 1677-78
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Legislation, 1531-1552: Experiments in
Voluntarism
• 1531: Vagrants to be whipped and sent home;
deserving allowed to beg.
• 1536: Voluntary collections in each parish –
act not renewed by Parliament.
• 1547: Voluntary collections again; persistent
vagrants to be enslaved – quickly repealed.
• 1552: Each to parish to keep accounts of
voluntary giving.
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Legislation, 1552-1601: The Road to
Compulsion
•
1563: Those refusing to contribute to have personal
interview and assessment by magistrate.
•
1572: Tax on wealthy to pay for poor, organized by
magistrates; those not paying to go to gaol.
•
1598: Overseers to collect tax and make payments.
•
1601: Last act made permanent.
•
1630s: Enforcement drive from the Privy Council.
•
c. 1646-50: System ‘rebooted’ after Civil War.
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Rising Costs of Poor Relief, c. 1600-1750
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Micro-Politics in Action: Petitioning for
Poor Relief
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John Lomax of Bradshaw, 1679
Humbly sheweth, That your petitioner hath formerly lived in
a plentifull condicion and hath paid taxes towards King and
poore, But had some yeares ago his house broken and
fourtie pounds of readie money stollen from him and hath
sustained other greate losses by his trade & (being
formerly a drovier) through which and other misfortunes
your petitioner is so distressed that hee is forced to wander
abroade and begg, having nothing of his owne left to
manteyne him with nor howse to dwell in, and the
overseers have refused to releeve his necessities although
hee hath made his complaint for two yeares last past your
petitioner is fourescore and two yeares of age and is no
longer able to begg...
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Describing Poverty
• ‘Hard’, ‘sad’, ‘cold’.
• Nakedness, misery, filth.
• Severe material deprivation: ‘destitute of any
thing save the cold earth’. ‘Neither dish
spoone nor bed to lay them down upon’. ‘Hath
drunk litell but water a long time.’
• Occasional sense of entitlement to basic
standard of living.
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First Petitions for Poor Relief to the
Lancashire bench, 1625-1710
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3,169 petitioners
• 43 per cent said they were old.
• 50 per cent said they sick (55 per cent of
those who did not also claim old age).
• 40 per cent were single: widows, widowers,
spinsters, abandoned wives (one or two
abandoned husbands).
• 43 per cent mentioned children.
• 4 per cent told of unemployment and
economic crises. 3 per cent of ‘environmental’
hardships.
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The ‘Economy of Makeshifts’
• Support by kin.
• Support by neighbours.
• Work for small wages.
• Sold goods, ‘bed clothes and back clothes’.
• Begging.
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Petition of Thomas Nailor of Standish, 1662
Sheweth, That your petitioner being about three score & ten yeares of age,
formerly lived in good & credible condition, but aboute foure yeares since it
pleased God to visit him with an ague & other sore sicknes, which continued
on him aboute three yeares, in which time all his estate & meanes was spent,
& consumed, & likewise being stricken with a palsie, soe that all his right side
is uselesse, he now lyeth in a miserable condition not able to helpe himselfe in
any thinge, his very bed being all rotten under him by reason of a laske that
hath houlden him above three yeares, & his impotencie not being able to move
himselfe: in this lamentable condition he is like to perish, unless some releefe
be granted for him, for being destitute of both meanes & able frends to releeve
him, he for a longe time this winter hath had noethinge but what pittifull
neighbours have sent him, and likewise none are willing to be trobled to looke
to him, & helpe him in this his loathsome condition, onely a kinswoman of his
hath out of naturall affection thus far beene with him, but she beinge of small
estate unable to releeve him & greeveinge to see his dayly miserie is
discoraged & almost wearied out.
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