Parish economies of welfare, 1650-1834

Historical Journal

Volumn 42, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 985-1006

  Broad, John ^a  

^a LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ECONOMICS; ETHNOLOGY; FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT; HISTORY; LAW; LEGAL ASPECT; POVERTY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; REGISTER; RELIGION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIAL PROBLEM; SOCIAL SUPPORT; SOCIAL WELFARE; UNEMPLOYMENT; UNITED KINGDOM;

ENGLAND; FUND RAISING; HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 18TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; LEGISLATION AS TOPIC; POVERTY; POVERTY AREAS; REGISTRIES; RELIGION; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIAL PROBLEMS; SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY; SOCIAL SUPPORT; SOCIAL WELFARE; UNEMPLOYMENT;

EID: 0009452059     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X99008766     Document Type: Article

References (88)

1. T. Wales, 'Poverty, poor relief and the life-cycle', in R. M. Smith, ed., Land, kingship and lifecycle (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 351-404;
2. cf. T. Arkell, 'The incidence of poverty in the late seventeenth century', Social History, 12 (1987), pp. 1-22
3. and John Walter, 'The social economy of dearth in early modern England', in John Walter and Roger Schofield, eds., Famine, disease and the social order in early modern society (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 75-128.
4. P. Slack, Poverty and policy in Tudor and Stuart England (London 1988), pp. 169-82; detailed studies of the particular relationship between charity and poor rates are to be found in D. Eastwood, 'The republic in the village: parish and poor at Bampton, 1780-1834', Journal of Regional and Local Studies, 12 (1992), pp. 18-28.
5. P. King, 'Pauper inventories and the material lives of the poor in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries', in T. Hitchcock, P. King and P. Sharpe, Chronicling poverty: the voices and strategies of the English poor, 1640-1840 (Basingstoke and New York, 1997), pp. 155-91.
6. Parliamentary Papers 1843 XVII provides the best county by county summary of the results of the charity commissioners' work. The details of the Bledlow charities are to be found in XXVI, pp. 66ff. The surviving Bledlow accounts are found in Buckinghamshire County Record Office (BCRO) PR17/12 and PR 27/17.
7. In particular see the contributions by Norma Landau, Joan Kent, Steve Hindle, and Keith Snell: K. D. M. Snell, Annals of the labouring poor (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 17-8;
8. N. Landau, 'Who was subjected to the laws of settlement ? Procedure under the settlement laws in eighteenth-century England', Agricultural History Review, 43 (1995), pp. 139-59;
9. J. R. Kent, 'The centre and the localities: state formation and parish government in England, 1640-1740', Historical Journal, 38 (1995), pp. 363-409;
10. S. Hindle, 'Exclusion crises: poverty, migration and parochial responsibility in English rural communities, c. 1560-1660', Rural History, 7 (199G), pp. 125-49. Hitchcock, King, and Sharpe Chronicling poverty, pp. 155-91;
11. J. Innes, 'The mixed economy of welfare in early modern England: assessments of the options from Hale to Malthus c. 1683-1803', in M. Daunton, ed., Charity, self-interest and welfare in the English past (London, 1996);
12. S. Lloyd 'Perceptions of the poor' (D. Phil. thesis, Oxford, 1991).
13. See P. Styles, 'The evolution of the law of settlement', University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 9 (1963), pp. 33-63, and J. S. Taylor, 'The impact of pauper settlement, 1691-1834', Past and Present, 73 (1976), pp. 42-74. Two pioneering earlier accounts of the workings of eighteenthcentury Poor Law are still useful: E. Hampson, The treatment of poverty in Cambridgeshire, 1597-1834 (Cambridge, 1939);
14. F. G. Emmison, 'The relief of the poor at Eaton Socon', Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 14 (1933).
15. T. Hitchcock, '"Unlawfully begotten on her body": illegitimacy and the parish poor in St. Luke's Chelsea', in Hitchcock, King, and Sharpe Chronicling poverty, pp. 70-86. On early workhouses see T. Hitchcock, 'The English workhouse: a study in institutional poor relief in selected counties, 1696-1750' (D. Phil, thesis, Oxford, 1985).
16. Kent, 'The centre and the localities';
17. S. Hindle, 'Power, poor relief, and social relations in Holland fen, c. 1600-1800', Historical Journal, 41 (1998), pp. 67-96;
18. D. Eastwood, Government and community in the English provinces, 1700-1870 (London and Basingstoke, 1997);
19. Eastwood, 'The republic in the village'.
20. Francis Mardston to John Verney 28 June 1712, Verney MSS, Claydon House, Bucks, R54. Verney references: those with an 'R', e.g. R33, refer to the microfilmed correspondence held in various libraries including the British Library MSS Department M636; other references, e.g. 5/4/5, are to the recently catalogued Claydon House papers, copies held at the National Register of Archives and BCRO. The other references are: William Aubrey [of Boarstall] to John Verney 14 Aug. 1710 R54;
21. Nicholas Merwin to John Verney 15 July 1711 R54;
22. Peter Dayrell to John Verney 12 Apr. 1714 R55;
23. Charles Challoner tojohn Verney 23 Nov. 1710 4/5/61.
24. BCRO, Q/SO/14, Quarter Sessions order book; cf. J. M. Rosenheim, 'County governance and elite withdrawal in Norfolk, 1660-1720', in A. L. Beier, D. M. Cannadine, and J. M. Rosenheim, The first modern society (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 95-125, and, more generally, N. Landau, The justices of the peace, 1679-1760 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1984).
25. [Charles Gray] Considerations on several proposals lately made for the better maintenance of the poor (London, 1751), pp. iv, 25. It also fits well with the 1731 raising of the property qualification for JPs to an income of £100 p. a.
26. Ibid..
27. N. C. Johnson and N. J. Williams, Warwickshire county records, IX (Warwick, 1964), introduction includes a full discussion of certiorari writs in settlement cases.
28. S. Carter, Legal provision for the poor (London, 1725). Specialized volumes dealing only with precedents in settlement cases were published and reprinted throughout the eighteenth century;
29. see e.g. James Burrows, A series of decisions of the court of King's Bench upon settlement cases..., 1732-1754 (London, 1768).
30. E. Dayrell, Lincolns Inn 19 June 1787, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, STGM, Box 9 (II).
31. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney (his second son, later successor and Viscount Fermanagh) I2july 1679 R33. For more general discussion
32. see W. Prest, 'Judicial corruption in early modern England', Past and Present, 133 (1991), pp. 66-95. On Myddle
33. see R. Gough, The history of Myddle, ed. D. Hey (London, 1981), p. 252, quoted in S. Hindle, 'Exclusion crises', pp. 127-8.
34. William Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 28 Aug. 1682 4/5/35;
35. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman 4/5/35;
36. Richard Harding's invoice for constables' expenses Mar. 1688/9 R43.
37. William Coleman to Sir John Verney 7 and 10 July 1700 4/5/53.
38. Edmund Verney to Sir Ralph Verney 1 Mar. 1674/5 R28.
39. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman 4 Jan. 1685/6 4/5/38;
40. William Coleman to Sir Ralph Verney 10 Jan. 1685/64/5/38.
41. Edmund Verney to Sir Ralph Verney 30 Dec. 1678 R32.
42. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 6 Feb. 1670/1 4/5/23. He also wrote up and approved the overseers' accounts during the 1670s, with two JPs 'allowing' them. He may also have held the overseers' money himself.
43. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 14 May 1660 R17.
44. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 14 June 1660 R17;
45. Hugh Holmes to Sir Ralph Verney 4 June 1660 R17.
46. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 23 Feb. 1662/3 R18. Sir Ralph Verney's puritan morality on many occasions saw him pressing shot-gun marriages: in this case the fact that the girl's sister had mothered three bastards in the previous ten years may have added weight to the argument.
47. Hugh Holmes to Sir Ralph Verney 16 Feb. 1662/3 R18, and 25 June 1663 R19;
48. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 2 Mar. 1662/3 R18 and 26 Apr. 1663 R19;
49. cf. S. Hindle, 'The problem of pauper marriage in seventeenth century England', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 8 (1998), pp. 71-89.
50. William Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 22 Feb. 1682/3 4/5/35;
51. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman 26 Feb. 1682/3 4/5/35.
52. William Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 31 Mar. 1695 4/5/48.
53. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 20 Feb. 1670/1 4/5/23;
54. Sir Ralph Verney to Edward Butterfield 3 Dec. 1674 4/5/27.
55. BCRO PR52/12/1-4 Middle Claydon overseers' accounts.
56. Hugh Holmes to Sir Ralph Verney 16 and 30 Dec. 1672 4/5/25;
57. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 31 Jan. 1672/3 4/5/25;
58. Edward Butterfield to Sir Ralph Verney 2 Mar. 1673/4 4/5/26: 'So she thinks she will not trouble the parish.'
59. BCRO PR52/12/1-4.
60. In 1699 there is a list of all copyholders and freeholders of £10 or more p. a. and only one styled himself'Mr' and there were no 'Esquires'. W. Le Hardy, Hertfordshire county records: notes and extracts from the Sessions Rolls, 1699-1850, 11 (Hertford, 1905), p. 4. A number of the Ashwell names are described as tenants to various gentlemen, suggesting that the tenant farmer was in practice being brought into the parish elite for parish, hundred, or jury service.
61. Hertfordshire County Record Office (HCRO) D/P7/5/1 pp. 48, 84.
62. W. Page, ed., Victoria county history of Hertfordshire, III (London, 1912), pp. 192-209;
63. B. J. Davey, Ashwell, 1830-1914: the decline of a village community (Leicester University Department of English Local History, Occasional Papers, 3rd ser., 5, Leicester, 1980).
64. HCRO D/P7/12/1, D/P7/25/1 passim.
65. HCRO D/P7/25/1 passim.
66. Christ Church, Oxford, Wake MS 324 p. 88; the curate observed that although the school had been substantially endowed its master was only being paid £14 a year in 1712, and had no pupils. This may account for the impetus to set up a charity school.
67. HCRO D/P7/25/1; D/P7/12/2. A very similar reversal of workhouse policy, not far away in Eaton Socon, Beds, in the same years, but led by the parson, is described by Emmison, 'The relief of the poor at Eaton Socon', pp. 23-7.
68. On early Stuart disafforestation see B. Sharp, In contempt of all authority: rural artisans and riot in the west of England, 1586-1660 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980); a fuller discussion of provision for the resulting problems of poverty is found in B. Sharp, 'Common rights, charities, and the disorderly poor', in G. Eley and W. Hunt, eds., Reviving the English Revolution (London and New York, 1988), pp. 107-37.
69. For a fuller account of Bermwood see J. Broad and R. Hoyle, eds., Bernwood: life and afterlife of a forest (Preston, 1997).
70. Ibid., pp. 77-85.
71. Ibid., pp. 90-8.
72. Ibid., pp. 98-101.
73. Public Record Office E112/620/109 ml.
74. Broad and Hoyle, eds., Bernwood, pp. 101-2.
75. Ibid., pp. 104-5.
76. Richard Smith, paper to' Long eighteenth-century' seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, May 1997.
77. K. Wrightson and D. Levine, Poverty and piety in an English village: Terling, 1525-1700 (London, 1979), ch. 7;
78. R. Johnson, An archaeology of capitalism (London, 1996), esp. chs. 2-4;
79. D. Hay and N. Rogers, Eighteenth-century English society; shuttles and swords (Oxford, 1997), esp. chs. 6 and 7.
80. Edmund Verney to Sir Ralph Verney 20 Dec. 1669 R23;
81. Charles Challoner to Ralph Verney 16 Dec. 1722 4/5/68.
82. D. Vaizey, ed., The diary of Thomas Turner, 1754-1765 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 196, 241.
83. Ibid., pp. 305-6, 326.
84. Ibid., pp. 244, 266, 288, 326. So flexible was the parish fund that the capital was subsumed into general church funds to repair the church during the 1760s!
85. Elizabeth Verney to William Coleman 27 Dec. 1698 R50, using the pretext of recent legislation. Undated letter (c. 1770) from an ex-housemaid to Ralph, 2nd earl Verney about dismissal for giving food to a poor man, 5/1/1.
86. BCRO PR27/25/2;
87. HCRO D93/5/3.
88. L. Schwarz, London in the age of industrialisation, 1700-1850 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 231-40. For a wider ranging view of the transformation of early nineteenth-century rural society see Eastwood, Government and community in the English provinces.