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Reform of the Poor Law Electoral System, 1834-94

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Anthony Brundage
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Extract

Undoubtedly, the most visible aspects of the anti-Poor Law movement were the attacks on the workhouse system and the centralized control (more apparent than real) of the Poor Law Commissioners. These were highly emotional issues capable of galvanizing thousands of men and women into dramatic and sometimes violent encounters with government, armed with righteous denunciations of the “Poor Man's Robbery Bill,” the “Bastilles,” and the “Three Bashaws of Somerset House.” But there was another facet to the opposition to the New Poor Law which has received scant attention from historians—the fight against the blatantly undemocratic electoral system created by the act. This article examines the nature of that system and the sporadic attempts to reform it during a sixty-year period, culminating in the radical reforms made by the Local Government Act of 1894.

The constitution and electoral system of the Boards of Guardians were vital components of the New Poor Law, which ensured the dominance of many Poor Law Unions by landed magnates. The key provisions were plural votes for landowners and occupiers for elected guardians, and ex-officio membership of the boards for county magistrates. The landowner's franchise was taken directly from William Sturges-Bourne's Select Vestries Act of 1818, which conferred one vote for land of £50 annual value, and an additional vote for each £25 beyond this, to a maximum of six. A separate occupier franchise was in force until 1844. It gave one vote for land valued up to £200, two votes for land of £200 to £400, and three votes for land over £400, and was the result of a compromise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , Fall 1975 , pp. 201 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1975

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References

1 See Edsall, Nicholas C., The Anti-Poor Law Movement 1834-44 (Manchester, 1971).Google Scholar

2 Brundage, Anthony, “The Landed Interest and the New Poor Law: A Reappraisal of the Revolution in Government,” English Historical Review, LXXXVII (Jan. 1972): 27–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as Brundage, EHR). For the policies pursued by some magnate-dominated boards of guardians see my “The English Poor Law of 1834 and the Cohesion of Agricultural Society,” Agricultural History, XLVIII (July, 1974): 405–17.Google Scholar

3 The bill as originally drafted had given occupiers the same voting scale as landowners, but Nassau Senior convinced Lord Althorp to restrict occupiers to a single vote each. The amended ratepayer franchise in the statute (4 & 5 Will. IV, c. 76, s.40) was inserted by the House of Lords. MS. Diary 173 (Nassau William Senior), p. 83, 27 April 1834, Goldsmith's Library, University of London; 3 Hansard xxiv, 332 (9 June 1834); 3 Hansard xxv, 1208 (11 Aug. 1834). Graham's Act of 1844 (7 & 8 Vict., c. 101) returned to the original version by assimilating the occupier's franchise to that of the landowner.

4 The statute of 1818 (58 Geo. III, c. 69) and one of 1819 (59 Geo. III, c. 12) are referred to jointly as the Select Vestries Acts or Sturges-Bourne's Acts.

5 3 Hansard XXIV, 330 (9 June 1 834). Hume's position was similar to that of Francis Place, another radical supporter of most provisions of the New Poor Law, who expressed his strong opposition to the principle of plural voting in a letter to Sir John Cam Hobhouse, 22 March 1830, Place Papers, B.M. Add. MSS. 35,154, ff. 124-34.

6 3 Hansard XXIV, 333 (9 June 1834).

7 Ibid., 337-8 (9 June 1834).

8 Ibid., 346 (10 June 1834).

9 This was one of the powers delegated by the statute (Section 38) to the Poor Law Commissioners, who displayed a marked bias in favour of small parishes in assigning the number of guardians for each parish in a union. See Brundage, EHR, 42.

10 Of course there were numerous important exceptions to this, especially in the troubled industrial north when the act was first put into operation. See Edsall, Anti-Poor Law Movement. Some towns, like Leeds, were noted for their poor law electoral corruption. See Fraser, Derek, “Poor Law Politics in Leeds 1833-1855,” Publications of the Thoresby Society Miscellany, Vol. 15, Part I, 23–49.Google Scholar

11 1st Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners (London, 1835), p. 26.Google Scholar

12 Voting by proxy was added to the bill during the committee stage in the house of commons. Rating qualifications were another of the powers delegated to the Commissioners by Section 38 of the act, which set a maximum figure of £40. The Commissioners often selected a figure of £25, which certainly disqualified the majority of ratepayers in many parishes.

13 P[arliamentary] P[apers] 1838, XVIII, Q. 2014.

14 3 Hansard XCII, 1191 (21 May 1847).

15 In 1869, nearly half of the money raised and spent for all poor law purposes went to outdoor relief. P.P. 1870, XXXV, 16. On the allowance system, see Rose, Michael E., “The Allowance System under the New Poor Law,” Economic History Review, 2nd Ser., XIX (1966): 607–20.Google Scholar

16 Clark, G. Kitson, The Making of Victorian England (London, 1965), pp. 122–3Google Scholar. See John Richard Green's strictures on the shopkeeping guardians of east London in the Saturday Review, 28 Dec. 1867.

17 3 Hansard LXXVI, 375 (4 July 1844).

18 For commentary and relevant documents, including the Goschen Minute of 1869, see Rose, Michael E., ed., The English Poor Law 1780-1930 (London, 1971)Google Scholar, Part Four, “The Poor Law Under Attack 1870-1914.” Also see Sidney and Webb, Beatrice, English Poor Law Policy (London, 1910), pp. 147–53.Google Scholar

19 Gulson to Chadwick, 9 May 1871, Weale to Chadwick, 6 May 1871, Hawley to Chadwick, 29 April 1871, Chadwick Papers, University College, London.

20 Pell, Albert, The Reminiscences of Albert Pell, edited by McKay, Thomas (London, 1908), p. 236.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., p. 237.

22 P.P. 1873, XXIX, pp. 69-74; P.P. 1874, XXV, pp. 131-6.

23 P.P. 1874, XXV, p. 118.

24 For an account of the first three central conferences, see The Times, 7 Dec. 1876, 13 Dec. 1877, and 12 Dec. 1878.

25 Pell, p. 287. As a result of his activities, Pell quickly became a poor law celebrity, courted even by Chadwick, who asked to confer with him and expressed the deepest admiration for his work in the Poor Law Conferences. Chadwick to Pell, 8 Jan. 1877, Chadwick Papers.

26 3 Hansard CCXXXVIII, 544 (1 March 1878).

27 Ibid., pp. 555-6.

28 P.P. 1878, XVII, p. 263.

29 Ibid., p. 268.

30 Ibid., QQ. 27-37. Fry's examples were entirely from urban areas. Few rural parishes experienced contested elections. For England and Wales as a whole, the proportion of seats contested in the 1870s was only 1 in 21, while in Lancashire it was 1 in 5. P.P. 1879, XXVIII, p. 49.

31 P.P. 1878, XVII. QQ. 93. 99.

32 Ibid., Q. 181.

33 Ibid., Q. 521.

34 Ibid., QQ. 309-10.

35 P.P. 1888, XV, Q. 1518.

36 Ibid., Q. 1524.

37 Ibid., Q. 1543.

38 P.P. 1893-94, XLIII, p. 236.

39 4 Hansard XVIII, 188 (3 Nov. 1893).

40 Ensor, R.C.K., England 1870 1914 (Oxford, 1936), pp. 213–4.Google Scholar

41 Fowler to Gladstone, 28 October 1893, Gladstone Papers, B.M. Add. MSS. 44, 517, fo. 288.

42 The Times, 20 October 1893.

43 Ibid., 10 November 1893. Although holding opposite views on poor relief policies, Lansbury and Pell found that the concerted action of a determined minority of guardians often carried the day. Describing the activities of himself and his four Labour and Socialist colleagues on the Poplar Board (which numbered 24), Lansbury wrote: “We five managed to dominate the proceedings and very soon discovered that two or three people who know what they want and are persistent enough can usually get it.” Quoted in Rose, Michael E., ed., The English Poor Law 1780-1930, p. 251.Google Scholar

44 Fowler to Gladstone, 17 December 1893, Gladstone Papers, B.M. Add. MSS. 44, 517, fo. 341.

45 The Times, 10 November 1893.

46 Fowler to Gladstone, 1 March 1 894, Gladstone Papers, B.M. Add. MSS. 44,518, fo. 60. Original emphasis.

47 In 1908, out of 643 boards of guardians, 425 had no co-opted members. None of the boards had co-opted the maximum of four members allowed by the statute, 16 had co-opted three, 120 had co-opted two, and 82 had co-opted one. Sidney and Webb, Beatrice, English Poor Law History: Part II, The Last Hundred Years (London, 1929), vol. I: 233.Google Scholar

48 P. P. 1896, XXXVI, p. 175.

49 Northampton Mercury, 3 March 1893.

50 Ibid., 10 March 1893.

51 Ibid., 17 March. 7 April. 14 April 1893.

52 Brixworth Union Minute Book, 10 August and 24 August 1893, Northamptonshire Record Office, BX 23, 201-5, 215-6.

53 Ibid., 30 November 1893, BX 23, 251-2.

54 Ibid., 10 January 1895, BX 23, 400-1.

55 Pell, p. 356.