² Roberts, David, ‘How Cruel Was the Victorian Poor Law?,’ The Historical Journal, vi (1963), 97–107;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHenriques, Ursula, ‘How Cruel Was the Victorian Poor Law?,’ The Historical Journal, xi (1968), 365–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Report from His Majesty's Commissioners for Inquiring into the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Laws (London, 1834).Google Scholar

⁴ Lewis, R. A., Edwin Chadwick and the Public Health Movement, 1832–1854 (London, 1952), p. 25.Google Scholar

⁵ The wider implications of this case history should be borne in mind. Preliminary studies suggest that the behaviour and attitudes of the authorities under consideration here were characteristic of those in some other parts of the country.

⁶ See Boyson, R., ‘The New Poor Law in North-East Lancashire, 1834–71’, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, LXX (1960), 35–56;Google ScholarRose, M. E., ‘The Anti-Poor Law Movement in the North of England’, Northern History, i (1966), 70–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Third Annual Report [of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales] (London, 1837), p. 2.Google Scholar

⁸ On the late-1830s economy, see McCord, N., ‘The Implementation of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act on Tyneside’, International Review of Social History, xiv (1969), 93;Google Scholar D. J. Rowe, ‘Some Aspects of Chartism on Tyneside’, ibid, xvi, Part 1 (1971), 20; and especially Teesdale Union: J. Walsham/P[oor] L[aw] C[ommissioners], 22 January 1837, Mfinistry of] H[ealth Papers Series] 12/3313 (Pfublic] Rfecord] Offfice]).

⁹ Sunderland Union: J. Walsham/P.L.C, 6 Dec. 1837, M.H. J2/3268 (P.R.O.).

¹⁰ See Durham Chronicle, 6 July 1838.

¹¹ For a similarly favourable view of the administration of relief in the Durham area during the late thirties, see McCord, N., ‘The Implementation of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act on Tyneside’, pp. 90–108;Google Scholar see also my unpublished Durham M.A. thesis, ‘The New Poor Law and County Durham’ (Durham University Library, 1971), pp. 115–211, for supportive material on the foregoing statements.Google Scholar

¹² Rowe, D. J., ‘Some Aspects of Chartism on Tyneside’, pp. 37–8.Google Scholar

¹³ The areas that experienced economic problems at one time or another during this period were situated chiefly in the unions of Chester-le-Street, Darlington, Durham, Easington, Gateshead, Houghton-le-Spring, South Shields, Stockton, and Sunderland. In the more purely agricultural unions, the economic malaise was less evident.

¹⁴ Gateshead Union: J. Walsham/P.L.C, c. Feb., 1842, M.H. 12/3068 (P.R.O.). I am indebted to Dr Norman McCord of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne for this reference.

¹⁵ See, for example, Sunderland Union: G[uardians'] M[inutes], 27 May 1842, (S[underland] C[entral] R[eference] L[ibrary]), p. 285; and South Shields Union: G.M., 18 July 1843, U/SS/3 (D[urham] C[ounty] R[ecord] O[ffice]), p. 132. The year 1844 was marked by pitmen's strikes, precipitating problems in the county's coal industry, which up until that time had continued to burgeon. See infra, p. 339. By 1845 the worst of the slump was over. Eleventh Annual Report, 1845, p. 12.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Third Annual Report, 1837, p. 30.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962), p. 20;Google ScholarCaird, James, English Agriculture in 1850–51 (London, 2nd edn., 1968), p. 330.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Walsham, J./P.L.C, 15 May 1840, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population, Parliamentary Papers, 1842, xxvi, 420–1;Google Scholar Easington Union: G.M., 5 July 1842, U/Ea/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 252; Darlington Union: Haslewood, W./P.L.C, 26 Dec. 1843, M.H. 12/2990 (P.R.O.); First Report from the Select Committee on Settlement and Poor Removal, Parliamentary Papers, 1847, xi, 322.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Unless otherwise noted, all statistics cited in this article have been compiled from the appen dices of the appropriate reports of the poor law commissioners.

²⁰ Tenth Annual Report, 1844, p. 14.Google Scholar

²¹ Durham Union: G.M., 11 Feb. 1843, U/Du/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 352.

²² Sunderland Union: Board of Guardians/Lords of the Treasury, n.d., G.M., 23 Apr. 1843, in (S.C.R.L.), 115.

²³ Sunderland Union: Board of Guardians/P.L.C, 16 Nov. 1840, M.H. 12/3268 (P.R.O.); Chester-le-Street Union: G.M., 4 Feb. 1841, U/CS/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 44; Houghton-le-Spring Union: G.M., 28 June 1841, U/H0/1 (D.C.R.O.), p. 195; Darlington Union: L. Robinson, Clerk/ J. Walsham, 28 Feb. 1842, M.H. 12/2989 (P.R.O.); Easington Union: G.M., 6 June 1843, U/Ea/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 289.

²⁴ See below for a discussion of the 1840–1 decline in relief costs.

²⁵ Tenth Annual Report, 1844, p. 5.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid. p. 7.

²⁷ Because of the deepening trade depression, pressure to reduce relief costs mounted before the authorities were actually forced to greatly enlarge the relief rolls. From 1839 onwards the minute books are filled with resolutions demanding ‘strict attention to economy’. In this case, South Shields Union: G.M., 9 July 1839, U/SS/2 (D.C.R.O.).

²⁸ It may be argued that the general fall in wheat prices during these years mitigated the impact of this diminishing relief. However, the decline in prices was less acute in the Durham area than in other parts of England; parliamentary returns indicate that the average annual price of wheat in Newcastle only fell about 17 per cent during the period 1840 to 1843 (inclusive), with 1840–1, in fact, recording an increase of three shillings per quarter. Parliamentary Papers, 1842, 1849; XL, L; 100, 83. The large number of unreported cases of vagrants receiving aid probably offsets the wheat price factor in ascertaining the real per-capita amount of relief allotments; that is, the relieved pauper population actually increased more than 50 per cent. The aid distributed to the vagrants, on the other hand, was included in the annual expenditure figures, as a result of most boards' fairly efficient auditing procedures, which were under Commission supervision, and the guardians' determination to carefully control costs. Cf. Durham Union: G.M., 11 Feb. 1843, U/Du/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 352. I am grareful to Professor Donald N. McCloskey of the University of Chicago for discussing this matter with me.

²⁹ SeeRose, M. E., ‘The Allowance System under the New Poor Law’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, xix (1966), 607–20.Google Scholar

³⁰ Sunderland Union: G.M., 16 Oct. 1840, 1 (S.C.R.L.), 359.

³¹ South Shields Union: G.M., 9 July 1839, U/SS/2 (D.C.R.O.). Original emphasis.

³² See South Shields Union: G.M., 9 July 1839, U/SS/2 (D.C.R.O.); Durham Union: G.M., 25 Feb. 1841, U/Du/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 270; Sunderland Union: G.M., 26 February 1841, 11 (S.C.R.L.), p. 35; Darlington Union: Board of Guardians/P.L.C, 1 Jan. 1844, M.H. 12/2990 (P.R.O.).

³³ South Shields Union: G.M., 10 October 1843, U/SS/3 (D.C.R.O.), p. 144.

In the Sunderland Union it was resolved that ‘the Workhouse rules with respect to allowing the Inmates temporary leave to go out of the House, be Strictly Enforced '. G.M., n November 1842, 11 (S.C.R.L.), p. 378.

It should be pointed out that Walsham, and later W. H. T. Hawley, continued to supervise closely workhouse administration and that this ensured the inmates were treated with reasonable care. The chief problem during these years was seeing that the boards conformed to the workhouse capacity standards. The guardians, it seems, had a penchant for allowing the establishments to become overcrowded, and many times the commissioners were forced to order boards to release inmates and provide them with outrelief. See infra, p. 337.

³⁴ An important corollary to the order was the provision that allowed guardians to grant out door aid to an able–bodied pauper, provided the commissioners were informed within 15 days and they gave their permission to a continuance of such aid. I have been unable to find one instance in the Durham records where the commissioners refused to sanction an exception to the prohibitory order. Its application in the county, therefore, was apparently left to the discretion of the boards.

³⁵ See Eleventh Annual Report, 1845, p. 1.Google Scholar

³⁶ Sunderland Union: G.M., 13 Nov. 1840, 1 (S.C.R.L.), p. 373; McCord, N., ‘The Implementation of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act on Tyneside’, p. 103.Google Scholar

³⁷ We should be careful to keep rhis increase in perspective; the indoor poor still made up less than 10 per cent of the pauper population. Nevertheless, these figures do reveal, if nothing else, a definite trend.

³⁸ Eighth Annual Report, 1842, pp. 20–21; and Gateshead Union: Board of Guardians/P.L.C., 15 Nov. 1842, M.H. 12/3068 (P.R.O.). Reference courtesy of Dr Norman McCord.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ninth Annual Report, 1843, App. B, No. 3, p. 381.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid. p. 381.

⁴¹ For an example of each respective tactic see Easington Union: G.M., 21 June 1842, U/Ea/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 249; South Shields Union: G.M., 26 Sept. 1843, U/SS/3 (D.C.R.O.), p. 141; Sunderland Union: G.M., , 13 Apr. 1843, in (S.C.R.L.), p. 101.Google Scholar

⁴² First Report from the Select Committee on Settlement and Poor Removal, 1847, p. 322.Google Scholar

⁴³ Supra, pp. 331–2, 337. We may get some inkling of the extent of unemployment in North Durham from the number of workers out of jobs in Newcastle alone: in only one month (June) of 1842, 3,468 men (with 8,124 dependents) were unemployed. Middlebrook, S., Newcastle upon Tyne: Its Growth and Achievement (Warwick, 1968), p. 178.Google Scholar Cited in Rowe, D. J., ‘Some Aspects of Chartism on Tyneside’, p. 37.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ These figures include wives and non–working adult dependents.

⁴⁵ P.L.C./J. Walsham, n.d., Seventh Annual Report, 1841, p. 57.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Eighth Annual Report, 1842, p. 26.Google Scholar The commissioners ‘relatively benevolent disposition towards vagrancy was founded upon their desire to promote the mobility of labour, the discouragement of which was seen as one of the great evils of the Old Poor Law. Tenth Annual Report, 1844, P. 15.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Report on the State of the Population in the Mining Districts, Parliamentary Papers, 1846, xxiv, 397.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ These increases account for less than 10 per cent of the men on strike. See Houghton-le-Spring Union: G.M., 8 January, 10 June, and 25 November 1844, U/H0/1 (D.C.R.O.), pp. 286, 299, 311.

Although it is true that the relief system was not erected for the aid of strikers and the support of working class movements, Commission regulations directed that regardless of its origin destitution must be relieved, first by an ‘offer of the house’, and if that were unfeasible, then by other means. See Chadwick, E./Commissioners of Police, 6 Sept. 1837, Fourth Annual Report, 1838, App. A, No. 2, pp. 154–155. See also the Royal Commission report of 1834, P. 264.Google Scholar

Pride or fear of the workhouse may have been a crucial factor in deterring the Houghton-le-Spring strikers from even requesting aid. Such attitudes were generally characteristic of the industrial working class; in 1842 Cooke Taylor reported that ‘nearly all the distressed operatives whom I met north of Manchester… had a thorough horror of being forced to receive parish relief’;. Quoted in Thompson, E. P., The Maying of the English Wording Class (New York, 1963), p. 423.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See Sunderland Union: G.M., , 3 June 1842, 11 (S.C.R.L.), p. 289.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Eleventh Annual Report, 1845, p. 12.Google Scholar

⁵¹ First Report from the Select Committee on Settlement and Poor Removal, 1847, p. 320. My emphasis.Google Scholar

Apparently this mode of relief was utilized in the Sunderland Union also. G.M., , 20 May 1842, 11 (S.C.R.L.), p. 281.Google Scholar

⁵² Thead hoc actions of the parochial and local governmental bodies are indicative of the multifaceted relief activities of the early-Victorian period. Their efforts were supplemented by those of the voluntary charitable organizations, which were often administered and financed by much the same kind of individuals who served as guardians. The effects of the crisis on their activities deserve investigation.

⁵³ McCord, N., ‘The Implementation of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act on Tyneside’, p. 98.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Seventh Annual Report, 1841, p. 23.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See, for example, Sunderland Union: G.M., , 15 April 1842, and 24 March 1843, n, 111 (S.C.R.L.), pp. 261, 81;Google Scholar South Shields Union: G.M., , 28 Feb. 1843, U/SS/3 (D.C.R.O.), p. 116;Google Scholar Durham Union: G.M., , 6 Apr. 1844, U/Du/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 403;Google Scholar Chester-le-Street Union: G.M., , 3 July 1845, U/CS/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 397.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ P.L.C. Minute, 31 Oct. 1840, Seventh Annual Report, 1841, App. A, No. 4, p. 123.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Darlington Union: L. Robinson/P.L.C, 25 May 1841, M.H. 12/2989 (P.R.O.).

⁵⁸ Durham Union: G.M., , 13 Nov. 1847, U/Du/2 (D.C.R.O.), p. 152. This threat, as far as I have been able to determine, is unique in the Durham records for the first decade under the New Poor Law.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Perhaps this is a good place to point out that, judging from the records, incidents involving mistreatment of the poor were virtually non-existent in Durham during the late 1830s. For whatever reason, they appear to have proliferated after 1840.

⁶⁰ Durham Chronicle, 27 Apr. 1839.

⁶¹ The commissioners actually cited the northern district as one of two examples of the great extent of territory sometimes entrusted to a single assistant commissioner. Seventh Annual Report, 1841, p. 55.Google Scholar In 1842 Hawley was able to visit each Durham union, for one day, only about twice a year on average. During 1843 he increased his inspections to once every four months, but in 1844 he returned to an average of six-month intervals. Report from the Select Committee on the Andover Union, Parliamentary Papers, 1846, v (Part II), App. 19.Google Scholar

⁶² For a detailed examination of the numerous incidents supporting this statement, see my thesis, ‘The New Poor Law and County Durham’, pp. 248–59. Practically all dismissals of officers charged with victimizing the poor may be shown to have been at the insistence of Somerset House or the assistant commissioner for the district.Google Scholar

⁶³ See Auckland Union: J. Walsham/P.L.C, 27 Dec. 1841, M.H. 12/2928 (P.R.O.).

⁶⁴ Seventh Annual Report, 1841, p. 23. See also Sunderland Union: P.L.C./Board of Guardians, 3 Jan. 1843, G.M., 6 Jan. 1843, in (S.C.R.L.), 12.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ See Easington Union: G.M., , 28 Sept. 1841, 10 Dec. 1844, 18 Nov. 1845, U/Ea/i (D.C.R.O.), pp. 216, 340–41, 371;Google Scholar South Shields Union: G.M., , 1 Mar., 15 Mar. 1842, U/SS/3, pp. 58, 59.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See Chester-le-Street Union: Board of Guardians/P.L.C, 9 June 1843, G.M., , 22 June 1843, U/CS/i (D.C.R.O.), p. 240.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Space prevents us from examining Commission efforts to institute revised policies pertaining to poor removal, bastardy, and medical relief. Only in the latter category were they partially successful in raising the standard of administration.

⁶⁸ Teesdale Union: J. Walsham/P.L.C, 22 Jan. 1837, M.H. 12/3313 (P.R.O.).

⁶⁹ See Report from the Select Committee on Poor Rate Returns, British Sessional Papers, 15 July 1822, v, App. I (E), 543;Google Scholar and Report from the Select Committee on Poor Rate Returns, British Sessional Papers, 16 July 1823, v, App. I (E), 361.Google Scholar