¹ The key discussion of “gift relationships” as cultural universals is Mauss, Marcel, The Gift, transl. Cunnison, I. (Oxford, 1954).Google Scholar For a useful guide to recent work on begging in modern third-world cultures, see Iliffe, John, The African Poor: A History (Cambridge, 1987), esp. pp. 17–20, 43–47, 190–192, 248–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (My thanks to Jill Roe for this reference, and to Deryck Schreuder for first pointing out the relevance of the third-world perspective to the topic tackled here.) For anthropologically-aware attempts to apply the concept of the gift relationship to nineteenth-century English material, see Bushaway, Bob, By Rite: Custom, Ceremony and Community in England 1700–1880 (London, 1982), chs 1, 2, 7Google Scholar; Jones, Gareth Stedman, Outcast London (Oxford, 1971), pp. 251–261Google Scholar, and Storch, Robert, “Introduction” to Popular Culture and Custom in Nineteenth-Century England (London, 1982), also chs 4 and 6.Google Scholar

² Attitudes towards vagrancy and begging in rural communities, not touched on here, may be traced in Jones, D. J. V., Crime, Protest, Community and Police in 19th-century Britain (London, 1982), esp. ch. 7Google Scholar, and in Bushaway, By Rite.

³ [Cheney, R. H.?], “The charities and poor of London”, Quarterly Review, LXXXXVII (1855), pp. 407–450 at p. 423.Google Scholar See also Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the London Poor, 4 vols (London, 1861–1862), 4, p. 398Google Scholar, and Ribton-Turner, C. J., A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging (London, 1887), pp. 216–217.Google Scholar

⁴ Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 1st series, vol. XXXI, cols. 686–689.Google Scholar

⁵ Prothero, I., Artisans and Politics in Early 19th-century London (London, 1979), pp. 64–67Google Scholar; see also George, M. D., London Life in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1966 edn.), pp. 154–157Google Scholar, and Schwarz, L. D., “The Standard of Living in the Long Run: London, 1700–1860”, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XXXVIII (1985), pp. 24–41.Google Scholar

⁶ Select Committee on Mendicity in the Metropolis: Final Report, Parliamentary Papers [hereafter, PP], 1816 (396), V, pp. 393, 395, 401.Google Scholar

⁷ PP, 1814–15 (473), III, 267Google Scholar; Place Papers, British Library [hereafter, BL] Add MSS 27825, folios 255–259, 35145, folios 71–78, 35152, folio 142. See George, , London Life in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 211–312, 370Google Scholar, for endorsement of these “optimist” views.

⁸ Select Committee on Mendicity: Final Report, pp. 402–403.Google Scholar

⁹ Tompson, Richard, The Charity Commission and the Age of Reform (London, 1979), pp. 85–89Google Scholar; Harrison, Brian, Peaceable Kingdom: Stability and Change in Modern Britain (Oxford, 1982), pp. 263–267.Google Scholar For Place's account of the Mendicity Committee of 1815–16, see BL Add MS 35145, folios 71–78. George Rose's political career and social attitudes are summarized in Thorne, R. G. (ed.) History of Parliament: The Commons 1790–1820, 5 vols (London, 1986), 5, p. 52.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See, e.g., Perkin, Harold, The Origins of Modern English Society 1780–1880 (London, 1969), p. 280Google Scholar; Malcolmson, Robert, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700–1850 (Cambridge, 1973), ch. 7Google Scholar; McGowen, Randall, “A Powerful Sympathy: Terror, the Prison, and Humanitarian Reform in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain”, Journal of British Studies, XXV (1986), pp. 312–334CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turner, J., Reckoning with the Beast (London, 1980), chs 1–2.Google Scholar

¹¹ Laqueur, T. W., Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working-Class Culture 1780–1850 (London, 1976), p. 2 (table 1).Google Scholar

¹² See, e.g., Innes, Joanna, “Prisons for the Poor: English Bridewells, 1555–1800”, in Snyder, Francis and Hay, Douglas (eds), Labour, Law and Crime: An Historical Perspective (London, 1987), pp. 42–122, esp. p. 102.Google Scholar

¹³ Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor: Reports, I (London, 1798), pp. 166–176Google Scholar; and PP 1814–15 (473), III, p. 320.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The Philanthropist, II (1812), pp. 173–196Google Scholar; The Life of William Allen, 3 vols (1846), 1, pp. 36, 143–146, 183.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Bath Society for the Suppression of Vagrants: Report for 1809 (1810), pp. 3–5Google Scholar; Report for 1812 (1813), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar See also Bettering Society: Reports, I, p. 175Google Scholar, and for general social background, Neale, R. S., Bath 1680–1850: A Social History (London, 1981), p. 85.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Bath Society: Report for 1815 (1816), p. 6.Google Scholar There is a report on the work of the Edinburgh Society in Philanthropist, V (1815), pp. 80–82.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Martin's views may be found in PP 1814–15 (473), III, p. 320Google Scholar; Bernard's, in Bettering Society: Reports, I, pp. 168–173Google Scholar; Allen's, in Philanthropist, V (London, 1815), p. 323.Google Scholar For the Bath Society, see note 15 above. Similar sensitivities in a metropolitan context may be detected in Benevolent or Strangers' Friend Society: Report for 1819 (London, 1820), p. 5.Google Scholar See also Owen, David, English Philanthropy 1660–1960 (Cambridge, MA, 1964), pp. 109–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Society for the Suppression of Mendicity: Minute Book, BL Add MS 50136, folios 1–4, 46.

¹⁹ Ibid., folios 9–10, 14–15, 44. In addition, Matthew Martin managed to induce the private sponsors of his pre-1815 mendicity investigation to accept nomination as Vice-Presidents of the new society almost en bloc: PP 1814–15 (473), III, p. 319.Google Scholar

²⁰ Allen, , Life, I, pp. 338–339, 342Google Scholar; and see generally the society's minute book entries for 1818.

²¹ Poynter, J. R., Society and Pauperism: English Ideas on Poor Relief, 1795–1834 (London, 1969), pp. 244–248, 289–294.Google Scholar

²² Ricardo and Smith were in fact to become foundation members of the Political Economy Club set up in 1821 with the aim (according to the rules drafted by Mill, James) of promoting “the diffusion […] of just principles of Political Economy”: Political Economy Club Centenary Volume (London, 1921), pp. 1–4, and cf. pp. 210, 213.Google Scholar Sturges Bourne is best known as sponsor of two Acts of 1818 and 1819 to overhaul the machinery of the poor law, and also as a commissioner of the 1832 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. For recent appraisal of his distinctive intellectual stance, see Mandler, Peter, “Tories and Paupers: Christian Political Economy and the Making of the New Poor Law”, Historical Journal, XXXIII (1990), pp. 91–93, 98–100.Google Scholar

²³ Of the 36 board members of the Society in 1818, e.g., four appear on the committee of the British and Foreign School Society in 1814, and four on the Juvenile Delinquency Committee (forerunner of the Prison Discipline Society) in 1816. For evidence of links with the Savings Bank movement, see Political Economy Club Centenary Volume, pp. 210–211.Google Scholar

²⁴ For the later careers of two of the more successful, see The Times, 9 04 1880, p. 7Google Scholar (Henry Pownall, attorney, Evangelical activist and eventual long-serving chairman of the Middlesex bench of magistrates); Gentleman's Magazine, 1863, II, pp. 656–659Google Scholar (William Tooke, solicitor, promoter of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Treasurer of London University and brother of Thomas Tooke, the co-founder with Ricardo of the Political Economy Club).

²⁵ Boase, F., Modern English Biography, 6 vols (London, 1892–1921), 1, p. 323Google Scholar; Select Committee on the Laws, Vagrant, PP, 1821 (543), IV, p. 135Google Scholar; The Times, 17 07 1824, pp. 2–3Google Scholar; lists of office-holders in Mendicity Society: Reports, 1822–1830. For discussion of “moral entrepreneurs” of “marginal” social position and their search for employment commensurate with their administrative and intellectual aspirations/capacities, see, inter alia, Bourne, John, Patronage and Society in 19th-Century England (London, 1986), pp. 88–89Google Scholar; Donajgrodzki, A. P., Social Control in Nineteenth Century Britain (London, 1977), pp. 54–56.Google Scholar Bodkin hardly measures up to the “giants” of the category (Colquhoun, Chadwick, etc.) as a publicist but his administrative skills and sustained interest in social policy issues qualify him for at least modest recognition in their company.

²⁶ Of the 36 board members of the society in 1818, e.g., four appear as committee members of the Prison Discipline Society in 1821, and four as foundation committee members of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1823. For the later (mid-1820s) connection with the Society for the Diffusion of the Useful Knowledge see note 24 above.

²⁷ Mendicity Society: Minute Book, folios 8, 18–19. There were four clergy on the first board but none by 1822 and only a handful thereafter if one sets aside the selection of bishops listed as vice-presidents.

²⁸ William Wilberforce, while privately pronouncing his “ardent concurrence in the objects of the Society”, declined any formal association with its work in 1818: Minute Book, folio 20. He did, however, turn out in force with other Evangelicals to shore up its reputation at a critical moment in 1824: see note 77 below. See also Life of William Allen, 1, pp. 338–339.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid., 1, p. 267; Binns, Henry B., A Century of Education: The Centenary History of the British and Foreign School Society (London, 1908), pp. 94–95Google Scholar; and Prochaska, Alice, “The Practice of Radicalism: Educational Reform in Westminster” in Stevenson, John (ed.), London in the Age of Reform (Oxford, 1977), pp. 102–116, esp. p. 112.Google Scholar

³⁰ Brown, Stewart J., Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth in Scotland (Oxford, 1982), pp. 116–144, esp. p. 132.Google Scholar See also Hilton, Boyd, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought 1785–1865 (Oxford, 1988), p. 56.Google Scholar The Chalmers “blueprint” was in fact tried out by various groups in London during the 1820s, but chiefly as an instrument of religious evangelization, and with generally discouraging results: Lewis, Donald M., Lighten Their Darkness: The Evangelical Mission to Working-Class London, 1828–1860 (Westport, CT, 1986), pp. 36–42.Google Scholar Chalmers himself admitted that, as long as the English Poor Law drew its funding from a compulsory rate (rather than a voluntary one, as in Scotland), his system could not easily be transplanted to England: Poynter, , Society and Pauperism, pp. 234–237.Google Scholar

³¹ Financial and membership information compiled from Mendicity Society: Annual Reports [hereafter, Reports]. The figures cited compare respectably enough with income and membership levels of other contemporary charities cited in Prochaska, F. K., Women and Philanthropy in 19th-Century England (Oxford, 1980), pp. 231–245Google Scholar, and with the average £5,000 per annum subscription income of the rather more relief-oriented Manufacturing Poor Association set up (1812–1815) to deal with a previous period of metropolitan (and provincial) distress: Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing Poor: Reports, I (1813), p. 36, and II (1815), p. 36.Google Scholar

³² Mendicity Society: Minute Book, folio 35. See also Shore, C. J. [2nd Baron Teignmouth], Reminiscences of Many Years, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1878), 2, p. 187.Google Scholar

³³ Women formed c. 20% of subscribers in 1818 and c. 25% in 1830. Cf. Prochaska, , Women and Philanthropy, pp. 231, 245Google Scholar though the data presented there still leaves open the issue of what types of volunteer organizations are legitimately comparable with the Mendicity Society. The later Charity Organisation Society, e.g., had a very similar proportion of female subscribers, whereas the Bath Society, previously mentioned, had a clear majority of female subscribers.

³⁴ For further discussion see Harrison, , Peaceable Kingdom, pp. 224–240Google Scholar, and Owen, , English Philanthropy, ch. 6.Google Scholar

³⁵ See, e.g., Reports, No. 8 (1826), p. 25Google Scholar; No. 12 (1830), pp. 22–23; No. 13 (1831), p. 16. Cf. No. 33 (1851), p. 12. See also Yeo, C. S.,“Introduction” to Bosanquet, H., Social Work in London 1869–1912 (Brighton, 1973), p. xGoogle Scholar, for impressions of a similar divergence of priorities in the late Victorian Charity Organisation Society.

³⁶ For the “cold weather” rule, see Reports, No. 21 (1839), p. 11Google Scholar; No. 28 (1846), p. 12. For the impact of the New Poor Law, see No. 17 (1835), pp. 12–16; No. 18 (1836), pp. 12–13.

³⁷ Ibid., No. 29 (1847), p. 16. Cf. Hilton, , Age of Atonement, pp. 108–114.Google Scholar Not just the Irish were suspect: for similar warnings against “imposture” among Crimean War veterans, Reports, No. 38 (1856), p. 14.Google Scholar See also Rose, Lionel “Rogues and Vagabonds”: Vagrant Underworld in Britain 1815–1985 (London, 1988), pp. 23–25.Google Scholar

³⁸ Reports, No. 4 (1822), p. 26Google Scholar; and see Mendicity Society: Minute Book, folios 47, 104.

³⁹ Reports, No. 5 (1823), p. 25.Google Scholar For elucidation of the “status maintaining function” of the gift, and explanation of the reasons why this is customarily assumed to require a direct “relationship between persons” in order to retain effectiveness, see Jones, Stedman, Outcast London, pp. 251–252Google Scholar, including the anthropological references cited there. There is also useful discussion of early 19th-century alarm about the social implications of “lost contact” in Donajgrodzki, , Social Control, pp. 21–24.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Mendicity Society: Minute Book, folio 17; Reports, No. 1 (1819), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Select Committee on Mendicity: Final Report, p. 403.Google Scholar

⁴² Mendicity Society: Minute Book, folio 17. Tickets were issued free to subscribers, at cost to others, and were exchangeable for a meal at the Society's office on condition that the presenter consented to answer a standard set of questions.

⁴³ Ibid., folio 43.

⁴⁴ Reports, No. 2 (1820), p. 10.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ The Times, 17 07 1824, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar For a glimpse of the role of the Board of Management in the post-Bodkin era, see Select Committee on District Asylums (Metropolis), PP, 1846 (388), III, Qns. 1953–1956.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Select Committee on Vagrant Laws, pp. 137, 145, 183Google Scholar; Mendicity Society: Reports, No. 7 (1825), p. 26.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Minute Book, folios 20, 26; Reports, No. 4 (1822), p. 25.Google Scholar For the widespread acceptance of volunteer policing bodies in this period, see Philips, David, “Associations for the prosecution of felons in England 1760–1860”, in Hay, Douglas and Snyder, Francis (eds), Policing and Prosecution in Britain 1750–1850 (Oxford, 1989), ch. 3.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Figures for the society's committals and convictions for metropolitan London (excluding the City of London) are taken from its Reports, No. 12 (1830), p. 20, and No. 17 (1835), p. iii. Approx. two out of every three metropolitan vagrant convictions in the mid-1820s were for begging: PP, 1824 (357), XIX, pp. 215–338, esp. pp. 279–280.Google Scholar For metropolitan vagrant statistics after 1830, see Ribton-Turner, , History of Vagrants, pp. 673–674Google Scholar; Jones, , Crime, Protest, Community and Police, p. 199.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Reports, No. 8 (1826), p. 26.Google Scholar See also Palmer, Stanley H., Police and Protest in England and Ireland 1780–1850 (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 303–315Google Scholar, and Smith, Phillip Thurmond, Policing Victorian London (Westport, CN, 1985), pp. 51–55.Google Scholar On the society's efforts to influence the reform of the vagrant laws, see PP, 1821 (543), IV, p. 144Google Scholar; Reports, No. 3 (1821), p. 12Google Scholar; No. 4 (1822), p. 23; No. 8 (1826), p. 18. The recurrent problem here, apart from deciding how high to set the standard of proof, was to define the offence itself. Beggars were often quick to adjust their behaviour from direct request to implied exchange for services (e.g., crossing-sweeping) or goods provided. For discussion of the legal technicalities involved, see Rose, , Rogues and Vagabonds, ch. 6.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Reports, No. 13 (1831), pp. 21–29.Google Scholar Cf. No. 6 (1824), p. 15.

⁵¹ Ibid., No. 42 (1860), p. 18; No. 16 (1834), pp. 16–17.; Select Committee on Metropolis Police Offices, PP, 1837–1838 (578), XV, Qn. 1082.Google Scholar

⁵² In 1845 the society was responsible for rather more than a quarter of metropolitan vagrant apprehensions and had a better conviction rate than the police. By 1864 it brought in fewer than one sixth of the vagrants and its conviction rate had fallen below an improved police rate: Select Committee on District Asylums, Qn. 1975; Reports, No. 47 (1865), p. 11Google Scholar; Ribton-Turner, , pp. 673–674.Google Scholar See also Emsley, Clive, Crime and Society in England 1750–1900 (London, 1987), pp. 148–150Google Scholar and Bosanquet, , Social Work in London 1869–1912, p. 5.Google Scholar

⁵³ Reports, No. 2 (1820), p. 22.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Ibid., No. 1 (1819), p. 13; No. 2 (1820), pp. 12–13; Minute Book, folio 17.

⁵⁵ Ibid., folios 6, 8, 14, 17; Reports, No. 1 (1819), pp. 14–15, 24–25Google Scholar; No. 2 (1820) pp. 10, 18, etc.

⁵⁶ Ibid., No. 4 (1822), pp. 10–12. Cf. Brundage, Anthony, The Making of the New Poor Law (London, 1978), pp. 12–14Google Scholar (parish experiments with work tests, pre-1834); Jones, , Crime, Community, Protest and Police, p. 190Google Scholar (adoption of a work test for casual relief applicants by poor law unions, post-1834). See also Reports, No. 21 (1839), p. 17.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Note especially the key role of Sturges Bourne, still a vice-president: Brundage, , Making of the New Poor Law, pp. 20–21, 47–48.Google Scholar The Mendicity Society itself gave no evidence to the 1832 Royal Commission though associated societies in Durham and Newcastle did: Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix E (Vagrancy), PP, 1834 (44) XXXVIII, pp. 864, 880.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Samuel, R., “Comers and Goers”, in Dyos, H. J. (ed.), The Victorian City, 2 vols (London, 1973), 1, pp. 123–160Google Scholar; Jones, Stedman, Outcast London, chs 2–4Google Scholar; and Reports, No. 18 (1836), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ibid., No. 24 (1842), pp. 14–15; No. 26 (1844), p. 12; No. 27 (1845), p. 11.

⁵⁹ Ibid., No. 24 (1842), pp. 14–15; No. 26 (1844), p. 12; No. 27 (1845), p. 11.

⁶⁰ Ibid., No. 30 (1848), p. 15; Select Committee on District Asylums, Qns. 1991–1994, 2046. Cf. Rose, M., “Settlement, removal and the New Poor Law”, in Fraser, D. (ed.), The New Poor Law in the 19th Century (London, 1976), pp. 25–44.Google Scholar

⁶¹ For statistics of “meals given”, see table in Reports, No. 50 (1868), p. 17.Google Scholar This records a leap from 87,454 in 1837 to 155,348 in 1838 and a peak of 239,171 in 1847. After 1848 figures revert to pre-1838 levels. For the crisis of 1848 and its aftermath, see ibid., No. 30 (1848), p. 15; No. 31 (1849), p. 14.; No. 35 (1853), p. 14; and PP, 1847–1848 (599), LIII, pp. 347–349Google Scholar (the “Buller memorandum”).

⁶² Ibid., No. 3 (1821), p. 15; No. 11 (1829), p. 24.

⁶³ For Dickens's susceptibility to begging-letter writers (and his vehement denunciation of them after being defrauded by one), see Rose, , Rogues and Vagabonds, p. 34.Google Scholar For further evidence of their activities and of reaction to it, see, e.g., Quarterly Review, LXXXXVII (1855), pp. 424–425Google Scholar; and Greenwood, James, The Seven Curses of London (first published 1869; Oxford, 1981), ch. 15.Google Scholar The broader theme of middle-class economic insecurity is explored by Bourne, , Patronage and Society, pp. 89–97Google Scholar; and by Davidoff, Leonore and Hall, Catherine, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780–1850 (London, 1987), chs 4 and 6.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Prochaska, Frank, The Voluntary Impulse: Philanthropy in Modern Britain (London, 1988), pp. 38–39.Google Scholar The Mendicity Society itself acted as a charity-distribution agency for this purpose, though on a strictly limited scale.

⁶⁵ Reports, No. 4 (1822), pp. 21–22Google Scholar; No. 34 (1852), p. 14; No. 39 (1857), p. 12; No. 42 (1860), p. 18; No. 47 (1865), p. 14.

⁶⁶ Ibid., No. 46 (1864), p. 16.

⁶⁷ For the society's early enthusiasm for removing insane and diseased beggars to specialist institutions, see Reports, No. 7 (1825), p. 27, but note also the eventual grudging concession of immunity to blind beggars: No. 26 (1844), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar Policy towards begging by children was a problem the society never fully resolved, though it did establish direct links with specialist volunteer institutions for the reclamation of street children (notably Captain Brenton's Children's Friend Society) and it seems to have become increasingly willing to use the courts once the legal system was adjusted to recognize juveniles as a separate category: Reports, No. 3 (1821), p. 14, and No. 36 (1854), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar In the meantime it did its best to discipline any adult beneficiaries of children's begging proceeds. Further information on the extent of child begging is set out in Rose, , Rogues and Vagabonds, ch. 5.Google Scholar For the overhaul of the court and prison system, see Pinchbeck, Ivy and Hewitt, Margaret, Children in English Society, 2 vols (London, 1969–1973), 2, ch. 16.Google Scholar Comparable patterns of response to beggars of both these types (the incapacitated and the under-aged) in a modernizing twentieth-century culture are set out in Iliffe, , African Poor, pp. 190–192, 248–249.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Vincent, David (ed.), Testaments of Radicalism: Memoirs of Working Class Politicians cians 1790–1885 (London, 1977), pp. 184–187.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Reports, No. 3 (1821), p. 10Google Scholar; “Castigator”, The Mendicity Society Unmasked (1825), p. 50.Google Scholar Beggars also became adept at evasion techniques, thus provoking the society to lobby for redefinition of begging offences: see note 49 above.

⁷⁰ Select Committee on Metropolis Police Offices, Qns. 218–224, 941–943, 1011–1014. See also Greenwood, , Seven Curses of London, p. 142.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Place Papers, Add MS 27825, folio 259; Reports, No. 25 (1843), p. 12Google Scholar; Select Committee on District Asylums, Qn. 1992. See also Benson, John, The Working Class in Britain, 1850–1939 (London, 1989), p. 30.Google Scholar

⁷² Reports, No. 9 (1827), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; Vincent, , Testaments of Radicalism, p. 184Google Scholar; Select Committee on District Asylums, Qns. 4035–4044.

⁷³ Reports, No. 4 (1822), pp. 11–13Google Scholar; No. 11 (1829), pp. 19–21; No. 17 (1835) pp. 12–15; No. 27 (1845), p. 14; No. 29 (1847), pp. 11–13. See also Select Committee on District Asylums, Qns. 4038–4042.

⁷⁴ Mendicity Society: Minute Book, folio 43: Reports, No. 13 (1831), p. 29.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Reports, No. 35 (1853), p. 16.Google Scholar Cf. Himmelfarb, Gertrude, The Idea of Poverty (London, 1984), pp. 365–370Google Scholar; Benson, , Working Class, pp. 27, 30.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ [Greg, W. R.,] “Charity, Noxious and Beneficent”, Westminster Review, LIX (1853), p. 70Google Scholar; Select Committee on Metropolis Police Offices, Qn. 912.

⁷⁷ The Times, 17 01 1824, pp. 2–3Google Scholar (letter from “A Friend to the Poor”, later alleged by the Lord Chief Justice to be a disgruntled former client of the society: ibid., 12 March 1824, p. 4). See also, for report of court proceedings, 17 07 1824, pp. 2–3Google Scholar, and, for reports of emergency meetings held by the society to rebut allegations, 10 February, p. 2Google Scholar, and 5 March, p. 3. (Note here the key role played by Evangelical supporters, notably Wilberforce, in reassuring subscribers of the soundness of the society's goals and management, but cf. the following denunciation of the society's unChristian attitudes by “Castigator”, Mendicity Society Unmasked, p. 23.)Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Reports, No. 18 (1836), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; No. 26 (1844), pp. 16–19. Unsolicited endorsements of the society's work may be found, inter alia, in Select Committee on Metropolis Police Offices, Qn. 1756, and in [Cheney, ?], Quarterly Review, LXXXXVII (1855), p. 426.Google Scholar Note, however, the hesitant yet lingering objections to a depersonalized police-oriented approach voiced by the Evangelical traditionalist, Sir Robert Inglis: Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 3rd series, vol. LXXI (1843), col. 412.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ E.g., Select Committee on District Asylums, Qns. 1964–1967 (Thomas Wakley). See also [Greg, ], Westminster Review, LIX (1853), pp. 62–88.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Reports, No. 30 (1848), p. 14Google Scholar; No. 31 (1849), p. 12; No. 33 (1851), p. 12.

⁸¹ Ibid., No. 40 (1858), p. 12; No. 44 (1862), p. 14. By this time the society's leadership was made up of recruits from two generations, some (e.g., Pownall, Teignmouth) having served from the earliest period, others (e.g., Bosanquet, Westminster – for whom see note 83 below) having been recruited in the crisis-prone 1840s. After this decade active and eminent recruits were seldom come by, though the Tory Protestant politician C. B. Adderley, a recruit of the 1850s, played a key role in negotiations with the newly formed Charity Organisation Society after 1869.

⁸² Mowat, Charles Loch, The Chanty Organisation Society 1869–1913. Its Ideas and Work (London, 1961), p. 7.Google Scholar Unlike many other metropolitan volunteer associations the Mendicity Society had never systematically set out to put itself at the head of a national branch network. It did, in its first years, actively promote the formation of provincial societies in the hope of eventually creating a (never-defined) system of related associations but this network peaked in 1823 with c. 20 local societies in operation by which time London eagerness to encourage extension seems already to have faded: Mendicity Society: Minute Book, folio 17; Reports, No. 5 (1823), pp. 12, 14.Google Scholar The provincial societies with any staying power were, as a general rule, those founded and/or supported by local magistrates in towns or counties visited by vagrants and casual labourers in their seasonal migrations.

⁸³ Prochaska, , Women and Philanthropy, pp. 104–106.Google Scholar See also Heasman, Katherine, Evangelicals in Action (London, 1962).Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Reports, No. 43 (1861), p. 13Google Scholar; No. 51 (1869), p. 12. See also Jones, Stedman, Outcast London, p. 246.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Ibid., pp. 241–245; Greenwood, , Seven Curses of London, ch. 14Google Scholar; Jones, , Crime, Protest, Community and Police, pp. 129–131.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Jones, Stedman, Outcast London, pp. 247–251.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Revd Brooke Lambert of Whitechapel, quoted in ibid., p. 247.

⁸⁸ Mowat, , Charity Organisation Society, pp. 15–26Google Scholar; Reports, No. 52 (1870), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar It is perhaps indicative of the generational “fault line” between the old and new societies that the Mendicity Society's president since 1847 (the Marquis of Westminster) died in 1869 and that his son played a key role in financing the COS: ibid., p. 47. Similarly, Charles B. P. Bosanquet, the foundation secretary of the COS was the son of a cousin of Samuel Richard Bosanquet, treasurer of the Mendicity Society, 1843–1882: Lee, G., The Story of the Bosanquets (Canterbury, 1966).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ SirTrevelyan, Charles in Charity Organisation Reporter, I (1872), p. 70.Google Scholar See also pp. 96, 125; and Bosanquet, C. B. P., London: Some Account of its Growth, Charitable Agencies, and Wants (London, 1868), pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ For the limited work still carried on by the Mendicity Society after 1869, see Rose, , Rogues and Vagabonds, p. 95.Google Scholar The society retained a vestigial existence until 1959.

⁹¹ Quoted in Gray, Robert, Cardinal Manning (London, 1985), p. 301.Google Scholar

⁹² Cf. Himmelfarb, , Idea of Poverty, pp. 398–400Google Scholar; Owen, , English Philanthropy, p. 136.Google Scholar

⁹³ Cf. Yeo, C. S., “Introduction”Google Scholar to Bosanquet, , Social Work in London, p. x, though see also p. xii.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Cf. Prochaska, , Women and Philanthropy, p. 117Google Scholar, and, more generally, Harrison, , Peaceable Kingdom, pp. 217–259, esp. pp. 234, 256–259.Google Scholar