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A new source for the historian of urban poverty: a note on the use of charity records in Leicester 1904–29
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2009
Extract
This article reviews the potential use of charity records in reconstructing the lives of the poor in the early twentieth-century city and suggests how computer-assisted modes of quantitative and qualitative techniques of analysis can expand the known source base of research on poverty. Although the poor have themselves left only a small direct imprint on the historical record, the historian of poverty has managed to use the diverse and voluminous Victorian records generated by officials of the Poor Law which has resulted in a variety of administrative and institutional analyses of pauperism within various urban and regional settings. These studies have attracted a certain amount of criticism because of their dependence upon a narrow range of sources and orthodox historical methodology. It can be argued, however, that the full potential of Poor Law records in terms of what they contribute as well as what can be done with them has not yet been fully exploited. There is scope, for example, for the linkage of Poor Law material with demographic sources, such as the census enumerators' returns, to explore the geography of urban poverty in the nineteenth century. The value of Poor Law records would be enhanced if research questions could be phrased in relation to the socio-geographical context of the city, taking into account the dynamics of urbanism. For example, in Victorian and Edwardian Leicester it is possible to consider the consequence of socio-economic changes in a move from a domestic to a predominantly factory-based mode of production in the hosiery and footwear trades and the impact of the Poor Law during this transformation as patterns of discrimination characterized the provision of relief in certain districts of the town.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987
References
Notes
1 The revolution in the standards of public enquiry and record-keeping with reference to Poor Law records is discussed by: Thomson, D., ‘Workhouse to nursing home: residential care of the elderly people in England since 1840’, Ageing and Society, III (1983), 43–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a local listing, see Thomson, K. M., ‘Poor Law source materials in the East Midlands’, unpublished directory of record survival, Leicestershire County Record Office, November 1984.Google Scholar
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10 Statistical Packages for Social Scientists (SPSS), version X.
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12 These packages are currently available on Leicester University's mainframe computer network and may be used by other institutions using the JANET network available at most universities and polytechnics.
13 These results are derived from a 300-case sample of Charity Records for Edwardian Leicester and represent part of a wider research project currently in progress by the author.
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17 The Leicester Charity Organization Society placed restrictive clauses on the use of case histories which are held at the Leicestershire Records Office. The aim of the restricted use is to preserve the anonymity of the people who applied for relief and the confidence in which information was obtained.
18 Outdoor Recommendations were sought to provide free medical treatment for the people referred, as a large number could be obtained through the Society for the most deserving cases. The majority of cases were then referred to the out-patients department at the Leicester Infirmary.
19 In Leicester, sweated trades such as glove stitchers were a common occurrence in working-class households as out-workers supplemented meagre household budgets. On average this form of casual work rarely earned the workers more than 4 shillings a week, usually paid on a piece-rate basis. This rate was kept artificially low by the large supply of female labour willing to undertake this work.
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