“Oh never mind, you are going to Paddy’s Land”: Echoes of Windrush in the 19th century English Poor Law

Looking through the material discovered by the In Their Own Write project team, a group of letters from Stockport Union resonated with the recently dramatised story of Anthony Bryan, a member of the Windrush generation who, in 2016, came very close to being deported to Jamaica, a place he had not set foot in for 50 years. (“Sitting in Limbo”, https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08g29ff/sitting-in-limbo).

Viewed in this context, one item in the Stockport letters stands out. It is a newspaper clipping, dated 27 April 1848, from The Freeman’s Journal (a Dublin newspaper) sent by the Irish poor law officials to the Commissioners in London. Under the intriguing headline, “Important – Transmission of English Paupers to Ireland” it outlined the shocking case of Mary Anne Henley, a resident in the Dublin workhouse. Mary Anne was no regular pauper inmate, but had been removed to Dublin by the Board of Guardians in Stockport.

From The Freeman’s Journal, 27 April 1848

Mary Anne claimed she had been removed to Ireland entirely against her own wishes. She was, she insisted, an English woman born in Liverpool to English parents, although her father had Irish ancestry.  She was 19 at the time of her removal and had been working steadily “earning her own bread” since the age of 9. In 1858 she was living in Stockport and earning enough not only to support herself but to send money to her widowed father who still had a large family of younger children to support.  Some weeks before her removal, she had been struck down with fever and having no-one locally to look after her (her father lived in Glossop) she was forced to go into the Fever Hospital. It was here she came to the attention of the authorities. Once recovered Mary Anne planned to go to her father to convalesce before returning to her job in Stockport, but instead two men from the Stockport Workhouse arrived, “took charge of me” and carted her off to the workhouse. There Mary Anne told officials repeatedly that she should not be in the workhouse and would return home, but the response she received was “Oh never mind, you are going to Paddy’s Land”. An inmate who witnessed the scene told officials, “it was a pity to send that poor Lass to Ireland … she was crying her eyes out at being sent away to a Strange country”.  Poor Mary Anne – this was probably her first encounter with officials of any kind; she had little grasp of her rights, although it was clear she had a sneaking suspicion that what was happening was illegal. Further argument fell on deaf ears. “Neither I or any of my family have ever received any kind of relief,” she told one of the Relieving Officers, “you have no right to send me away”. But she was forcibly removed from the workhouse, the men threatening to handcuff her if she resisted; she was taken to the railway station at Stockport, transferred by train to Liverpool and from there to the Irish packet bound for Dublin. Four or five men guarded Mary Anne, and a number of other paupers in a similar situation, along the whole journey to prevent escape. On the boat she was given a 4lb loaf and nothing else; she had just two pennies to her name. Once in Dublin and destitute and with no friends in the city she was obliged to go to the workhouse, which is where she made this statement. All she wanted to do was to go home and return to her job in the mill (TNA MH 12/1142/14249 and 20338).

One of the Dublin officials declared that the central authorities in London should “not permit the unfortunate English poor to be thrown thus upon the guardians of this country” and that they ought to take steps to prevent such cases from occurring. It was observed that “the number [of such cases] … latterly was greatly on the increase. There were double the number this year than last”.

Dublin to Liverpool steam packets readying to leave Dublin, from The Illustrated London News, May 1851

In removing Mary Anne to Ireland, the Stockport Guardians were treading a thin line with respect to the law. The 1846 Poor Removal Act was supposed to protect the poor against removal if they could convince two magistrates that, among other things, they had lived continuously in the parish for at least 5 years.  But the law left many loopholes for Guardians to exploit in their efforts to remove unwanted ‘burdens’ from their ratepayers. By her own admission Mary Anne had lived in Stockport for only 12 months prior to be being taken ill, so the 1846 Act provided her with little protection and the Guardians may have been within their rights to remove her either to Liverpool (where she was born), or perhaps to Glossop where her father lived. Why they decided to send her to Ireland where she had no connection was never explained.

Mary Anne was probably inadvertently caught up in a deliberate strategy on the part of the Stockport Guardians to clear Irish paupers from their books. In the same year four other controversial cases of pauper removals to Ireland, all of whom had been resident in Stockport for many years, were brought to the attention of the Poor Law Commissioners. Some were better informed than Mary Anne and quoted the law back at the Union officials, but to no avail. In the case of Patrick Egan, three times the magistrates upheld his objection to his removal, but the Union went ahead anyway and he was removed along with his three younger children to Dublin, leaving his two older, working-age children to fend for themselves (TNA MH 12/1142/9038).

The Stockport Guardians were not alone in taking these peremptory (and possibly illegal) actions. Mary Gibbons, a resident in Tynemouth for 12 years, went before magistrates in 1860 after applying for relief and was told she must be removed to Ireland. She stated she was born at sea, but as her mother had been born in Ireland the magistrate told her she must find her mother’s parish and be removed there. She was subsequently sent to the workhouse in Belfast with her two children. The Belfast Guardians were less than pleased and complained to the London authorities, who also seemed displeased by the removal. The Tynemouth Guardians were instructed to investigate. Unfortunately the outcome was not recorded in this case (TNA MH 12/9161/33725).

In 1858, the Bradford Union was accused of devising its own rules for removability. Clearly outraged, W.F. Black wrote that: “The Guardians are determined … to pass to a country they may have forgotten and where they may be unknown all Irish who seek relief, regardless of the number of years they have lived here” (TNA MH 12/14729/11842). In 1847, Stephen Power, a victim of Bradford’s local rules, was sent to Dublin despite having lived in Bradford for 18 years. The Relieving Officer made things quite clear: “he threatened to send me to the parish in which I was born in Ireland [and] said he would send all the Irish home no matter how long they had lived in Bradford” (TNA MH 12/14726/4937).

Age was no barrier.  Francis Dowling was 72 in 1858 when he was removed from Stockport to Dublin, despite having lived in Stockport for 15 years, paid rates and earned the right to vote for the town council. The Stockport magistrates ignored these qualifying characteristics; he was Irish-born and should go back to Ireland, a place he not seen for 45 years. Poor Patrick Ryan, a 10-year-old boy, was shipped back to Ireland alone by the Merthyr Tydfil Guardians. An orphan, born in Ireland but sent to Merthyr to live with his Aunt, Patrick found himself in the Merthyr workhouse in 1858 and then on a steamer to Waterford. “No person had charge of me” during the journey, he testified, except a young girl of 14 who was also being removed to Ireland. On arrival he was incarcerated in the Waterford Workhouse (TNA MH 12/16331/34617).

There are many more examples of Irish (and supposedly Irish) removals from all over the English and Welsh Poor Law system. The Guardians were taking advantage of the poorly drafted Act to deal with the burden placed on them (as they saw it) by the large influx of Irish migrants in the mid-century. The constant refrain that the victims of removal had no connection with Ireland appeared to elicit little sympathy: they were ruthlessly separated from friends and family and sent into the unknown.

It is hard not to see parallels with the experiences of the Windrush generation. Geographically, Ireland may not be as remote from mainland Britain as the West Indies, but in nineteenth-century terms it was a huge distance. It is hard to imagine the distress caused to people (as young as 10 and as old as 80) uprooted with little or no warning from familiar places and unceremoniously dumped with no means of support in a strange country.

Taking the Long View of Contagion, Compassion and Community Response

Temporary hospital during the Spanish Flu pandemic, 1918

In these unsettling times it might seem as though history has little comfort to offer us. When we look back for reassurance, we tend to light on the scale of the Spanish Flu pandemic, the horrors of the Black Death, or the ravages of smallpox through the ages. Yet despite the hardships and, for some, personal tragedies that have followed in the wake of Covid-19 it is important to maintain a sense of perspective, and one way we can do this is by recognising just how resilient and resourceful we are, and always have been, in the face of epidemics and communicable diseases. From the early modern period onwards, we have built on empirical observations and experimental science to understand the best ways to mitigate and even halt the spread of deadly diseases; but, individually and collectively, we also have a rich history of compassion and public spiritedness when  it comes to protecting vulnerable groups and supporting those most affected by epidemics. Nowhere are all these tendencies clearer than in the stories that emerge from the correspondence to the Poor Law Commissioners across the 19^th century.

A Ward in the Hampstead Smallpox Hospital, 1871

In 1893, for example, Charles Wills, the medical officer of health for the Southwell Rural Sanitary Authority, wrote to the Local Government Board that a case of smallpox had been discovered at the union workhouse. The affected man, Henry Jackson, had tramped from Manchester (where he was believed to have picked up the disease) and arrived on the 27 January. The authorities swiftly determined that he had shared the vagrant ward that night with a further 18 men, and this was communicated to the Local Government Board with an account (as far as possible) of their ongoing movements. The ward was then closed, and Jackson was placed in isolation with another male inmate to act as his nurse. His companion was chosen specifically because he had previously survived the disease and was therefore assumed to be immune. The Guardians took further measures to stop the spread of the disease by vaccinating or re-vaccinating all inmates over the age of 10 who would allow it. As a result of their swift action, Jackson’s was the only recorded case on this occasion: he seems to have recovered by late March, and his ‘key worker’, Robert Rushton, who nursed him for a full seven weeks, was later given a guinea by the Guardians as a reward for his efforts, which enabled him to discharge himself from the workhouse. In a postscript to the case, the Medical Officer, Charles Wills, wrote that there were many isolated cases of smallpox in Derbyshire and Yorkshire at the time, and that it was bound to be exported to neighbouring districts. In response, he proposed that some semi-detached cottages should be built on property adjacent to the workhouse in order to improve facilities for isolation if it reached Southwell again (it is not known whether the Board chose to act on his recommendation in this instance)  (TNA MH 12/8544, 9547).

If all of this sounds remarkably familiar, then it’s hardly surprising: the very fact that epidemics were a constant threat before the refinements of modern medicine meant that rapid responses and empirical methods of containment were at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and many of the public health measures that were instigated from the 1830s onwards were, of course, specifically aimed at achieving this outcome. Crucially, the newly centralised and bureaucratised structures of the poor law were an ideal forum for applying these measures. So it was that when Richard Pugh, the clerk to the Watford Union, reported in 1849 that there had been a fatal case of cholera in the town, the Guardians were well placed to put in train a series of measures to ensure that it was checked at source. These included a house-to-house visitation of infected localities, and when a case was discovered in the Workhouse Infirmary it involved daily testing and examination of all workhouse inmates to ensure that timely treatment could be applied as soon as symptoms manifested themselves (TNA MH 13/197).

Indeed, large parts of daily workhouse practice were specifically aimed at stopping the encroachment of communicable diseases from gaining a foothold in these institutions, and from spreading more widely if detected. The oft-noted practice of removing a person’s clothes for ‘purification’ (usually by boiling) when they were admitted and replacing them with workhouse dress was done for precisely this reason. It is a subject that has often caused controversy in the literature, because contemporaries, and most historians, have chosen to interpret it simply as a way of enforcing a degrading uniform; but, in fact, it was a very effective way of checking the spread of disease. As the president of the Poor Law Board explained to Parliament in 1849, “the rule now in force [was] introduced on considerations suggested by the necessity of securing cleanliness,” and he added that “by enforcing it, the cleanliness and health of the establishments [has] been very materially promoted” (Bath Chronicle, 28 June 1849). When common sense measures such as these were not followed, paupers themselves were the first to complain. In 1867, for example, J. Smith, an inmate at Bethnal Green workhouse, wrote that the nurses from the sick wards were carrying their dirty washing through the day rooms, which were used predominantly by elderly and infirm inmates, and that this laundry was likely to be contaminated from contact with infected patients. He complained that it was a practice which was “injurious to health and not to be tolerated,” and he suggested that the only reason nurses were not allowed to go the “proper way” to the laundry was because the Master was fearful lest his own children “should catch a disease, as they would have to pass his apartments” (TNA MH 12/6854).

This focus on the workhouse poor brings us back full circle to the situation we face today with Covid-19. Thankfully, here in Britain, as in many countries where it has made such rapid progress, things have begun to stabilise and, though obviously still of great concern, the overall number of cases and deaths seems to have plateaued. One of the areas of increasing anxiety, however, relates to care home residents, and we still have little understanding of just how devastating it will turn out to be for the institutional care sector as a whole. Clearly, many of the practical measures outlined above were specifically designed to protect workhouse populations from mass outbreaks. But the authorities were also acutely aware that other measures that we are now becoming all-too familiar with could make a crucial difference in preventing institutional tipping-points. So, for example, when Widow Granger, a resident at Barnet workhouse, asked permission to go out and visit her dangerously ill granddaughter, the Guardians “refused [her request] in consequence of the complaint being the small pox” (G. Gear (ed.), The Diary of Benjamin Woodcock: Master of the Barnet Union Workhouse 1836-38 (Herts. Record Society, 2008), p.98). This entry tells us that Widow Granger would, under normal circumstances, most likely have been allowed out on compassionate grounds; something that, in itself, challenges many of the standard narratives about workhouse life. But it also tells us that officials in the 19^th century were constantly grappling with the competing needs – emotional, psychological and medical – of those under their charge in exactly the same way as those who are currently trying to manage the spread of Covid-19 in care homes. The question of how to protect the physical welfare of vulnerable residents, while ensuring that they are not denied the life-affirming contact and support of loved ones, is clearly not a new one.

These are extraordinary times, unprecedented for most of us: but alongside the uncertainty and inevitable anxiety that comes with a situation like this, we also have the opportunity to reflect on the great sacrifices that ordinary people – from key workers to coordinators, and from community volunteers to self-isolaters – are making for the public good. It is, perhaps, some comfort to know that we have such deep reserves of selflessness and rapid response to draw on. This last example, from the Board of Guardians’ Minutes of Mitford and Launditch Union in Norfolk during the last great epidemic of smallpox in 1871, is a wonderful case in point (TNA MH 12/8484).

The attention of the Guardians was particularly directed to the case of William Cory, of Great Dunham, Labourer, who, with his Wife and family of six children, had recently been deprived of their usual Harvest earnings by reason of the state of Quarantine imposed upon them, for 5 or 6 weeks, in consequence of the existence of Small Pox in a Cottage adjoining his Dwelling house and under the same roof: And it being shewn to the satisfaction of the Guardians that this insulation of Cory and his family has tended to prevent the spread of the disease but that he had thereby incurred a loss of Five pounds and upwards, it is unanimously resolved that he be allowed the sum of Five Pounds, either under the provisions of the Sanitary Acts, or by way of gratuity under the special circumstances as the Local Government Board may approve.

 

 

 

 

“Drunk, Drunk, Drunken Bich”: The Crime (and occasional merits) of Anonymity

Illustrated London News, 1842

In a previous post (‘Holding Power to Account, Pauper Style’), we talked about the potential hazards to paupers of complaining openly about their treatment under the New Poor Law, particularly those who were resident in the workhouse. They could be – and, they claimed, often were – subject to severe reprisals for bringing injustices, cruelty and misdemeanours to light. In fact, it is a constant source of amazement to us that so many wrote to the Poor Law Commission under their own names, given the fact that they were, by definition, economically dependent on the very officials they sought to bring to account. The vast majority of the letters from paupers that we’ve found in the MH12 collection carried their own names, and many workhouse inmates wrote again and again to highlight poor treatment and injustice, very often giving details into the bargain of the physical and material cost to themselves of doing so.

One of the problems for pauper letter-writers was that the Commissioners in London quickly decided, after 1834, that they would not respond to anonymous letters – presumably in order to discourage criticism of the system without accountability. When such letters arrived, they were quickly annotated by officials with comments like “Anonymous, and not worth noticing” (MH12/6847, original ref. 25188/1856), or “I presume that as the communication is anonymous nothing further need be done” (MH12/3408, original ref. 46590/1869). This meant that, in order for their concerns to be taken seriously, paupers knew that they simply had to identify themselves; and, given that the first response of the Commissioners was to forward a copy of the letter to the local guardians for their comments, it is easy to see how this system could be abused.

As all this suggests, however, a minority of letters were sent anonymously, and there are reasons why this should be so above and beyond the threat of reprisals. Sometimes, the subject of a complaint was so serious that paupers – and particularly workhouse inmates – simply did not feel that the risk of identifying themselves was worth taking. In 1866, for example, a letter was sent to Sir George Gray, the Home Secretary, from an inmate at Bethnal Green urging “an inquest on Mrs. Follett who was starved to death in my Ward”. The unnamed author noted that “We sent a Letter the other day to the Police Station, but she is took away and no inquest”, and concluded, darkly: “but it will come out” (MH12/6852, original ref. 13543/1866). On other occasions, anonymity allowed paupers to dispense with the usual niceties and give vent to their frustration in the most uncompromising terms. So it was that an unnamed inmate of Basford workhouse, in Nottinghamshire, wrote to inform the Poor Law Board that “misis Johnson [the Matron is] allways drunk She puts a Botle in her Pockit She gets drunk and falls doun stears [and] makes her Self a Black eyes”. The writer went on to threten that “if thear is not sumthink dun sune we shall Write to the house of lords”, and finished with a flourish: “drunk drunk drunk”, he (or she) wrote with gusto, “drunk drunken Bich” (MH12/9248, original ref. 31594/1862).

Letters like this demonstrate the kind of visceral language that is more familiar from anonymous threatening letters in the 18th and 19th centuries than from the usual petitionary appeals we’re used to in MH12. It is part threat, part cathartic outpouring; and it is difficult to know which of these functions gave the writer the most satisfaction. The element of catharsis is clearly evident, too, in a series of letters that were sent from the workhouse in Cardiff, in 1855. Their target was the new master and matron, Mr and Mrs John, and the first letter was pithy and to the point: “take [heed] John”, it stated, “there his a bullet redy for you and the old chair man and…your wife[.] one of you shall die” (MH12/16250, original ref. 47409/1855). Seven further letters were sent to gentlemen in the town, appealing for them to look into the master’s conduct, and each threatened some form of violent revenge if nothing was done. “We broke one window yesterday”, read one, “and by my God if there is no alteration before this week is out the old house and they shall be burned in their beds”; “Our hearts is trembling within our bodies”, read another, “for to burn or poison the set” (MH12/18250,original ref. 48915/1855).

From Punch, 1843

The precise grievances of the writer(s) are less important to us here than the form and tone of these letters (in fact, the general accusation was that the pauper inmates were starved while the master and his family lived in luxury). In particular, they are very reminiscent of the threatening letters that were sent during the Rebecca Riots in rural Wales between 1839 and 1843. Although Rebecca is generally described as a movement against turnpike tolls, it also led to protests against many other things, including, significantly, the treatment of the poor. As the Guardians pointed out in relation to the letters sent at Cardiff, there was very little apprehension that the writer(s) would actually carry out their threats. Nonetheless, they took them seriously enough to request that a police officer be sent from London to discover the author(s), so that they might be “punished as an example to others” (MH12/18250, original ref. 47409/1855). At least in part, this may have been because they felt Rebecca’s breath on their shoulder when they read them.

The one thing letters like this demonstrate is that, despite the general tone of respectability and conventional politeness that characterises most pauper letters in MH12, when they donned the cloak of anonymity paupers were also quite prepared to drop the mantle of compliance and subservience. Sometimes, when direct action was not an option, epistolary anonymity, and the consequent disregard of the authorities, seems to have been a price worth paying for the opportunity to vent all that simmering frustration and anger directly. I wonder if we haven’t all felt that impulse from time to time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DREADFUL INUNDATION IN SHEFFIELD: FEARFUL DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY AND LIFE…

So ran the headline in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of 12 March 1864. Overnight a catastrophe had struck, one of the biggest man-made disasters in British history. The story of the bursting of the Bradfield dam has a particular resonance today, with the memory of events at Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire fresh in our minds.

On the Sheffield flood, Samuel Harrison, a local journalist and editor, wrote that:

“On Friday, March 11, 1864 at exactly midnight, a calamity, appalling and almost unparalleled, occurred along the course of the river Loxley, and the banks of the Don, where it passes through the town of Sheffield. An overwhelming flood swept down from an enormous reservoir at Bradfield carrying away houses, mills, bridges, and manufactories, destroying property estimated at half a million sterling in value, and causing the loss of about two hundred and forty human lives.”

A new reservoir constructed in the hills seven miles to the north west of Sheffield had burst when the dam holding the water back failed. A huge volume of water cascaded down the valley of the river Loxley, destroying everything in its path until it joined the waters of the river Don which runs through the centre of Sheffield. Much was written about the flood at the time: it was reported in newspapers around the country, and was the focus of major inquiries – particularly into the culpability of the Bradfield Waterworks Company, which owned the reservoir. But the role of the Workhouse, its inmates and the Master and Matron, in the story of “Great Inundation” is not so well known.

Map showing location of the workhouse. Blue shading represents the extent of flooding in the vicinity of the workhouse. (Source: http://www.arcgis.com/apps/StorytellingSwipe/)

The problem was that Sheffield Workhouse was located close to the banks of the Don and found itself right in the path of the flood. The inmates were completely unaware of impending disaster when they went to bed on the Friday evening: the workhouse was locked up for night and the inmates were already “tucked up”. The Master, James Wescoe, reported to the Board of Guardians several days after the event that the initial alarm was raised by a young inmate who looked after the boiler. (MH 12/15478/10364)

George (who Samuel Harrison later described as an “imbecile” inmate) had been in the boiler house when he first became aware of water rushing in. So frightened was he that he climbed onto the roof of the boiler house as the waters rose. From here, according to Wescoe, he shouted and whistled to raise the alarm. Harrison’s account is not so flattering: in his telling, George got on top of the boiler house for his own personal safety, and lacking the sense to raise the alarm, he sat there “whistling for his own comfort”. Whatever the reason for George’s actions, he awoke the Master and the Matron (Miss Rebecca Day) from their slumbers, and they immediately sprang into action.

On seeing the extent of the flooding, they decided to leave the women inmates where they were on the upper floors (locking them in to avoid confusion and panic, according to Harrison) and selected “a score” of able-bodied men to help evacuate the ground floor rooms. The men were sent across the flooded yards to rooms which housed sick children and women with venereal disease. “In these rooms”, reported Wescoe, “the water had arisen to the beds but happily no lives were lost”. Harrison’s report, though, described a more frantic scene:

The task of these men was one of great peril, as they had to wade through the water, which was not only exceedingly cold, but also a considerable depth. When the men reached the sick wards they found such of the women and children as were able to get up, standing or kneeling on their beds in a state of the greatest alarm. The men carried the women and children, who had nothing on but their night dresses, through water to the upper rooms of the female hospital. There were many narrow escapes; but happily no lives were lost.

Many others in the flood area were not so lucky.

Ball Street Bridge, which was situated just upstream from the Workhouse, was badly hit as the flood waters careered past it, destroying its structure and the sides of houses and factories which lined the river bank.

By 3am, the bodies of the drowned were being brought to the Workhouse and “continued arriving during the whole of the day and every succeeding day during the ensuing week”. In total, 124 bodies were taken there. According to the Sheffield Telegraph (19 March 1864), they presented “a distressingly appalling sight”. One journalist’s description conveys the horror of the scene:

Forms of strong men are there…Their arms were twisted in strange shapes – many of them were fearfully cut and disfigured…We have seen and been familiar with death…under many different circumstances, but anything so fearfully sickening as the long rows of dead bodies lying side by side at the Workhouse we have never seen before, and trust we may never see again.

No workhouse inmates died, thanks to the quick thinking of the Master and Matron, but much damage was done to the buildings, and more particularly to the stores. Wescoe’s report detailed the extent of losses sustained including large quantities of dietary supplies, such as 10 hundredweight of suet, 15 stones of meat and 70 gallons of beer.  Clothing and bedding was also lost or damaged beyond repair. In total the Master estimated that goods to the value of £110 8 shillings 8 ½d had been destroyed.

Wescoe concluded his report with high praise for the Matron. The workhouse cellars, yards and ground floor rooms had all been flooded and as the water receded it left behind a stinking slime of mud and sewage: the Workhouse had been doubly inundated, with flood water from the river and by overflowing sewers. But by the time of writing his report (12 days after the event) the Workhouse was habitable again thanks to the efforts of Miss Day, which he acknowledged in no uncertain terms: “I can bear witness generally as to the great energy & cleverness of the excellent matron subsequent to the night of flood”. He also praised the Guardians who assisted him in “some of the saddest and heaviest portion of my duties for 3 or 4 successive days”.  He admitted that without their support “I should have been utterly unable to cope with the difficulties of my situation during this trying time”. No mention was made of the impact on the inmates, however.

On 14 March (the Monday after the catastrophe) John Manwaring, Poor Law Inspector at Doncaster, visited the neighbouring unions to see if there was anything they could do to facilitate “proper administration of relief in cases of destitution caused by the calamity, or whether they can afford any assistance…for the purpose of alleviating the distress arising from this lamentable catastrophe” in Sheffield and the surrounding area. (MH 12/15478 9099/A) His first call was on the guardians of the Wortley Union which included the location of the reservoir within its boundaries, and was one of the most badly affected areas.  The fact that he reported that the Guardians at Wortley did not think they would be faced with “an excess” of applications in consequence of the flood because work was plentiful and men could earn good weekly wages suggests that was little concern about the distress caused by the flood for many of the poor who had lost everything.

In a similar vein, the Sheffield Guardians reported that “We are now doing nicely as regards applications for relief”, but they worried that they might be subject to criticism by the Poor Law Board, because “On Tuesday and Wednesday last we were threatened with a great pressure and we were obliged to give relief freely and without the usual precaution by enquiries etc.” (MH 12/15478/9766). The clerk sought to allay the Board’s fears that this may get out of control, by reassuring them that trade was good, men generally were in work and the poor people could “look about and help themselves”. Later, the Guardians confirmed that they had given un-sanctioned relief in 221 cases, at a total of £55  and one shilling. The Poor Law Board wrote back briefly, stating that it sanctioned these payments under the circumstances. (MH 12/15478/13268) The Relieving Officers had been tasked with ensuring no-one had been overlooked and were confidant this was the case. “On the whole”, he concluded, “I hope we shall get over the fearful disaster, & as the funds of the Union are affected, pretty well”. (MH 12/15478)

At their meeting of 23 March, the Sheffield Board of Guardians entered into the minutes a note of thanks for the able and efficient manner with which the Master and Matron had carried out their onerous duties in dealing with the recent inundations. (MH 12/15478/11031) The Poor Law Board responded by thanking the Guardians for forwarding their Minute and concurring with the sentiment it expressed – although it appears that this is as far as their close interest went. Although early estimates put the death toll at ca.240, it is probable that over 250 people died as a result of Sheffield’s “Great Inundation”. Nonetheless, the workhouse was cleaned and fit for use again in a matter of days, and it was reported that everything in Sheffield’s Poor Law organisation was back to normal. One suspects, however, that the emotional scars took a lot longer to heal.

• • Our thanks to Dr Sue Hawkins, ITOW’s Record Specialist, for this account of the “Sheffield Inundation” of 1864!

 

 

‘Twas Christmas Day in the Workhouse…

We’re all familiar with it in some form or another: either George Sims’s original lament against the cold, hard world of Victorian welfare or Robert Weston and Bert Lee’s parody, where “dangerous Dan McGrew / was fighting to save the pudding / from a lady that’s known as Lou”. But whichever version of the popular song comes to mind there’s no doubt that Christmas in the workhouse is one of the most enduring sentimental tropes of Victorian popular culture, a potent mix of Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, a Dickensian meat-feast of mawkishness and melodrama. But peel back the pathos for a moment and there is a surprising amount in Sims’s original lament that chimes with the real experience of workhouse paupers. From the festive decorations, to the seasonal (and exceptional) fare, and even the image of local dignitaries, including Guardians, serving at table, the scene could have been taken from real life, as attested by the Bradford Observer in 1848:

The various rooms in the workhouse were decorated with sprigs of laurel and holly, which gave the interior quite a cheerful appearance…Dinner was placed on the tables at two o’clock, when grace was sung. The dinner was served up in a manner which reflected great credit on the master and matron. Some 100lbs of roast beef, of first rate quality, had been provided, with potatoes, plenty of excellent plum pudding, and a barrel of good ale. The inmates appeared delighted, as well they might, with this unusual fare, and ample justice they did it. The Rev. Dr. Burnet, Mr. C. Rhodes, Mr. Wagstaff, Mr. Tetley, and other gentlemen were present to witness the interesting scene, and to wait upon the inmates.

Yet the real point of Sims’s lament was, of course, to show the underlying harshness of the New Poor Law and the lurid condescension of the workhouse feast. His hero is an elderly man who refuses to eat “the food of villains / whose hands are foul and red” because, as we soon discover, his wife died exactly 12 months prior to the feast. She was, he tells us, “starved in a filthy den” because the relieving officer refused to give him food, only offering them the refuge of the workhouse. This his wife refused, saying “Bide the Christmas here, John / we’ve never had one apart / I think I can bear the hunger / the other would break my heart”. Thereafter, she slipped away and died of hunger, steadfastly refusing to be parted from her husband by the workhouse rules. Here, too, we find plenty of evidence to support the darker side of Sims’s vision.

In January 1844, for example, John Houghton, Surgeon, wrote that he had visited Mary Ducie in Dudley Union. She was, he said, “in a very low and debilitated state lying on a few rags on…a small bedstead and covered with a few ragged clothes”. He contacted the relieving officer who, having initially allowed a few provisions, thereafter refused anything for her, even on application from Houghton. He then wrote that “on the 25th I asked her mother why she did not drink some milk as I ordered her. She said she had not the means of buying any. On Xmas day her husband said they should have had nothing to eat had not the neighbours given them some potatoes and a little bit of beef”. We don’t  know whether Ducie died as a result of what the doctor called “want”, but the last time he saw her he described her as being in a “hopeless state” (MH12/13959).

John Tarby of Ditchampton offers us an another broad parallel with Sims’s account. In 1842, he was:

in my 70th year and have for upwards of 50 years contributed to the necessities of the the Poor – “The Beggar which I am now myself” – and to all other claims of Church and State, and the reply was conveyed by a direct refusal accompanied with an order to go into the House. That such was never contemplated by the Poor Law Amendment Act needs no comment and I therefore call on You in your Official Capacity to pervert this order – That such may not be a precedent in this Neighbourhood and that you may timely interfere is my prayer (MH12/13892).

Tarby was wrong, of course; there never was any stipulation that the elderly must be relieved outside the workhouse, although it was a common misconception among the poor that this was the case.

In many ways, it seems that Sims’s doggerel was a surprisingly accurate account of the cruelties of the poor law at Christmas. Yet, as is so often the case, things are not quite as straightforward as they first appear. For one thing, Sims was writing in the 1870s when the pressure of public opinion had forced many boards of guardians to treat the elderly poor with much more consideration. The vast majority were, in fact, relieved in their own homes, and workhouses increasingly provided shared accommodation so that those who came in as aged couples could continue to live together. For another, Mary Ducie’s case forces us to look again at the issue of institutional care for the sick and elderly more generally. Ducie’s case was a desperate one, as the surgeon made clear; she and her family had nothing but rags, they lived in destitution and had no way of keeping life and soul together. In this, they provide a direct parallel with Sims’s bereaved hero. Yet in cases like this it is quite possible to view the workhouse as a refuge in times of extremis, as many Victorians certainly did. No matter how unhomely its welcome, it guaranteed warmth, lodging and sufficient food; and, for those who needed it, it also guaranteed the services of a medical officer and, increasingly by the 1870s and 80s, the attention of professional nursing and care staff.

Which aspect of “Christmas Day in the Workhouse” we choose to focus on depends on the lens through which we view it, of course. But in the spirit of Dickens’ most heartwarming denouements – of which we will, no doubt, be served a double helping over the next few days – let us indulge ourselves on Christmas eve. Take yourself back to the Bradford workhouse in 1848; smell the cinnamon and pipe-smoke and hear the hearty cheers and contented murmurings of old and young alike. God bless us, everyone, from Tiny Tim and the ITOW project staff!

After all had eaten to their heart’s content, grace was again sung…Apples and oranges were then distributed among the children, a supply of tobacco was given to those who smoked, and a modicum of snuff to the snuff takers, while those who preferred it received 3d. in money instead. At five o’clock the inmates were again assembled, when spiced cake and cheese were served out, the women having tea and the men a pint of good ale as an accompaniment, and afterwards a glass of punch. ‘Health and long life to the Mayor’ was drunk with a sincerity and warmth of feeling rarely to be met with at a civic feast.

• A special festive thank you goes out to all our wonderful volunteers, whose time and dedication over the past two years has made the whole thing possible. We raise a glass of something mulled to you at Christmas!