Pictures at a Workhouse (after Mussorgsky…and Emerson, Lake and Palmer!)

_{‘Eventide: A Scene in the Westminster Workhouse’, Hubert von Herkomer (1878)}

On the 7^th of January this year, The Sun newspaper ran the startling headline:

Lags to Riches: prison chiefs blasted for blowing £12 million of taxpayers’ money on TVs for lags

It reported that the authorities had been criticised for buying 128,000 flat screen TVs for prisoners. Predictably, The Sun had no trouble finding members of the public who were outraged by this generosity. One commented that, ‘It’s just another slap in the face for victims who think those behind bars should be punished and not handed out treats’, and others called it ‘an utter waste of money’. Yet a hundred and fifty years ago a very similar row erupted in the papers over the purchase of pictures which were bought to make the workhouse in Huddersfield a less cheerless places for inmates. Clearly, there’s nothing new under The Sun!

The topic back then was raised in The Huddersfield Chronicle (4 April 1863) by an anonymous correspondent who accused the Chairman of the Board of Guardians, Mr Clayton, of profligacy and wasting ratepayers money for buying pictures. ‘Judge [the Board’s] amazement’, he wrote, ‘when the bill was presented. Instead of a few shillings, thirty-one pounds ten shillings were the figures! £31.10s!’ He asked, ‘how many doors has an Overseer to call [on] before he can collect that sum? How many months will it take one of the weavers of Sheepbridge, the cloth-dresser of Paddock, or the delver of Cowcliffe, to earn that sum?’ He calculated that each picture had cost on average nine shillings, and (echoing The Sun’s outrage) wondered why the money could not be better spent for the benefit of the deserving poor who struggled to pay their rates.

In response, Mr Clayton stated that the pictures had been purchased on the advice of the Commissioners of Lunacy, and he thought that it ‘reflected more honour on [the Board] than almost any other act which they had accomplished’ (Huddersfield Chronicle, 18 April 1863). Unfortunately, when the accounts of the Union were examined later in the year, the auditor clearly disagreed. He issued a surcharge for the value of the pictures, deciding that the ‘cost [was] both excessive and an illegal use of ratepayers money’ (MH 12/15080/38537). Furthermore, far from being restricted to the imbecile wards, as recommended by the Commissioners for Lunacy, a grand total of seventy pictures had apparently been spread across both the old and the new workhouses. The full list was provided in correspondence between the Board of Guardians and the Poor Law Board, including details of where they were hung (MH 12/38527 and MH 12/15081).

_{Distribution of Pictures at the Huddersfield Union Workhouses (MH12/15081, 4 February 1864)}

Perhaps surprisingly, the surcharge was subsequently overturned by the Poor Law Board which stated that the pictures could be counted as furniture and as such the Guardians had the authority to buy them (even though it did tend to agree with the Auditor that pictures were not really proper furniture for a workhouse – MH 12/15081, 1 Feb 1864). Even more surprisingly, given what we think we know about workhouse life, the use of pictures to cheer up dismal interiors appears not to have been uncommon. A report in the Daily News, in December 1871, described the walls of St Pancras workhouse as ‘thickly hung with pictures’, while those of the day room at Basingstoke apparently had ‘a liberal supply of pictures [to] relieve…their monotony’, according to the Hants and Berks Gazette.

Tantalisingly, the list from Huddersfield only gives the titles of the pictures, which makes it difficult to confirm exactly which ones were purchased; but we can at least get a feeling for the tastes of the guardians. There were a number of landscapes, including ‘The Rush Gatherers on Loch Corrib’ (possibly by James John Hill), ‘Early Summer’, ‘Town and Castle’, ‘Bay of Naples’ and ‘The Rifle Corps at Hyde Park’ (possibly by C.J. Culliford).

_{‘Grand Review of the Volunteer Rifle Corps by her Majesty the Queen’, C.J. Culliford (1860)}

_{‘Rush Gatherers on Lough Corrib’, James John Hill (ca.1860)}

There were several battle scenes, some from the Crimean War and three different views of the battle of the Alamo. A few (though perhaps not as many as might have been expected) had religious themes, including, ‘Christ on the Cross’, ‘Christ Stilling the Tempest’ and the ‘Baptism of Christ’. Several titles imply a taste for Victorian romanticism – ‘French boys Birdsnesting’, for example, ‘Child-like ‘Innocence’ and ‘Does She Love Me’ – while it is to be hoped that the ‘The Old Shepherd’s Last Mourner’ did not make its way onto the walls of the Old Mens’ Day Room!

_{‘Birds Nesting’, Francis Hayman, R.A. (ca.1741-1742)}

_{‘The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner’, Sir Edwin Landseer (1837)}

Again, there were surprisingly few portraits among the pictures: two of Napoleon, but only one of Queen Victoria, a picture entitled ‘Regal and Imperial Cortege in Paris’ which had been published in the Illustrated London News (25 August 1855) to commemorate a visit to Paris in that year.

_{‘Regal and Imperial Cortege in Paris’, Illustrated London News (1855)}

In fact, it’s quite possible that several of the pictures on the Huddersfield list came from the Illustrated London News, which produced regular ‘Coloured Supplements’. Readers were encouraged to frame these inserts and hang them on their walls, and it seems likely that they became a common feature in workhouses as well. An article in the Globe & Traveller of 30 November 1895 indicates this custom was well-established by the end of the century. It noted that they were prized possessions in workmen’s houses, and urged readers to send unwanted colour plates to their local workhouses for inmates to frame and hang them on the walls.

As Dr Andy Gritt from Nottingham Trent University noted recently, images of workhouse interiors are difficult to find, especially in colour, so it is hard to know what they actually looked like. Judging by the number of pleas from newspaper correspondents for the public to donate pictures, it seems likely that they were regularly used from at least the middle of the nineteenth century to relieve otherwise drab walls. Huddersfield may not have been typical in spending quite so much on them, but contrary to expectations it seems that such pictures were not generally of a particularly improving or educational nature, either: instead, they were there primarily to add colour and little brightness to workhouse inmates’ lives. One suspects that, had it been around back then, The Sun would not have approved!

Roast Beef, as Much Pudding as you Can Eat – and the dangers of Cancelling Christmas!

Victorian Christmas Market, from Thomas Kibble Hervey, Book of Christmas (1859)

Christmas: traditionally the season to be jolly and to shop till you drop; when public transport lets you down and people bet on the chances of it being a white one!  Perhaps Christmas 2020 will be somewhat different: last minute shopping online, public transport almost an irrelevance (apart from for those desperately trying to escape from the dreaded Tier 4) and, looking at the weather forecast, we are due a wet one this year (so maybe not so different after all). Jolly isn’t the word that springs to mind when anticipating Christmas 2020.

Perhaps, though, it was ever thus. ‘Christmas in Barnsley’, was the title of an article in the Sheffield Evening Telegraph of 26 December 1891, reflecting on the lead-up to the festive period.

A foggy disagreeable night, cold and piercing, so dark that at times it was impossible to see objects but a dozen yards away. Christmas eve was not as busy as expected … trains ran very irregularly, and no wonder when it was impossible to see from signal to signal. Country people were late arriving in the town and business was conducted very hurriedly in most cases, notwithstanding the occasion was market day instead of Saturday.

Christmas Day in Whitechapel Workhouse, 1874

Nevertheless, ‘the festival of Christmas was kept up in the accustomed manner’. In the Barnsley Workhouse, inmates were eagerly anticipating their customary Christmas treat. The Guardians had voted for the usual Christmas dinner of beef and plum pudding, and they hadn’t forgotten a ‘drop of beer for the old men’. After dinner the children would receive oranges, nuts and sweets, the old men looked forward to their plug of tobacco and for the old women there would be tea. As the newspaper commented proudly, ‘there was something for all’. In a custom established by Richard Ines, a local magistrate, each child would receive a silver threepenny piece, and although Ines had died a few weeks previously, the Miners’ Permanent Fund had agreed to continue the custom. No doubt, as in other Unions across the country, the entertainment would continue after dinner with music and singing; and for once, the 8pm curfew would be relaxed. Christmas in the workhouse – a stark contrast to the inmates’ experience of workhouse living during the rest of the year.

But also, not an experience to be taken for granted. There were enough dissenting voices in some unions to put a halt to the Christmas spirit if the mood took them. In 1891, in Barnsley, while the workhouse inmates anticipated revelry, those on outdoor relief were in a more precarious position. It was traditional to pay out door paupers a small amount of extra relief in Christmas week – usually a shilling, paid to the ‘adult head of families now in receipt of outdoor relief’. The Guardians wrote to the Local Government Board (LGB) in London to ask for permission to make these payments, and perhaps were shocked to receive response that: ‘The Guardians have no legal authority to pass a general resolution increasing relief to out door paupers for a particular period.’ (MH 12/14701/105642). It isn’t known whether the outdoor paupers of Barnsley received their Christmas box that year, but the omens were not good!

The LGB’s response contrasted harshly with the one received by the Guardians of Abergavenny Union, after asking a similar question a few years later. In 1899, the Clerk to the Union wrote that, ‘In consequence of severe weather and its been Christmas [the Guardians] find they are wishfull to give each out door pauper – that is every head of a family and adult whose name appears in the out door lists, one shilling next week, and to ask you to be good enough to give your sanction thereto if it be necessary.’  This time, the LGB replied that ‘under special circumstances, such as the occurrence of Christmas, the out door relief may be increased by a resolution of the Guardians. No sanction by the [LGB] would be required to such resolution’ (MH 12/7987/157270).

In 1891, in Skipton, North Yorkshire, the Guardians considered giving workhouse inmates a ration of alcohol to accompany their Christmas dinner. The practice of allowing the Workhouse Master to accept gifts of beer and spirits for the inmates was discussed at a Board meeting: one Guardian moved that ‘the Master should reject offers of intoxicating drinks’, but another moved that he should accept them, ‘strongly deprecating any attempt to deprive the inmates, especially the old and infirm, of their usual Christmas cheer’. The latter amendment was supported by William Peden, who just happened to be a public house proprietor! The inmates got their ‘intoxicating drinks’ by the narrowest of margins: 11 votes for and 10 against (Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 7 December 1891).

Similarly, The Truth (3 December 1891) reported that, in Halifax, the Guardians, having succumbed to an appeal by the Ladies Temperance Society, had decreed that ‘inmates shall be denied their customary supply of beer this Christmas’. The Truth pondered, ‘if the reflection that they have deprived these unfortunate paupers of the only luxury Christmas was to bring them will make their Christmas the happier and the merrier?’

The Ladies Temperance Society was not alone in casting a disapproving eye on the practice of allowing alcohol to paupers at Christmas. In January 1868, an inmate of Bethnal Green Workhouse wrote to the East End Observer (MH 12/6855/3567) of his disgust at the behaviour he had witnessed that Christmas. He described an orgy of drunkenness and lascivious behaviour:

Sir allow me to call your attention to the proceedings of Late at Bethnal Green workhouse [at] Christmas time I have been an inmate of Bethnal Green workhouse for years and never before have I wittnessed such disgraceful proceedings [W]e were kept up on Christmas night till a very late hour the officers and inmates male and female were in our ward drinking and singing and on Boxing-day the male officers were drinking nearly all day and at supper time there was no one to Read prayers or grace they were all in such a disorderly state and worse … after supper there was a quantity of what are termed the Refractory girls dressed in men’s clothing dancing in the Hall with the officers male and female and I feel it my duty to make it known I think it is dreadful such goings on where the word of God is preached and no wonder then that Bethnal Green has such A Bad name I trust you will pardon the liberty I have taken

I Remain Sir your Humble Servant

Benjamin Smith an inmate

His account of the revelry did not go unchallenged, however. The following week, another inmate wrote that his account was ‘hardly credible … we enjoy our selves and that in a proper manner’. The workhouse was a godly place, he wrote, but ‘does that prevent people from injoying them selves?’ (East End Observer, 25 January 1868). He also cast doubt on the earlier correspondent’s credentials, suggesting darkly that there was no such Benjamin Smith in the workhouse.

Most newspaper reports of Christmas in the Workhouse paint a picture of a day of jollity and entertainment, and Guardians themselves were often described as serving dinner to the inmates. There are, however, some reports suggesting that even these small pleasures were denied, as might have happened in Barnsley. In 1868 riots were feared after the Guardians of Caxton and Arrington Union cancelled Christmas. A group of irate inmates wrote to the LGB on 22 December:

Honoured Sir

We The undersigned take the liberty to write these few lines to you to state our Grievances which is as follows the Old men & Women and Children and Sick are to have their fare for their Christmas Dinner as usual but the able bodied men & women are to be Deprived of it and not have any at all which is causing a great disturbance all throughout the union … We are affraid that some will kick up a Riot and some of the innocent persons will get sent to prison instead of the Guilty ones … we know that you understand and are able to inform us if we are right in our cause or not.

The letter was signed by ‘your humble petitioners, The able Bodied Inmates of the Caxton & Arrington Union’ (MH 12/604/62527).

In Liverpool, a correspondent wrote to the LGB complaining that a poor woman in the workhouse had had some Christmas treats confiscated from her. ‘The charge’, he wrote, ‘is refusing a poor woman to receive a little eatables at Christmas from a friend’, as they had been ‘taken away & detained by the governor’. ‘Will you say’, he asked the LGB, ‘whether it comes within the range of your authority’ to allow such behaviour? (MH 12/5995/362) Whatever the outcome in this case, according to the Liverpool Mercury, the correspondent’s friend would still have enjoyed the customary Christmas fare of roast beef and plum pudding. It reported that workhouse had been ‘beautifully decorated’ outside and in by the nurses and officers, while the dinner was overseen by the Master and Matron and attended by a number of Guardians. Even so, she might have wished she was at Toxteth Workhouse, a mile or so down the road where, according to the Mercury, inmates received roast beef and plum pudding, ‘of which there was an unlimited supply’. It continued, ‘There was, no doubt, many Oliver Twists on this occasion, but it is satisfactory to say that “in asking for more” they met with a ready and generous reply’ (Liverpool Mercury, 26 December 1883).

So, it seems, on Christmas Day at least, workhouse paupers had something to look forward to. In the strange times we’re living in now, we have also been looking forward to Christmas as a relief from the stresses of the pandemic, and even as our Christmas plans seem to get smaller by the day, the ITOW team send warm wishes for a good Christmas to all our readers, and to the volunteers who continue to make our work possible.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

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.