When More was Said than Done is a project based on the correspondence that was generated under the New Poor Law. From the 1830s poor law related correspondence increased with letters from the central poor law authorities, from poor law unions, from individual union guardians and officers, and from individual paupers, the wider poor and their advocates. These letters traversed England and Wales (and occasionally beyond) through the postal system carrying details of poor law financial issues, other administrative matters, accounts of unemployment, requests for advice on individual paupers, concerns on health and medicine – and so much more. Many (indeed most) letters generated further letters in the shape of responses – some required the initial recipient to write elsewhere for information that once received necessitated a later responses – and in this way single letters generated multiple additional letters. The result of this active writing meant that millions of poor law letters, reports, memos etc. were sent under the New Poor Law. They are an essential “collection” for poor law historians. Although one of the major poor law collections, poor law correspondence is scatted across various record offices in England Wales and most of this has been little used by historians. We hope our project helps in some way to rectify this.
Project Scope
The New Poor Law spanned 1834 to 1930 – but our project will focus on the 1840s and 1850s. The archival base of the project will be 1) the central subject indexes to the Poor Law Correspondence (MH12), covering the same 1840s/50s period. These indexes are held by The National Archives (TNA) at Kew; and 2) a collection of letter books from the Abergavenny Poor Law Union (Monmouthshire), Anglesey Poor Law Union (Anglesey), Bedford Poor Law Union (Bedfordshire), Berwick Poor Law Union (Northumberland), Duverton Poor Law Union (Somerset) and the Holywell Poor Law Union (Flintshire).
What Will We Do
We will catalogue – for a full decade – the central poor law indexes and letter books from the poor law unions lists in the section above. This cataloguing work will be made available online.
Project Members:
* Linda Bankier, Berwick Archivist (Northumberland Archives), Berwick Record Office, Berwick-upon-Tweed [info to be included].
* Pamela Birch, County Archivist, Bedfordshire Archives, Bedford, [info to be included].
* Dr Paul Carter: is employed at The National Archives as a principal records specialist and works across the modern domestic collections on collaborative projects. He has worked extensively on the records created under the New Poor Law, particularly those created or collected by the central poor law authorities. He has also worked at the universities of Leicester, Northampton and Nottingham, researching or teaching within themes across modern social British History.
* Claire Harrington: Y Prif Archifydd, Principal Archivist, Archifau Gogledd Ddwyrain Cymru (Penarlâg), North East Wales Archives (Hawarden), [info to be included].
Esther Hoyle: Archives Engagement Manager, Somerset Archives and Local Studies, South West Heritage Trust, [info to be included].
* Professor Steven King: is employed at Nottingham Trent University and has worked extensively on questions of power, agency and practice under the Old and New Poor Laws. In particular he has been concerned with our understandings of and explanations for spatial variation in the intent of the poor law.
* Dr Lisa Snook, FARA, County Archivist/Archifydd y Sir, Gwent Archives/Archifau Gwent, Ebbw Vale / Glyn Ebwy, [info to be included].
* Amanda Sweet, Archifydd/Archivist, Archifau Ynys Môn/Anglesey Archives [info to be included].
Projects, Poverty and the Poor Under the Poor Laws 