Almost inevitably, some of the tasks which required execution outside the Board Room
had to be delegated to committees of Guardians, and they were a feature, to a greater
or lesser degree, of most unions' government. Ad hoc committees were appointed for
a specific purpose such as determining districts, finding a site for a workhouse,
enquiring into the reaction of townships over certain issues, or as a deputation to a
30 Lancs. CRO, PUY/1/2 Garstang Gdns. Mins., 25/7/1844.
31 W. Proctor, ‘Poor Law Administration in Preston Union, 1838-1848’, T.H.S.L.C., vol. 117, 1965,
p. 163.
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
landowner. Others were permanent institutions, though with changing membership,
such as workhouse visiting committees.
Committees were not much in evidence at Ormskirk, Fylde or Garstang but at
Ulverston they were an integral part of union organization. The sharp contrast in the
use of committees within the four rural unions is probably due to the composition of
their Boards. A considerable number of Ulverston’s Guardians were gentlemen,
solicitors, clerics and the like, who had authority and administrative experience, and the
time to devote to the business of the union in addition to Board meetings. The
Guardians of the other three unions were mostly farmers with less time to spare and
perhaps less inclination for such work. Ulverston’s standing committees undertook, for
example, weekly inspections of the workhouse, monitored schooling and industrial
training, supervised building construction, deliberated over tenders and samples,
scrutinized bills prior to payment, performed regular quality controls to ensure that
supplies matched samples, checked the quantities of deliveries, and purchased scarce
commodities such as potatoes in the worst of the potato blight. One can see that such
organisation could lead to fragmentation of control, but it seems definitely not to have
developed in Ulverston. Committees were always appointed by the Board and they
were instructed when to meet and at what date they had to report back on their
progress and their recommendations. The Visiting Committee inspected the workhouse
and reported back, weekly on a rota system. All reports were discussed by the full
Board, and only the latter could pass resolutions on the matters at issue. The
committees appear to have performed their tasks conscientiously, and when it was
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
visit to the workhouse, a Guardian immediately left the Board to make the inspection
there and then.33 The committees were also extremely diligent. A supplier had l/6d.
deducted from his bill because it had been observed that a pauper’s coffin was too thin,
while goods from dried peas to red flannel were immediately returned to the contractors
if they were inferior to the samples, or short in weight. Should these not quickly be
made good the items were obtained from another source and the contractor charged
with any difference in price.34 .
But the most potentially fragmentary committees were those connected with
separately hearing claims for poor relief Midwinter states that administration of both
indoor and outdoor relief in Lancashire was controlled by sub-committees, each
consisting of the townships concerned and thereby retaining supervision of actual relief.
Boyson also states of the seven north-eastern unions, that only in Haslingden and
Clitheroe were cases heard by the full Board, and even in those two unions, each week
applicants were taken in a definite order according to settlement, with local Guardians
normally only attending to hear claims relevant to their own district.35 In contrast, in the
four rural unions, only Garstang Guardians separated to hear claims. In October, 1841,
the Garstang Board had agreed that after completing the general business of the
meeting, they should split up so that ‘for the purposes of relief the Guardians do hear
the same within their respective Relieving Officer's district and be divided into two
Boards for that purpose’.36 As Board meetings were held at a local inn it is likely that
33 Lancs. CRO, PUU/1/5, Ulverston Gdns. Mins., 4/5/1848
34 Lancs. CRO, Ulverston Gdns.’ Mins., many examples, PUU/1/1-5, passim.
35 E. C. Midwinter, ‘State Intervention at the Local Level: the New Poor Law in Lancashire’,
Historical Journal, vol. X, 1, 1967, p. 108; R. Boyson, ‘The New Poor Law in North-East Lancashire, 1834-37’, T .L .C .A S.. vol. LXX, 1960, p.37.
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
the two groups still remained under the same roof and in communication with each
other if necessary.
However, on 18 April 1843 the Garstang Board took advantage of the 7th section of
the 5th and 6th Victoria c.57 to apply for the sanctioning of a separate, local district
committee for four townships out on the moss (Preesall with Hackensall, Stalmine with
Staynall, Hambleton and Out Rawcliffe) to receive and examine applications for relief
and to report to the Guardians thereon. The law had been primarily intended to assist
certain towns whose Boards had sometimes to sit for many hours hearing claims from
large numbers of paupers. However, Section 7 allowed a separate district to be formed
whenever the whole of any parish was situated at a greater distance than four miles
from the place of meeting of the Board of Guardians. Garstang argued the case for its
rural self on the grounds of the ‘expence and great inconvenience’ of attending Board
meetings, to Guardians and paupers who lived furthest away. The townships in
question were eight to twelve miles away from Garstang as the crow flies, with much of
the terrain being low-lying marshland. Paupers had to walk long distances over difficult
ground to present their case to the Board, or to obtain some item of clothing, and they
then had to walk back again. In a personal letter to the Poor Law Commissioners, the
ex officio chairman described meeting with a woman on Rawcliffe Moss who on a hot
day was having to walk twenty miles round trip for a petticoat. Though it was a
measure not normally favoured by the Commissioners, the request for a district
committee was granted and henceforth it met at Hambleton School on the Tuesdays
which preceded the Thursday fortnightly, full-Board meetings at Garstang. A
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committee clerk and keeping a clothes store at the school for the convenience of
paupers in the district.37
One of the persuasions which had been advanced by the Garstang Board in its bid for
a district committee, was that two ex officio Guardians resided in the ‘splinter’ district
and could therefore be present at meetings. This enabled the Commissioners to make
three a quorum and so prevent the hearings degenerating, as they may have feared, into
‘a nod or a nay’ from the odd Guardian or justice. However, if the documentation for
1847/48 can be considered typical, the four elected Guardians were quite regular in
their attendances.38 The exact attendance figures out of a possible 27 were 19, 22, 17
and 21. But the two ex officio Guardians who lived in the area, and whose implied
presence had been used as an inducement, put in only one attendance between them
during the whole year. Nevertheless, having a separate relief committee seems not to
have been destructive, especially as attendances at the full Board meetings increased
over the years, (see Chapter 9).
Hearing claims separately was a widely held practice in industrial Lancashire, but
there is no evidence that it was so in any of the four rural unions other than Garstang,
and it is perhaps strange that the one with the least population and the smallest acreage
should be the one to have requested permission for a separate district relief committee.
Justification on the grounds of expense and distance to travel, could apply at least as
appropriately to the other unions, and most particularly to Ulverston. It may be that, in
the latter union, there was no nucleus of townships on the outskirts which desired to
37 Lancs. CRO, PUY/1/1, Garstang Gdns. Mins., 11/5/43; PRO, MH12/5825, T. R. W. France to PLC, 12/4/45; Boyson, ‘The New Poor Law in North East Lancashire, p.37
38 Lancs. CRO, PUY/1/1, Garstang Gdns. Mins. Return o f District Relief Committee attendances, 1847/48. (Loose document)
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
function separately. In any case, perhaps travelling established roads to Ulverston town
was as easy as covering shorter distances across-country, and more attractive as Board
meetings were held on market days. There was also a high incidence of Guardians on
the Ulverston Board who represented multiple townships, or who did not live in the
townships they represented, or who also owned land elsewhere and would therefore
have a personal interest in the business of other districts, (see Chapter 9) Lastly, and
perhaps most significantly, such a proposal would be quite uncharacteristic of the
Ulverston Board and would have been unlikely to be countenanced by a majority had it
been proposed.
Table 6.1: Populations and Acreages of the Four Unions
UNION ACREAGE POPULATION, 1841
Fylde 76,397 20,940
Garstang 62,617 13,007
Ormskirk 111,968 43,975
Ulverston 135,043 26,747
Source: 1841 census o f GJ3., sess.2, vol. II,