The Poor Law Commissioners’ reservations over district relief committees was not
extended to district assistant overseers, whom the central authority keenly desired the
unions to appoint. They were seen as being more efficient than township overseers and,
very importantly, district overseers were appointed by, and responsible to, the
Guardians, not the vestries. However, there was no law to compel townships to
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
abandon their overseers in favour of the Commissioners’ preferred district officers: so
their appointment had to be sought by other means.
Shortly after Ulverston Union became operative, and possibly prompted by Voules,
the Commissioners requested the Board to consider the proposal that collectors of rates
and assistant overseers be appointed for the union. Ulverston typically appointed a
committee to investigate the expediency of such a policy, the number of officers that
would be required, and whether or not their duties should include those of both
collectors and overseers. They reported in favour of the proposal and recommended
four districts. All the townships with the exception of Dalton, Aldingham, and
Urswick, assented to the appointment of combined ‘district collectors and overseers’,
but with the wish that existing township churchwardens and overseers be given first
chance of the appointments.39
Dalton had a strong ‘four-and-twenty’ which, in the form of the vestry, had
administered poor relief prior to unionization. They also appointed all the parish
officers, a control they presumably did not want to lose as it encroached upon church
matters, in which they were also heavily involved. Otherwise, Dalton appears to have
been a co-operative township, which even voted in favour of the controversial union
workhouse at Ulverston, when Dalton itself had only about ten years previously built a
large new one. Smaller Urswick, on the other hand, with a population of under 800
from 1821 to 1841, was to prove ‘ever-difficult’. Aldingham, a single-township parish,
is rarely mentioned in union records, but as the third member of the Dalton district the
township had perhaps little option but to follow the other two.
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
Colton, which also had a four-and-twenty, subsequently announced that it, too,
would retain its own officers, perhaps because Voules intimated that the Poor Law
Commission would be unlikely to sanction the election of Colton’s constable as district
overseer because he had recently been fined for neglect of duty. The four dissenting
townships each kept their individual officers (although, unexpectedly, Colton’s
constable was not among them), while three district officers were appointed for the rest
of the union.40 This slightly mixed arrangement continued throughout the period of this
thesis.
Garstang’s Guardians had been prompted to consider the appointment of district
assistant overseers when they came under the rules and regulations of the
Commissioners, but they preferred to keep their existing township officers. Power felt
that, unaided, he would be unable to persuade them from this view, and he therefore
proposed to seek the assistance of Garstang's ex officio Guardians, who were ‘almost
universally in favour of district overseers from their experience of the manner in which
some of the separate overseers conduct their business’. He also requested forms from
the Poor Law Commissioners, devised and printed in such a way that when he lay them
before the Board, it would appear that the appointment of district overseers was an
Order, and that it was only necessary for the union to fill in the blanks with the
necessary local detail. ‘Generally I feel that I shall be able to effect my object by those
means’, Power confided to the Commissioners.41
Like the Poor Law Commissioners, Power saw the retention of township overseers
as one of the great impediments to the acceptance of the New Poor Law. He believed
40 Lancs. CRO, PUU/1/1, Ulverston Gdns. Mins., 25/5/1837, 13/7/1837
41 Lancs. CRO, PUY/1/1, Garstang Gdns. Mins., 6/12/1838,21/3/1839; PRO, MH32/63, Power to
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
they came into frequent contact with ratepayers in a number of ways and, not wanting
to lose their jobs, they spread propaganda against the New Poor Law at every
opportunity. Power also explained to the Commissioners that ratepayers in the small
townships were particularly averse to losing their own overseer. ‘They cannot bear to
see a stranger come into the township to take away their money’ and they valued the
‘irregular indulgence’ allowed them of paying the township overseer ‘at their own
convenience’. Furthermore, ‘having been at war so long with neighbours over
settlement, it appears impossible to them that anybody but their own overseer can feel
any regard for the interests of their township’. So strongly were these views held that
Power even confessed defeat when presenting the argument ‘that carries most weight’,
namely, that a few district assistant overseers would be cheaper, as well as better, than
many township overseers. ‘Only let us have our own overseers and we will undertake
they shall do it for the same’, they answered. Power explained to the Commissioners
that this meant that it would be done ‘inefficiently, be open to mistakes and be no
cheaper as the reduced salaries will be made up from the highway rate or voluntary
contributions from rate-payers’.42
However, Power’s ploy worked at Garstang exactly as he had planned. On the day
fixed for re-considering district overseers, three ex officio Guardians were present at
the Board meeting. One of the magistrates proposed that ‘assistant overseers should be
appointed pursuant to the warrant of the Poor Law Commissioners’, namely district
assistant overseers as opposed to parish officers. A second magistrate also proposed
that the districts, number of overseers, and salaries,be adopted ‘according to the
warrant’. Both motions were seconded by ebullient, elected Guardian Mr. Crook, and
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
were voted through. As a result, within a fortnight, four district assistant overseers
replaced the 23 township officers. The circumstances under which Fylde Union
appointed similar district overseers is unknown, but both Garstang and Fylde were cited
in the Annual Report of the Commissioners for that year, as being two out of six named
unions in Lancashire which had made such appointments - with ‘advantageously’
implied.43
It is highly likely that, in the year prior to this, Power had also sought the assistance
of ex officio Guardians at Ormskirk Union as four magistrates, including Lord
Skelmersdale and Sir Thomas Hesketh, who were making their first, and last, visit to
the Board, were in attendance when the subject of district officers was first raised. If
that were the purpose they were insufficiently persuasive as the Ormskirk Board
decided against district overseers and instead recommended each township to nominate
an assistant overseer ‘to perform all the duties of overseers save relieving the poor’.
Each township was also to suggest a salary for its own overseer. These varied between
two guineas and £45.44
Twelve months later Power again encouraged consideration of district overseers at
Ormskirk, but again the Guardians rejected them, though it was agreed that the salaries
that had previously been suggested for the parish overseers were now ‘too great an
expense’, and most of them were to be reviewed downwards. It was perhaps Ormskirk
as well as Garstang, and possibly others, that Power had in mind when commenting
upon the Guardians’ negative reaction to his efforts to tempt them with the thought of
43 Lancs. CRO, PUY/1/1, Garstang Gdns. Mins., 4/4/1839,18/4/1839, Fifth Annual Report o f the PLC, 1839, pp.30/31.
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
the financial saving in having just a few district officers 45 A further year passed before,
in March, 1840, no doubt encouraged by his success at Garstang the previous year,
Power tried a similar ruse on Ormskirk. Once again the scheme worked. Attending an
almost one hundred per cent Board meeting of Ormskirk’s elected Guardians, he
‘presented the order of the 10th instant forming this union into districts and ordering
the appointment of three district overseers’. After hearing Mr. Power’s statements and
explanations it was unanimously resolved, and diplomatically worded, that ‘the Board is
perfectly satisfied with the present system and will part with the same with very great
regret, but in order to give the new system a trial’ such officers will be advertized for by
means of handbills to be circulated throughout the union.46 No ex officio Guardians
were present on this occasion, but then they rarely were at Ormskirk. It is perhaps
noteworthy that the ex officio chairman was also absent on this and the other occasions
in the three years when assistant overseers were discussed. He had been the vicar-
respondent to the Royal Commission questionnaire for Ormskirk township who spoke
highly of parish administration of relief under parish officers supervised by himself, but
who had been outspoken about the jobbing that had taken place under the two periods
of select vestry administration. His absence may have been coincidental, or he perhaps
preferred to abstain from the discussion. But whatever the reason there is never any
suggestion that he was against the New Poor Law per se. Indeed his role as chairman
of the Board suggests that he strongly supported it.
45 Lancs. CRO, PUS/1/1, Ormskiik Gdns. Mins., 14/3/1839; PRO, MH32/63, Power to PLC, 22/2/1839
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
Conclusion
There was, then, no principled opposition to either the organization or policy of the
New Poor Law in the four rural unions. Such pockets as there were, were short-lived,
and seem to have derived mainly from conservative preference for old, familiar ways.
There was the early refusal of Bamacre with Bonds to elect a Guardian, and what may
have been an omission rather than a refusal on the part of the three other Garstang
Union townships, but such responses petered out once the union had become fully
operative. Though Urswick had initially been described as ‘terribly opposed’, Voules
shortly afterwards could say of the union as a whole that ‘the inhabitants generally are
not only reconciled to the change but are anxious for its adoption’.47 However, Urswick
never seems to have been a happy member of the union, and her various Guardians
seem to have been either uninterested or disposed to object. The objections do not
follow any discernible pattern, except, perhaps, fear of expense.
Information on the early implementation of the Ormskirk Union was sparse, perhaps
because there was no opposition to record to either the organization or policy of the
New Poor Law. The ratepayers and the Guardians were prepared to give the new law a
fair trial which resulted, after three years’ experience of it, in their being:
well-satisfied with the introduction of the poor law into the union, well-satisfied with its results and hoping with some confidence that its operations may continue to be attended with the same quietness, good order and success.48
Their Chairman, vicar of Ormskirk and son in law of powerful landowner, Sir Thomas
Dalrymple Hesketh, Bart., of Rufford, was both influential and experienced in poor law
matters under the Old Poor Law. The Guardians were reluctant for a time to dispense
47 PRO, MH12/6320, Voules to PLC, Aug, 1836
Six - The Implementation of the Unions
with their township assistant overseers, but this hardly constituted hostility as there was
no law or ruling which stated that they must do so. Alternatively, it could be seen as
creditable that, satisfied as they declared themselves to be with the existing township
system, they were nevertheless willing to change to district officers. The separate
district relief office of Garstang Union was also achieved for pragmatic purposes rather
than as the result of hostility, a circumstance borne out by steadily increasing attendance
at the full Board meetings of the union.
The Act was thus introduced relatively painlessly in rural Lancashire, eased by the
role of landed magistrates in some areas, and the preconceptions on the benefits of the
New Poor Law of some Guardians, and the open-mindedness of others, which together
outweighed any residual hostility. The lack of anything approaching violence or of
other than isolated, rather low-key hostility, must also diminish the accepted view of
obstreperous Lancashire and strengthen the plea for its revision.
Seven - Outdoor Relief under the New Poor Law
7
OUTDOOR RELIEF UNDER THE NEW POOR LAW
The extent and nature of outdoor relief under the New Poor Law is another area of
considerable debate. Most attention has been paid to the able-bodied, but concentrating
on them alone distorts the picture of the functions of the New Poor Law and the varied
types of outdoor relief adopted. A broader view of relief policies is therefore necessary
in order to judge the extent of change, and the possible hardening of attitude associated
with the New Poor Law.
In the past historians have viewed indoor and outdoor relief as mutually exclusive,
but detailed study of relief under the New Poor Law in the four rural unions of
Lancashire, reveals that there was considerable interconnectedness and overlap between
the two. Some policies were shared, for instance the central authority directives on
apprenticeship, which applied universally to pauper children wherever they were
domiciled. Medical aid was a further example of shared relief. The medical officer who
visited the workhouse also had as his patients the outdoor poor of his district. And
when Ulverston's medical officers were instructed by the Board of Guardians to treat
their indigent patients as they did their private patients there was no differentiation
between indoor and outdoor paupers in the admonition. Vagrants also defied
Seven - Outdoor Relief under the New Poor Law
categorization. Even when the Poor Law Commission began in 1842 to formulate a
general policy for their relief, many unions with unsuitable workhouse premises or sites
were unable to pursue their recommendations.. A vagrant or poor wayfarer might
therefore be relieved with a ticket for a common lodging house; be accommodated with
the other inmates of the union workhouse; be kept separately from them and the
opposite sex, in a vagrants' ward; spend the night in a union ‘trampers' house’, or be
refused relief of any sort whether indoor or outdoor. All these means of relief were
present or attempted at one time or another in the four rural unions. So was the
travelling wayfarer an indoor or an outdoor pauper if he were fed and accommodated in
the workhouse for just a single night? Which appellation applied if the vagrant
department were located in a private cottage where the occupier was paid by the union
to superintend her establishment? And how is the vagrant classed who spent a night in
a common lodging house, but at the ratepayers’ expense on a ticket from the relieving
officer?
There were, additionally, no indestructible barriers which divided the independent
worker from either the indoor or outdoor pauper, and many working people
experienced all three forms of existence in a normal lifetime of varied fortune.
Sickness, accident, unemployment, a young family, old age and other vicissitudes put
independence at risk. Depending upon union policy at the time the unfortunate could
become indoor or outdoor recipients of relief: outdoor paupers who became orphaned,
and deserted wives and children, were likely to see the inside of a workhouse. A
change of season, a good harvest, an upsurge in the trade cycle, the extension of a road
or railway, an apprenticeship, a position as a servant, the apprehension of the deserter,
Seven - Outdoor Relief under the New Poor Law
a maintenance order, and so forth, offered re-entrance to the outside world and
possibly independence. Pauperism was therefore a fluid situation and frequently could
not be compartmentalized. And as the records frequently do not indicate whether an
entry refers to an indoor or outdoor pauper, the distinctions are further blurred.
Outdoor relief was also a more diffuse form of support than indoor relief. The
purpose of a workhouse, whatever its physical form in the fifteen or so years before and
after the Poor Law Amendment Act, was to offer shelter, and most usually succour, to
the indigent: and there were limitations to the ways in which this could be achieved.
Outdoor relief, on the other hand, could vary significantly, and it is with some of the
major forms of such relief in the four rural unions of Lancashire that this chapter is
concerned. According to the Poor Law Commission, ‘causeless diversity’
characterized the policies of townships under the Old Poor Law, but when they were
constrained to act together as a union a common policy had to be achieved.1 Outdoor
relief here, therefore, tends to be viewed from the perspective of the administrators
rather than the more usual one of the paupers, a bias emphasized by the use of the
Guardians’ minutes as the principal source.