The Poor.
When the Monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII, the first authorised parochial machinery was established for the relief of the poor and for suppressing vagrancy. An act was passed authorising the head officers of every parish to receive and keep all poor applicants, putting the able-bodied to constant labour. The necessary funds were to be derived from voluntary contributions collected by the officers, and also the proceeds of stimulating sermons in the churches. But the voluntary system proved a failure, and it was left for Elizabeth to introduce the principle of compulsory taxation for this purpose. The statute 43rd Elizabeth, chap. 2, was kept in full operation till the passing of the Poor-law Amendment Act, in 1834. In the time of Elizabeth, cottage building for the poor was an object of great jealousy to the inhabitants of towns and villages, who dreaded the location of paupers amongst them, and took immense pains to "pass on" any mendicants who happened to stray within their boundary. Officers were usually appointed to "remove intruders," and these knowing "porrochials" would not infrequently offer a bribe when no other means had availed for ejecting the obnoxious tramp from a parish. By an act (31 Eliz.) it was declared that "no cottage should be erected unless there be four acres of ground of their own freehold to be continually used therewith." The operation of this statute was often attended with great 'privation and suffering to the poor, and the Sessions Rolls of this county abound with petitions and memorials to the bench on the subject. In 1612, William Dench, labourer, of Longdon, in his petition, set forth that "being destitute of habitation, and having a wife and seven small children, William Parsons, of Longdon, in charity took him to live in a little sheepcot of his in the said towne, with the consent of the churchwardens and overseers; but because yr poor orator (the usual term for "petitioner") had not licence in open Quarter Sessions, nor under the hands and seals of the lords of the manor, and because the said sheepcot standeth on the freehold of William Parsons, and not on the waste, contrary to the act 43rd Elizabeth, chap. 2, therefore he was indicted and is sued to an outelary (outlawry), petitions for pardon and for a licence to continue in the said sheepcot."
The Worcester County Quarter Sessions, 1660, made an order that all cottages erected since the late war should be "pluckt downe" as a "greate grievance," and that no house-room should be provided for "lusty young married people," who, if they unwisely married before they had got houses, were told to "lye under an oke." A few years previously, one Corbett, a Parliamentary soldier, settled at Bricklehampton, and purchased half-an-acre of land to build a house upon. The parishioners, it seems, were content, but the lord of the manor refused. On application to the Sessions, leave was granted to build.
Two years later, in consequence of great complaints of the country being much burdened and impoverished, the magistrates ordered that the constables should cause every parish to be surveyed and inspected as to how many cottages (and under what conditions) had been erected during the last forty years. It had also been ordered that every person apprehending a vagrant, and bringing him to a constable or tithingman, should have 12d. a piece for them—this step being considered necessary in consequence of "the great charge of wandering beggars and the efforts made in other counties to reduce them." Many persons were indicted for erecting cottages without having the necessary quantity of land attached; their cottages were pulled down, and all their little substance destroyed. Poor people were driven to herd together, great numbers in one house, or to sleep in sheds and in the open air; and thus a law which was intended to suppress mendicancy resulted in great suffering to the lower classes, and undoubtedly to the engendering of filth, disease, and crime. So scrutinizing were the precautions against a liability to support the poor, that no person who belonged to that unfortunate class could travel out of his parish into another, and accept employment and a lodging there, without a certificate from the churchwardens and overseers of his own parish that in case he should ever require relief they would take him back. The following memorials are sad pictures of poverty and suffering in the seventeenth century:
"The humble petition of the poore distressed towne of Duddeley, most lamentablie complaineth and sheweth unto your good worships that whereas heretofore wee have with our willinge duetie and bounden service acknowledged our obedience unto his majestie, and in the tyme of God's visitation upon your worships' commande did compassionatelie contribute unto the citie of Worcester, may it now please you that our poore towne havinge greivous experience of sicknesse which hath continued almost for three quarters of an yeare: and our said towne standing principallie on poore handicrafts men: who are much impoverished and now themselves wante ayde who heretofore dyd contribute to the releife of the poorer sorte and likewise wee havinge att this instant seven score children by reason of this sicknesse, who either want father or mother or both and many of these besides divers: in like or greater wante. And for that the same sicknesse doth continewe and suspected to increase unto our farther impoverishment and iminent danger of famishment of many amongst us wee havinge strayned our utmost abilitie for there succour until this instant and not able furthur to sustayne there wants doe most humblie petitionate and beseech your worship to tender our miserie and considerate our neede by collection and contribution within the countie whereby the poore will be comforted and preserved and thus for God's cause. Tendringe our humble suit to the consideration of your mercifull affections, wee in all humilitie remember ye service restinge to protest and confirme the truth hereof at your worships' command.
"RICHARD FFOLEY, Mayor.
"HENRY JACKSON, Vicar.
"RICHARD FINCH, Bailiff.
"(And a number of inhabitants.)
"Duddeley,
8th of
April, 1616.
"The consideration of this petition is referred to Sir Francis Egiock and Sir Richard Grevys, knights, who are desired to take order therein accordinge to justice."
The following petition is dated 1693:
"The humble petition of ye poore inhabitants of ye Tything of Whistones, humbly showeth, that the said inhabitants, through the greatness of the several taxes and dayley increase of our poore (to whom we pay 4s. per pound) and all manner of provision so excessively dear, by means thereof most of ye contributors to the poore are reduced so low to their very small estates and mean imployments that they are not able to mayntain them aney longer unless yr worships will be charitably influenced to redress our grievances, wee being the true objects of yr compassionate consideration; your petitioners therefore most humbly pray that yr worships would be favourably pleased to consider our necessitous condition, and either to annex and joine us unto Claynes, being our parish, to which undoubtedly ye said tything is a member and thereunto belongeth, or to order us the hundred money as formerly, or as Parshore, by some adjacent parishes to help us and ease the unsupportable burden which our shoulders have and still groan under, without which timely assistance many of our poor fellow Christians will unavoidably perish and languish through miserable hunger and want."
In the parish records of Claines (now in the churchwardens' chest of that church) an allusion to this petition is entered on one of the account books, to this effect, that upon the complaint of the inhabitants of the hundred of Oswaldslow, of the great burthen of the poor of the Tything of Whistones, alleging that the same township was in the town of Claines, an examination into the facts was intrusted to the Lord Windsor, Sir E. Dineley, and others, when the inhabitants of Claines showed that the township of Whistones was an ancient township, and had "parishtionall officers" to themselves, and was not in the parish of Claines, but anciently had its own church, and that the township was never included in the parish of Claines, and that the poor there had received relief of the hundred from time immemorial—at least from the time of King James—and never from Claines; that it had been questioned in the time of King James, but could never be shown that Claines had paid to their poor. The Court thereupon would not alter proceedings observed for so long a time, and discharged Claines from the said poor, except by paying its share as a part of the said hundred.
Vagrancy—notwithstanding the extraordinary vigilance exercised for its suppression—maintained a flourishing existence. The following is one of the earliest instances of the "begging letter imposture," and a greater specimen of impudence probably was never exhibited by any member of the class who have in our own days become so notorious:
"To the Worshipful Robert Charlton.
"Though I am unknown to you, yet the report of your courteous behaviour towards all gentlemen in distress emboldeneth me to beseech you to take into your favourable consideration the sad condition which I am now in, who for my loyalty to the King was by the great tyrant (Cromwell) banished and sent into the West Indies, where I thought I had shot the very gulfe of affliction, but cominge lately from thence (in a ship bounde for London) was by tempest at sea driven into Wales amongst a salvadge people, who had noe regarde to my misery (although I am become the very object of pittie), soe that in my jorney hither I have tasted of the bitterness of adversitie, for I am in such a nasty ragged posture that I am ashamed to present myself before aney person of quallitie; yet beinge destitute of money to beare my charges to London (or acquaintance in these parts to borrow of), fame of your most noble and generous disposition gives me encouragement to presume upon your goodness, hopeing you will be pleased to accommodate me with a small sum, and if it please God that I ever come into this country againe I will repay it. Moreover you will perpetually oblige him whose ambition is to stile himself
"Your servante,
"JOHN SEAMOUR.
"Sir,—I am well known to your son, Mr. Job Charlton, and I doubt not but you have heard of me. I am that Seymour who delivered the last letter from his majesty that now is to the late king upon the scaffold, a little before he was murthered, therefore I beseech you let me receive your answer by one of your owne servants, for I am unwilling that aney base peasant should know my condition.
"May 8, 1661."
Another handwriting on the same document records that, "Upon examination of the above-named Seamour I finde nothing of truth in the above letter, neyther that he was banished by Cromwell, nor that he hath ever been in West Indies, or that he landed in Wales; but this I find that he hath been a wanderer almost all over England, and knoweth most men of any quallitie in the kingdom, and hath changed his name so oft that he hath almost forgot it. It is also reported that he hath one wife at Harford, with another at Bristol"—(the remainder of the document is destroyed).
It appears by another that Seamour informed Mr. Charlton that he had been "the king's tutor and bedfellow for seven years, and had preached the late king's funeral sermon!" The art of impudence could not much further go; and it is probable, by an information being laid at the Sessions, that the fellow received his reward, but the books containing convictions and sentences of that date are not in existence.
In 1698, however, I find on the books that "Wm. Bilson, for wandring abroad with a false letter of request, p'tending a ffire at Icomb, be publicly whipt on Saturday next." Five years later it was "ordered, for the carrying of vagrants, that the constable be allowed 2d. per mile for one horse, and by the same proportion for two or three horses, or if a teame having three or more horses, then to allow them 6d. per mile, and to allow the passengers 5d. per head for their night's lodging and necessaries." In 1714 an order "touching the settlement of Ann Guise" was quashed on the ground of "there being no such place as Leye-Shinton." The magistrates' geographical knowledge must have been somewhat limited if they were unaware of the existence of a place but five miles off. It is probable, however, there was some legal technicality in the matter, and that Leigh Sinton, which is only a hamlet or place in the parish of Leigh, had been represented as a parish of itself, which the bench could not admit. I now give an interesting document relative to the mode of proving a pauper's settlement in 1738:
"Upon the appeal of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish of Camden, in the county of Gloucester, to an order of removal of Mary Calcott from the parish of Kingsnorton, in the said county of Worcester, it appeared to this court, upon the examination of the said Mary Calcott, taken upon her oath in court, that the said Mary Calcott was, upon All Saint's Day, in the yeare of our Lord 1735, hired with John Ellis, of Camden, chapman, for a year, to spin with yarn, at the rate of 1s. 6d. a stone, and that she was to provide herself with meat, drink, washing, and lodging, where she pleased, and that she spunn for him the whole year, and lodged in her said master's house, and boarded with him at Camden, and received 1s. 6d. a stone for her work, allowing her master 2s. 6d. per week for her lodging and board. And upon her examination she said that by her said contract as aforesaid she thought she was not at liberty to work for any other master, but she thought she was at liberty to play or be absent from her work as long as she pleased, being to be paid att a certain rate for her work done. Wherfore it is the opinion of this court that the said hyring and service aforesaid was not sufficient to gain for the said Mary Calcott a settlement in the parish of Camden, and this court doth accordingly reverse the said order of removal."
A refusal to serve the office of overseer by a resident of the Cathedral precincts (in the year 1804) may be unknown to the present inhabitants of that locality, to whom it will prove interesting:
"I, Francis Stafford, one of the sextons of the Cathedral Church of Christ and the blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester, do hereby give you and each of you, and all others whom it may concern, notice that I shall appeal to the next general Quarter Sessions of the Peace, to be holden at the Guildhall of the city of Worcester, against the nomination and appointment made by you under your hands and seals, and bearing date July, 1804, whereby you nominated and appointed me by the name and description of 'Francis Stafford, a substantial householder of the vill and hamlet of the precincts of the Cathedral Church of Christ and the blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester, in the county of Worcester, to be overseer of the said vill and hamlet;' and be pleased to take notice, that the grounds of my appeal are—that the said precincts are not nor never were reputed to be a vill and hamlet, nor a place for which an appointment of overseer is directed by law. And further, that the said precincts are not, nor were, nor at any time have been reputed to be, a vill, village, hamlet, or township, nor a place for which an appointment of overseer is directed by law.
"Witness my hand, &c.,
"FRANCIS STAFFORD.
"T. Dowdeswell, Esq., and
"Henry Salmon, clerk."
The order for the appointment was quashed at the October Sessions of the same year. Exemption from the interruption of the civil powers was what all the great monastic establishments sooner or later obtained, but that of Worcester had a long struggle with the hereditary sheriffs of the county before its immunity from their officers could be obtained. The Reformation introduced great changes, and the precincts of the Cathedral became part of the outer county, but still they remain independent of the city or county interior, being a separate district under the superintendence of the Dean and Chapter.
