Justices of Gloucester
| Head servant in husbandry | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Second servant in husbandry | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Driving boy under fourteen | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Head maid servant or dairy servant | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| Mower in harvest without drink per day | 1 | 2 | |
| With drink | 1 | 0 | |
| Other day labourers with drink | 1 | 0 | |
| From corn to hay harvest with drink | 0 | 8 | |
| Mowers and reapers in corn harvest with drink | 1 | 0 | |
| Labourers with diet | 0 | 4 | |
| Without diet or drink | 0 | 10 | |
| Carpenter wheelwright or mason without drink | 1 | 2 | |
| With drink | 1 | 0 |
One of the witnesses pointed out that there were five millions of labourers making with their families eight millions, and that if the effect of raising their wages was to increase their expenditure by a penny a day, there would be an increase of consumption amounting to twelve millions a year. These arguments made little impression on the Committee, and the representations of the society were dismissed with contempt: ‘It is from an entire ignorance of the universal operation of the principle of Supply and Demand regulating the rate of wages that all these extravagant propositions are advanced, and recommendations spread over the country which are so calculated to excite false hopes, and consequently discontent, in the minds of the labouring classes. Among the most extravagant are those brought forward by the Society established for the purpose of bettering the condition of the manufacturing and agricultural labourers.’
POOR LAW REFORM
Pitt, having secured the rejection of Whitbread’s Minimum Wage Bill in 1796, produced his own alternative: Poor Law Reform. It is necessary to state briefly what were the Poor Law arrangements at the time of his proposals.
The Poor Law system reposed on the great Act of Elizabeth (1601), by which the State had acknowledged and organised the duty to the poor which it had taken over from the Church. The parish was constituted the unit, and overseers, unsalaried and nominated by the J.P.’s, were appointed for administering relief, the necessary funds being obtained by a poor rate. Before 1722 a candidate for relief could apply either to the overseers or to the magistrate. By an Act passed in that year, designed to make the administration stricter, application was to be made first to the overseer. If the overseer rejected the application the claimant could submit his case to a magistrate, and the magistrate, after hearing the overseer’s objection, could order that relief should be given. There were, however, a number of parishes in which applications for relief were made to salaried guardians. These were the parishes that had adopted an Act known as Gilbert’s Act, passed in 1782.[252] In these parishes,[253] joined in incorporations, the parish overseers were not abolished, for they still had the duty of collecting and accounting for the rates, but the distribution was in the hands of paid guardians, one for each parish, appointed by the justices out of a list of names submitted by the parishioners. In each set of incorporated parishes there was a ‘Visitor’ appointed by the justices, who had practically absolute power over the guardians. If the guardians refused relief, the claimant could still appeal, as in the case of the overseers, to the justices.
Such was the parish machinery. The method of giving relief varied greatly, but the main distinction to be drawn is between (1) out relief, or a weekly pension of a shilling or two at home; and (2) indoor relief, or relief in a workhouse, or poorhouse, or house of industry. Out relief was the earlier institution, and it held its own throughout the century, being the only form of relief in many parishes. Down to 1722 parishes that wished to build a workhouse had to get a special Act of Parliament. In that year a great impetus was given to the workhouse movement by an Act[254] which authorised overseers, with the consent of the vestry, to start workhouses, or to farm out the poor, and also authorised parishes to join together for this purpose. If applicants for relief refused to go into the workhouse, they forfeited their title to any relief at all. A great many workhouses were built in consequence of this Act: in 1732 there were stated to be sixty in the country, and about fifty in the metropolis.[255]
Even if the applicant for relief lived in a parish which had built or shared in a workhouse, it did not follow that he was forced into it. He lost his title to receive relief outside, but his fate would depend on the parish officers. In the parishes which had adopted Gilbert’s Act the workhouse was reserved for the aged, for the infirm, and for young children. In most parishes there was out relief as well as indoor relief: in some parishes outdoor relief being allowed to applicants of a certain age or in special circumstances. In some parishes all outdoor relief had stopped by 1795.[256] There is no doubt that in most parishes the workhouse accommodation would have been quite inadequate for the needs of the parish in times of distress. It was quite common to put four persons into a single bed.
The workhouses were dreaded by the poor,[257] not only for the dirt and disease and the devastating fevers that swept through them,[258] but for reasons that are intelligible enough to any one who has read Eden’s descriptions. Those descriptions show that Crabbe’s picture is no exaggeration:—
‘Theirs is yon House that holds the Parish-Poor,