Relief was also given to individuals who suffered loss from fire, sometimes by means of authorised collections and sometimes out of the public funds[488]. Thus in the North Riding £20 was paid to twelve persons of Thornton and Farmanby, on account of their losses caused by fire[489].
8. Characteristics of seventeenth century poor relief.
Thus in the first half of the seventeenth century relief in times of emergency forms a considerable part of the assistance given to people in distress.
a. Little distinction between paupers and non-paupers.
That provided in years of high priced corn was not distributed only to those who were usually paupers but to the whole of the labouring class; that afforded in times of fire or sickness affected all classes of the community. There was thus much less difference between paupers and the rest of the community than there is to-day. All classes were relieved because poor relief was originally part of a paternal system of government under which the rulers regarded the maintenance of the usual prosperity of every class as a part of their duties. There is a curious case of landlord and farmer relief during the season of plenty in 1619. It was then stated that of late years there had been so much corn that the farmers were impoverished. A letter was therefore sent to the justices of every county ordering them to confer concerning some fit place where a magazine might be provided for storing a quantity of corn. The reason for this is stated to be that it is the "care of the state to provyd as well to keepe the price of corne in tymes of plenty at such reasonable rates as may afford encouragemt and lively good to the farmer and husbandman as to moderate the rates thereof in time of scarcitie for the releefe of the poorer folke"[490]. Few regulations could make it clearer than this, that the paternal measures of the Government were not confined to one particular class, but affected the whole of the community.
b. Little distinction between relief afforded by voluntary donations and that provided by poor rates.
The distinction between paupers and non-paupers therefore was much less clear than it is to-day, and it is also true that the distinction between voluntary contributions and compulsory poor rates was much less rigidly defined. The supply of the poor with corn is nearly always stated to have been a voluntary measure, but it was carried out under very considerable pressure from the justices. Sometimes the pressure amounted to compulsion. Thus in the Sarum division of Wiltshire some gave "franklie and freely good quantities of their store" to the poor but others were "wilfull." The justices "terrified them a little wth conventing them before the Lords of the Counsell and then they seemed very willing and tractable"[491]. It is difficult to say therefore how far the corn charities of the time were voluntary and how much they were compulsory. There was also a close connection between private and public charity in other forms of relief.
Probably in every town there were numbers of endowed charities controlled by the municipal officers or by overseers or by some public or semi-public authorities, which were practically a part of the same system as that enforced by law. Such were the four royal hospitals of London and the hospitals of Gloucester and Norwich. Such also were the many almshouses under the management of corporations, as were the almshouses founded respectively by Leche and by Kendrick at Reading, and the many charities for apprenticing poor children and lending money to poor tradesmen, which we shall afterwards consider in detail. Sometimes the connection was closer still, and the workhouse like the Free Library of to-day might be partly provided by private generosity and partly by public rates. Such was the case with the Barnstaple workhouse and the Jersey school of Newark[492].
The relief of the poor in times of emergency thus brings into prominence two of the main features of the poor relief of the time. First, that the public compulsory system was developed from a voluntary system and that in the seventeenth century voluntary and public poor relief were closely connected. Secondly, that the poor relief of the time was intimately connected with the general system of government under which all classes were compelled by Government to do their duties and any class might be relieved that for the time failed to obtain its usual degree of prosperity.