The method of relieving the impotent poor differed very considerably from that with which we are familiar. The workhouses of the seventeenth century were mainly places for people who could work, the aged and impotent poor were often relieved by almshouses controlled by public and by private authorities, but founded and maintained by private liberality. It was indeed an age in which almshouses or hospitals as they were often called abounded. Probably there were nearly as many in existence then as there are to-day, in spite of the fact that our population has increased sixfold. Some of these hospitals were old endowments that had survived the Reformation; others had been dissolved with the other religious houses and regranted to the municipal authorities of the place to which they belonged; many more were founded during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I.
The well-known Hospital of St Cross at Winchester is a good example of an old foundation that has had a continuous existence from its first endowment in the middle ages until the present day. The modern tourist, like the wayfarer of mediæval times, may partake of the refreshment provided by its ancient regulations, and may still receive his bread and beer like a seventeenth century beggar. But it has also been an almshouse since the time of Henry II. By the Charter of Foundation "thirteen poor men, feeble and so reduced in strength, that they can scarcely, or not at all, support themselves without other aid, shall remain in the same hospital constantly; to whom necessary clothing, provided by the Prior of the Establishment, shall be given, and beds fit for their infirmities; and daily a good loaf of wheaten bread of the weight of five measures, three dishes at dinner and one for supper, and drink in sufficient quantity[493]." This hospital was not dissolved by Henry VIII. but continued under its old regulations throughout the Reformation. Laud ordered inquiries to be made concerning it shortly after 1627, and the thirteen pensioners were then maintained with full allowances[494]. Many hospitals survived the dissolution besides St Cross and remained in private hands; a few like St Giles's, Hereford, or St Bartholomew's at Sandwich had been governed by the town-rulers from the time of their foundation[495], and these for the most part retained their old endowments and remained under municipal management.
1 b. Old endowments regranted to the Corporation or other public body.
Other hospitals were regranted to the Corporations of their respective cities and towns soon after the dissolution in the same way as St Bartholomew's had been given to the City of London. Such was the case with St Bartholomew's of Gloucester. Queen Elizabeth stipulated that some of the payments formerly made by the Crown should be remitted, but placed the rest of the revenues in the hands of the Corporation on condition that a physician and surgeon and forty poor people should be there maintained[496]. Two other of the ancient hospitals of Gloucester came into the hands of the Corporation. One of these, St Margaret's Hospital, provided for ten poor men in 1562, and was then governed by the town authorities; the other, St Mary Magdalen, was granted to the city both by Queen Elizabeth and King James, and was called King James's Hospital[497]. Even if a hospital came into private hands it often returned to its original purpose. Sentiment as to its rightful use was probably very strong in the case of any institution which had been founded to do a work which obviously needed doing. Thus Kineburgh's, another of the old hospitals of Gloucester, had been sold at the dissolution to a Mr Thomas Bell, and was afterwards refounded by him and placed under the care of the Corporation. His donation was confirmed by Queen Elizabeth, and during the reign of James several other small endowments were added by various donors for the maintenance of the poor there[498].
Gloucester was perhaps especially fortunate in retaining so many of its old endowments, but elsewhere similar arrangements were made. St Giles's of Norwich, St Leonard's of Launceston, St Edmund's of Gateshead, St Thomas's and St Catherine's of York, St Mary Magdalen's of King's Lynn, and Trinity Hospital of Bristol were all old foundations which, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, came into the hands of the corporation of the town to which they severally belong[499]. St Giles's Hospital of Norwich may be taken as an example of these re-established hospitals. According to the Letters Patent of Edward VI. it was granted to the Mayor and Corporation of Norwich, and was to be called the House of God or the House of the Poor: forty men and four matrons were to be provided for; they were to receive bed and bed-clothes, bread, meat, drink and firing. The pensioners were not appointed for life, but were removable from week to week or from day to day[500]. This hospital therefore was very much like a modern workhouse, except that it was supported by endowments or by voluntary subscriptions.
Occasionally these ancient charities came to be managed by the vestry. Thus in Bristol there were three old endowments of this sort. Redcliffe almshouse was supposed to have been established about 1440 by the famous Bristol merchant William Canninge; the Temple Gate almshouse and Burton's were probably foundations of an even earlier date. The two former were governed by the vestry of St Mary, Redcliffe, and long before 1821 had become simply houses in which aged paupers were placed by the overseers[501]. Burton's almshouse was governed by the vestry of St Thomas's parish, and was used as an almshouse from which paupers were not excluded. These institutions had thus then become part of the compulsory and legal system of poor relief rather than of the voluntary charity which existed by its side.
1 c. Fresh endowments.
But not only were there many old foundations for helping the aged poor, but the century from 1550 to 1650 was itself the great time of the foundation of new almshouses. It is rare to find a town of any size in which some institutions of this kind were not established during these years, though in country parishes they were not so frequent. They were governed in many different ways, but generally by some public body or by some set of men closely connected with the authorities who were responsible for the administration of poor-relief. Some were governed by the Corporation like the small almshouse founded by Fox at Beverley. Many resembled the Temple Hospital at Bristol; this was endowed by Sir Thomas White and was vested in trustees who were members of the Corporation. A few were managed by merchant or craft companies associated with the government of the town; such was the case with the Merchants' Hospital of Bristol and Dame Owen's almshouses in Islington. Others were in the hands of private trustees sometimes connected with the founder's family, at other times with his position. The Archbishops of Canterbury were generally associated with some of the favourite charities of the time. Grindal provided a stock for setting the poor to work, Abbot a workhouse, Laud apprenticeship endowments, and Whitgift an almshouse at Croydon for twenty-eight poor people, the government of which he vested in his successors in the see of Canterbury. These hospitals were usually filled by the aged and impotent of the poorer classes. But occasionally they also supplied the wants of the poor in a better social position. The Charterhouse of Colonel Newcome fame was a foundation of the reign of King James, and supplied a refuge for eighty poor gentlemen, merchants, soldiers, or mariners.
Altogether the almshouses of the time formed a very important part of the provision for the poor. In some towns like that of Hereford[502] they were extremely numerous. Other places like Morton Hampstead seem to have established a public almshouse for the poor, but as a rule these institutions were privately endowed, and the help given by them was thus free from the sting that is attached to legal and compulsory charity.
1 d. Pensions and gifts from endowed charities.