The Early History of English Poor Relief

by of Girton College E. M. Leonard

The parochial system of the time was therefore mainly a system of out-relief and sometimes free lodging, but it was modified by a practice of "boarding out" the aged. It was of considerably less importance than it is to-day because the amount of endowed charities bore a much greater proportion to the number of old who were to be relieved.

β. Children.

3 a. Apprenticeship to masters.

We will now consider the main methods of providing for the young. Compulsory education does not seem to be peculiar to the nineteenth century. In the reign of Charles I. all children had to be taught to work and trained to a trade. The method chiefly employed was that of apprenticeship. But schools, training homes and orphanages also existed in which children received the technical education of the time. Parents were obliged to apprentice their children or put them into service as soon as they were old enough. If the parents were able they paid the preliminary fee themselves; if not, the parish found masters for the children, but in this case they often had to work at the more unskilled trades. Sometimes money was paid for the pauper apprentice as for any other child, but at other times men were forced to keep the children without payment. There was often, as we should expect, a great deal of friction in the matter. In a report from Yorkshire, signed by Lord Fairfax, we are told that the justices do their best to find masters and keep the children with them, but that there was considerable difficulty in so doing[513]. Elsewhere there are also hints that the masters wished to free themselves from any burden of the kind[514], but there is much to make us think that on the whole the method at this time worked well. It was apparently the favourite remedy for the time for the evils of poverty. The writers of the legal handbooks insist that it was an especially important part of the duty of overseers[515], while throughout the seventeenth century numerous bequests for the purpose were left by private persons[516]. This is very strong evidence that the philanthropists of the time thought that the binding of poor children apprentice was an excellent way of providing for their maintenance and training. Laud himself was especially interested in the matter. In his own lifetime he made a gift for the purpose of apprenticing ten poor boys of Reading[517], and either during his lifetime or by his will he also provided funds for the same object in Croydon, Wokingham, Henley, Wallingford, and New Windsor[518]. Moreover the Privy Council appear to have specially enforced this part of the relief of the poor and to have demanded and received more detailed reports on this subject than on any other. This action of the Privy Council and the number of these bequests therefore make us believe that the evils of pauper apprenticeship were not very prominent in the seventeenth century. No doubt the fact that it was then the usual custom for an apprentice to board with his master and not a practice chiefly confined to children brought up by charity, made a great difference. Both kinds of apprentices were bound in the same way and would tend to be dealt with in the same manner. The selection of the master would make the principal difference; and the welfare of the apprentice would depend upon the care taken by the administrators of the charities and the parochial funds in providing masters for the children.

The picture in the Fortunes of Nigel of Jenkin Vincent, the London apprentice of this time brought up at Christ's Hospital, could not have been very unlike the reality. Great hardship must have been inflicted in some cases[519], but when the practice was new and the custom general, the apprentice bound by charitable funds would not usually be treated much worse than other apprentices. Otherwise it is not probable the Privy Councillors in their public capacity, and an Archbishop and many other charitable people in their private capacities, would have taken so much trouble to extend this practice by finding the funds for the purpose of thus providing for the maintenance and education of poor children.

3 b. In the bridewells, or Industrial schools of the time.

But not all destitute children were bound apprentice to masters in the town. The bridewells or workhouses of the time had often a special children's department which seems to correspond with our own Industrial schools.

The London Bridewell had thus two distinct functions to perform. On the one side it was a House of Correction, on the other it was a technical school for young people. Sometimes the orphaned sons of freemen were received there, at other times children were sent by the overseers of the parishes, and often young vagrants were brought in from the London streets. They were trained in very various occupations: a full report of the hospital was drawn up in 1631, and we are then told that "four silk weavers keep poore children taken from the streets or otherwise distressed, to the number of forty-five."

There were also more than a hundred others at that time in the Hospital who were apprenticed to pinmakers, ribbon weavers, hempdressers, linen weavers, and carpenters[520]. Christ's Hospital at Ipswich, the Hospital at Reading, and the Nottingham House of Correction, had all training departments of this kind in which many of the poor children of these towns were taught trades.