It is, as we have shown, difficult to infer that the term "able-bodied" was meant to include any but persons ordinarily in employment at wages, or capable of such employment. Whether or not Parliament had in contemplation under this term even the adult independent woman without encumbrances seems to us doubtful. It is practically clear that the term was not intended by Parliament to apply to the widow, however able-bodied in the ordinary sense, nor to the deserted wife, the wife of the absentee sailor or soldier, or the wife of a husband resident in another parish or another country, if any of these were encumbered with young children, and so did not fall under the class of persons actually or potentially in employment at wages, cited in the preamble to the section dealing with the able-bodied.[53] If this is so, we can only infer from the Act, as from the Report, that no change in practice was then suggested. With regard to such women, at least, the discretion of the Central Authority in its "direction and control" of poor relief, and its "management of the poor," and its power to make rules "for the guidance and control of" the local authority "so far as relates to the management or relief of the poor," was unfettered.[54]
The fact that widows were not considered by Parliament to be included within the term "able-bodied persons and their families" may further be inferred from a section in the 1844 Act. This provided that the wife of a husband either (a) beyond the seas, (b) in the custody of the law, or (c) confined as a lunatic or idiot, should, notwithstanding her coverture, be treated for purposes of relief, as if she were a widow.[55] This implies that a widow was not regarded as subject to the conditions of relief to "able-bodied persons and their families."
It may be noted that relief to the child under sixteen of a widow was to be deemed relief to the mother;[56] and relief to an illegitimate child under sixteen was to be deemed relief to the mother so long as she remained unmarried or a widow.[57] Another section of the 1844 Act allowed a widow having a legitimate child dependent on her, and no illegitimate children, who at her husband's death was residing with him in a place where she had no settlement, to be granted non-resident relief.[58]
With certain insignificant exceptions hereinafter noticed, the only provisions with regard to children as such in the 1834 Act relate to children in the workhouse. The Central Authority was directed to make rules, etc., "for the education of the children" in the workhouse.[59] It was specially enacted that no child in a workhouse was to be educated in any creed other than that of his parent, or, if orphaned, "to which his godparents may object." Facilities for free entry of ministers of the child's own persuasion were to be accorded.[60]
In 1844 the Central Authority was expressly empowered at its discretion to combine parishes (within fifteen miles) into school districts, and to constitute boards for such school districts; and, subject to the consent of a majority of such a board, to direct the establishment of district schools at the cost of the poor rates of the district, up to a maximum of one-fifth of the total Poor Law expenditure of the district.[61]
The Central Authority was empowered to make rules for such schools, it being, however, expressly enacted: (1) that an Anglican chaplain was always to be appointed; (2) that facilities for visits by ministers of other denominations were to be given; and (3) a conscience clause was inserted.[62] Such district schools were to be for the accommodation of pauper children under sixteen, either orphans, deserted, or having parents who consented,[63] including such children from parishes outside the district.[64]
With regard to apprenticeship the law remained at first unchanged, except that the Act of 1834 empowered the Central Authority to make regulations (in significant phrase) "for the apprenticing the children of poor persons" [65] in the execution of the then existing law. This applied, not to those who were destitute or who applied for relief, but to "the children of all such whose parents shall not, by the ... churchwardens and overseers, or the greater part of them, be thought able to keep and maintain their children." [66]