English Poor Law Policy

by Sidney Webb; Beatrice Webb

[380] Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, pp. xliv-lii.

[381] Ibid. p. x.

[382] Official Circular, Nos. 14 and 15, N.S., April and May 1848, p. 237.

[383] Circular of 1st August 1857, in Tenth Annual Report, 1857, p. 37. The Central Authority did not, prior to 1867, face the responsibility of deciding to require boards of guardians to provide hospital accommodation even for infectious diseases. In 1863, indeed, under fear of smallpox, it got so far as to transmit to Metropolitan boards of guardians an alarmist letter by Dr. Buchanan, and to permit the taking of temporary premises for "the destitute poor attacked by contagious or infectious disease" (Circular of 30th April 1863, in Fifteenth Annual Report, 1862-3, pp. 37-9). We believe that practically nothing was done upon this. In 1866, when cholera was imminent, another Circular was sent which, significantly enough, makes no mention of temporary hospitals, but points to an increase of the outdoor medical relief, disinfectants, sustenance and clothing to meet the "great increase of destitution" to be apprehended. "As far as practicable ... the admission of cholera patients into the workhouse should be prevented" (Circular of 27th July 1866, in Nineteenth Annual Report, 1866-7, pp. 39-40).

[384] See for all this the Eighteenth Annual Report, 1865-6, pp. 15-16; Nineteenth Annual Report, 1866-7, pp. 15-18, 39; Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, pp. 25-28; Report of Dr. E. Smith on Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Wards, in House of Commons, No. 372 of 1866; The Condition of the Sick in London Workhouse Infirmaries (Association for the Improvement of the London Workhouse Infirmaries, 1867); Opinions of the Press upon the Conditions of the Sick Poor in London Workhouses (ibid. 1867); The Management of the Infirmaries of the Strand Union, the Rotherhithe and the Paddington Workhouses (1867?).

[385] The provincial newspapers took up the work that the Lancet had begun. On 31st January 1865, a long report appeared in the Manchester Examiner revealing serious deficiencies in the Manchester Workhouse sick wards.

[386] Twentieth Annual Report, 1867-8, pp. 17-21. This new departure of the Central Authority was long strenuously resisted by many of the boards of guardians who prided themselves on the purity of their Poor Law policy. Thus, the published complaints of the Manchester Workhouse Infirmary led to an inquiry by the inspector, who made various suggestions for improvement. The board of guardians, on the advice of their own medical officer, held that the existing conditions were sufficiently satisfactory. Finally, after fifteen months, the Central Authority censured the master, asked for more nurses and (while avoiding any censure of the guardians for their past policy) practically invited them to adopt the new standpoint (MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 1st February 1865; 22nd February and 3rd May 1866). Two years later, Manchester was still objecting. When a conference of important North Country boards of guardians in 1862 (W. Rathbone presiding) had recommended a national grant-in-aid to improve the "pauper hospitals," the Manchester Board of Guardians formally dissented (though now only by a majority of one), protesting: "That the much higher system of medical treatment and nursing and the other advantages sought to be introduced into workhouse hospitals by the proposed measures would tend to discourage the provident habits and self-reliance of the industrious poor by providing for them therein far better accommodation and treatment than they can usually secure for themselves in cases of sickness" (MS. Minutes, Manchester Board of Guardians, 20th February 1868).

[387] Circular of 5th May 1865; Eighteenth Annual Report, 1865-6, pp. 16, 24-5, 62-8; Nurses in Workhouses and Workhouse Infirmaries, by Miss Wilson, 1890.

[388] Hansard, 8th February 1867, vol. 185, p. 163.

[389] See, for instance, the Special Orders for the Poplar and Stepney Sick Asylum District, 23rd April and 16th May 1868, and 7th March 1871; and that for the Central London Sick Asylum District of 2nd May 1868.