A new class of persons arises in the documents after 1834, namely those who are not residing in the parish or union to which they apply for relief. There had grown up a custom under the old Poor Law by which, in order to save the expense and hardships of removal, parishes agreed to grant outdoor relief to persons belonging to them by settlement, who were residing elsewhere. The Central Authority set itself to restrict this practice. By various of its early Orders it prohibited it altogether, and at once (with the usual exceptions of sickness, accident, and urgent necessity) in the case of able-bodied male persons between sixteen and sixty. It prohibited it as regards all new cases for all other persons with the same exceptions.[185] Between this date and 1844 we find the same series of exceptions allowed to this general prohibition as in the case of outdoor relief to the able-bodied and their families; and these exceptions became stereotyped in Art. 3 of the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844 (still in force).
As we have shown, the Act of 1834 and the subsequent legislation left to the Central Authority complete discretion as to the kind of indoor maintenance to be provided for the destitute by the local authority. In view of the fact that the action taken between 1834 and 1847—culminating in the General Consolidated Order of 1847, which is still in force—determined, in the main, the character of the modern workhouse, it is necessary to analyse in some detail exactly what the policy was which the Central Authority in these years imposed from one end of England to another. The common understanding at the time was, we believe, that the policy to be carried out was that of the 1834 Report. Two limitations only were imposed on the power of the Central Authority in this respect. The building of entirely new workhouses—which the Report had thought would not be requisite in many instances[186]—was dependent on the assent either of a majority of the board of guardians or of a majority of the rated owners and occupiers.[187] The Central Authority was, however, empowered, without any local consent, peremptorily to order a local authority to enlarge or alter any existing workhouse or building capable of being converted into a workhouse; subject to the limitation that the principal sum to be raised on any parish could not exceed £50, or one-tenth of the average Poor Rate of the last three years.[188] As every board of guardians in the United Kingdom found itself in possession of several parish workhouses—sometimes of a large number of such buildings—it was within the statutory power of the Central Authority, even without local consent, to have given directions for the moderate enlargement and adaptation of any or all of these, which Parliament seems to have contemplated. The second limitation seems at first sight more serious. The Central Authority could not order any greater expenditure, on building or enlarging any workhouse, or sanction the borrowing for this purpose of any larger sum, than the average amount of the last three years' Poor Rate[189]—a limitation which, as we have seen, was, in 1844, repealed so far as the purchase of sites in the Metropolitan Police District and the parish of Liverpool was concerned.[190] But there was at no time any limitation to the aggregate amount of the expenditure out of Poor Rate that might be incurred by the local authority, or that might, with or without its consent, be ordered by the Central Authority to be spent, on the enlargement or adaptation of its various existing workhouses, provided that not more than the statutory maximum was spent on any one of them. In view of the strong objection expressed in the 1834 Report to the mixing of different kinds of paupers in a single institution,[191] and the positive recommendation, in preference, of distinct institutions, in separate buildings, with specialised rules and under different managements, for the several kinds of paupers[192]—for which it was expressly pointed out that the existing buildings were to be adapted[193]—these sections of the Act of 1834 indicate an intention of Parliament (as it certainly was the intention of the authors of the Report of 1834) that each union should have several small institutions, and should assign to those workhouses "separate classes of poor."[194]
It is startling to find that the Central Authority, between 1834 and 1847, pursued an entirely different policy. The published documents for this period do not afford any explanation of this difference. They do not show, for instance, whether it meant the deliberate adoption of a new policy, or whether it resulted merely from a discovery that the recommendations of the Report were impracticable in the rural unions. The documents simply assume the necessity for the establishment in each union, not of a group of specialised workhouses for the different classes, but of one institution, to be called "The Union Workhouse," for the paupers as a whole.
In no Special or General Order, in no Circular or published Minute, can we find any recommendation that a board of guardians should carry out the emphatic recommendations of the 1834 Report in favour of classification by institutions, and the adaptation of the existing buildings into specialised workhouses, "assigning one class of paupers to each of the houses comprehended within each incorporation."[195] Nor was the unity introduced and insisted on by the Central Authority one of structure only. That the policy was to have, under the one roof, for all the various kinds of paupers, only one institution and one régime, is revealed in every part of the workhouse code. In the elaborate series of Special Orders and General Orders which culminated in the General Consolidated Order of 1847 (still in force), we find a minutely particular body of rules, referring always to "the" workhouse of the Union, applied with practical identity to all unions, providing for the reception under a single roof and subject to a single officer of every kind of pauper, applying to all the inmates, and (with quite insignificant variations, presently to be noted, for the aged, the sick and the infants), treating all the kinds of paupers alike.[196]
It was possibly connected with this policy of one general workhouse for each union that we find the Central Authority assuming that the grouping together of a score or more of parishes almost inevitably involved building a new workhouse. At first, indeed, the Assistant Commissioners were directed to examine to what extent existing poorhouses or workhouses could be "made useful for only one class of paupers."[197] In August 1835, the Central Authority could write of its year's experience that "it has also been proved that the expense and loss of time in building new workhouses may, in many cases, be saved, by a union of parishes and the combination of their existing workhouses and poorhouses, by assigning one or two classes of the paupers to one of the separate workhouses within the district."[198] But already by that time the contrary policy was being carried out by the most energetic subordinate of the Central Authority, who (as his private reports show) had quickly satisfied himself, and was rapidly convincing his superiors, that the policy of utilising as specialised institutions the existing parish workhouses was, with the boards of guardians of that time, administratively impossible. Already by August 1835, Sir Francis B. Head was reporting that "with the exception of Romney Marsh, the whole of East Kent, comprehending an area of 590 square miles, is now grouped into compact unions of parishes; these unions are all very nearly of the same size—all contain very nearly the same population—all have voluntarily adopted for their workhouse the same low, cheap, homely building—all have agreed in placing it in the centre of their respective unions."[199]
It is interesting to see the arguments by which this flagrant departure from the policy of the 1834 Report was attacked and defended. In 1835 we have a magistrate of Kent, belonging to a union where they had so far adhered to the recommendations of the Report, writing very graphically on the subject to Sir Francis Head. "There is one point," he said, "upon which our practice differs materially from most of our neighbours, and it is one upon which I entertain a strong opinion that ours is the correct system. It is the adaptation of existing workhouses to different classes, instead of building new ones.... In the first place upon our system there is a great saving of expense; our homes altogether have cost us under £300.... I dislike the appearance of these new houses all over the country.... I dislike the outward and visible sign of the change that is being operated. I am alarmed at the irritation. I fear the consequences. When we have eight workhouses there is hardly an inducement to pull down one only, and to pull them all down is next to impossible, from the wide surface over which they are spread. Our system, I might almost say, eludes the grasp of insurrection. Besides this, how much more perfect is the classification! How secure are our separate schools from all contamination. How small are the masses of pauperism which we bring together, compared with the congestion of one vast House. With us, our Houses are not like prisons, for we require no high wall to separate the classes; eight or ten miles distance is far more effectual than the highest walls."
To this Sir Francis Head seems to have replied to the following effect. He did not at all agree with his correspondent that eight classified workhouses were better than one general establishment. "The very sight," he said, "of a well-built efficient establishment would give confidence to the board of guardians; the sight and weekly assemblage of all servants of their union would make them proud of their office; the appointment of a chaplain would give dignity to the whole arrangement, while the pauper would feel it was utterly impossible to contend against it. In visiting such a series of unions, the Assistant Commissioner could with great facility perform his duty, whereas if he had eight establishments to search for in each union, it would be almost impracticable to attend to them. I would, moreover, beg to observe that in one establishment there would always be a proper governor, ready to receive and govern any able-bodied applicants, whereas in separate establishments this most important arrangement (the Able-bodied House) during harvest, etc., would constantly be empty, and consequently would become inefficient in moments of emergency."[200]
Sir Francis Head, as we have seen, had his way. In writing a farewell letter to the Kentish boards of guardians at the end of 1835, he urges them to stick to the dietary, and to appoint a chaplain "to your central house, which will shortly be the sole establishment in your union.... As soon as this important object has been gained—as soon as you find that the whole of your indoor poor are concentrated in one respectable establishment—under your own weekly superintendence—when you see yourselves surrounded by a band of resolute, sensible, well-educated men faithfully devoted to your service—you will then, I believe, fully appreciate the advantage which you, as well as your successors, will ever derive from possessing one strong, efficient building, instead of having, from false economy, frittered away your resources among your old existing houses."[201]