A history of the Irish poor law, in connexion with the condition of the people

by Sir George Nicholls

New order of accounts.

A new order of accounts adapted to the alterations made in the law had been completed, and was issued in April of the present year; and the commissioners remark in their Report that “the administration of relief to the destitute poor in Ireland, may be now looked upon as nearly identical with its normal state, as originally contemplated on the passing of the Act 1st and 2nd Vict. cap. 56. Such a result could hardly have been expected after the severe trials to which the country had so recently been exposed, but it was most satisfactory, and must be regarded as a proof of the enduring soundness of the principle on which that measure was founded.

I have now brought the narrative of the Irish Poor Law, down to a period coincident with my histories of the English and the Scottish Poor Laws; and here, as originally intended, I should conclude. But in the autumn of 1853 I again visited Ireland, and examined many of the unions, chiefly in the south and the west, in order to see and form my own judgment as to the working of the law, and the condition of the people. The results of what came under my own observation, and of the inquiries which I was enabled to make, were embodied at the time in a letter to Lord John Russell, by whom the measure of Irish Poor Law had been originally introduced and carried through parliament, and who always took a lively interest in everything connected with it; and it now appears to me that I cannot do better than give the substance of that letter, written with all the facts and incidents fresh before me, as a fitting close to the statements contained in the present work. The letter is dated Dublin 16th September 1853, and omitting a short introduction is substantially as follows—

The author’s letter to Lord John Russell, September 1853.

“Eleven years have passed since I quitted Ireland. In the interim the country has suffered from famine and pestilence, and the Poor Law has been subjected to a most severe trial. An examination of the present condition of the country and state of the law cannot therefore fail of being deeply interesting, and I should have been glad to have given more time to it, if other claims had permitted.

“The circumstance that now first arrests attention in passing through the country, is the comparatively small number of beggars. Formerly the roads were lined with them, and the traveller wherever he stopped was surrounded by clamorous miserable-looking solicitors of charity. This is now changed. Beggars are rarely seen on the roads, less frequently in the towns; and are not I think on the whole, more numerous than in England. The famine may have been partly the cause of this change, but another if not the chief cause is the workhouses, where the old the feeble the sick and infirm poor are now supported, as the law designed, and as sound policy required that they should be. The workhouses are entirely occupied by this description of paupers, and the very young—there are no able-bodied. The total number of inmates of all classes is now 84,000, which is about the number I estimated at the outset as requiring to be provided for. The cost of relief is moreover about the same as I then estimated that it would probably amount to; and it is not a little gratifying to find that our calculations in these respects are so far verified.

“The Poor Law appears to be now thoroughly naturalized in Ireland. Your lordship would have been delighted to have heard it spoken of as I have done, and that by persons who did not know me, and who praised it as having been the salvation of the country, exclaiming “what should we have done without it!”—Complaints of the expense are it is true sometimes heard, but these are directed rather against the inequality of the charge than against the general amount, some electoral divisions paying heavily, whilst others pay little or nothing, as is sometimes the case with English parishes.

“The changes which have been made, are not I think all of them improvements. Although the subdivision of a few of the unions might have been necessary, this as well as the subdivision of the districts of chargeability, has I fear been carried too far—it has added to the working friction, and swelled the aggregate charge.

“When settlement shall be abolished in England, and union rating established instead of parochial, as I trust will ere long be the case, we may hope to see a similar reform extended to Ireland, which would bring the law back nearly to what your lordship first proposed and carried through the house of commons; and most of the changes which were subsequently made, as well as some of those since added, have in my judgment served to detract from its simplicity, and tended to impede its effective operation.

“All the workhouses which I have seen are in good order and the buildings in perfect condition, and such also I am informed is the case with the others. It is not a little satisfactory to find this the case, after the complaints that were made of these buildings, which are now as much praised as they were at one time decried.