Genealogy Chat

See below in about twenty-five minutes! Marjorie

This is paraphrased from my old school text-book, Cole and Postgates 'The Common People 1746-1946' The aims of the Poor Law, passed in 1834 (forming the Union Workhouses' were as follows: 1. To make conditions in the Workhouse as disagreeable as is consistent with moderate health. 2.No relief, except within a Workhouse, to be given to the able-bodied 3.Such relief to be 'less eligible' than the most unpleasant means of earning a living outside the Workhouse. 4.Husbands and wives to be separated to prevent child-bearing. This system was adopted immediately in the South, but I am pleased to say, as a Lancastrian, that the Northerners held out against this system(for a while, anyway) and received support from surprising quarters - a wealthy Mill Owner, John Fielden of Todmorden, vowed that there would be no such system in his town as long as he lived, and indeed there wasn,t. Only the Methodists spoke against the system, the other Church bodies were strangely silent. The Methodist leaders and some TORIES(!!!) organised civil disobedience and then outright agitation. This was named the Chartist movement. As we all know, it (the Chartist Movement) failed to prevent the New Poor Laws being put into effect and they remained more or less unchanged until 1923. From the same book, in 1890 the Chief of Police for Glasgow, speaking at a commission set up to investigate the plight of the poor said: I can take you to a tenement building not five minutes walk from here, where live about 1000 children, who belong to no-one and do not have names, or only nicknames given to them by others, such as you would a dog. You could walk into any tenement in Glasgow and you would find the same. Tonight's history lesson finishes here! Marjorie

Marjorie Reading isn't for the likes of you - it will give you ideas. Everyone knows the Poor Laws were a just and fair way of making sure idle scroungers (ie poor people) weren't able to defraud the country of millions of guineas in benefits and hand-outs. And stop hanging around with those Chartists, you'll get into trouble with the police. nell

Nell Tee hee, you are right, just look what happens when you let the lower orders learn to read - they go around spreading information and stirring up trouble. Mind you, the people in the old-style Workhouse in Oxford must have been very sorry when the new law came in. It was described (by an impartial observer) as being of almost mediaeval licentiousness, with much internal bastardy! The chapter on the after-effects of WW1 make interesting reading too, the Authorities panicked and re-introduced Out-relief, which was so stringently applied that it was worse than the system in force before the 1834 Acts, and led almost directly, to the General Strike. Marjorie

Marjorie, I'm glad you keep giving us history lessons! When I was at school, I hated history with a passion and dropped the subject as soon as possible. Now however, doing my family tree has given me an interest in what life would have been like in 1800's/1900's and I wish that I had done history like everybody else! Sam

In the part of Norfolk that my ancestors hale from, the New Poor Law doesn't seem to have been much of a change. The workhouse was already antiquated and insanitary. It was so isolated that the authorities had the greatest difficulty in attracting suitable staff. The ideal situation would have been a married couple, but as the male paupers had to troop through the master's bedroom and the female paupers through the mistress's, this was clearly impossible. There was a huge fuss over one relative who placed himself and his son in the workhouse, but left his wife behind. He explained that his wife was heavily pregnant and he was not going to let her walk the FIFTEEN miles from the village to the workhouse. The authorities wanted the workhouse demolished and a better workhouse built, but the most suitable land was rather too near the local squire's house.... so nothing happened. One way to alleviate the problem was to export it and many of the parishioners took part in assisted emigration schemes to Canada. This sort of information is available in The National Archives in MH 12.

Sam, It's strange isn't it. I also hated history at school, but now I would like nothing better than having a time machine so I could go back and actually see and talk to all these ancestors that take up all of my time. Sometimes I get really upset when it sinks in that I am never really going to know these people, or what they looked like, even though their names, births, deaths etc. are so familiar to me now. Marjorie, - I look forward to your lessons much more than the ones at school. Kath. x

Great information but can anyone help me with a problem and how to search for it. My grandfather died 1924 and I am led to believe that 8 of his 9 children were put in the workhouse there ages range from 4 to 18 and I am trying to locate a name for this place. I think it maybe Acton Ealing or Hillindon. It may have been as early as 1922 that this happened because the eldest child left to join the navy . Thanks Margaret

I love history! There's a fascinating article in this month's Family History Monthly magazine about Victorian street children. :-) Joy