METHODS OF RELIEF, 1597-1644 (continued).

B. Ordinary Relief.

• a. Impotent poor.
• 1. Almshouses and endowed charities.
• (a) Old endowments which remained unchanged through the Reformation.
• (b) Old endowments regranted to the Corporation or other public body.
• (c) Fresh endowments.
• (d) Pensions and gifts from endowed charities.
• 2. Provision for the old from compulsory rates.
• (a) Relief from the county by pensions paid to soldiers and sailors and by hospitals maintained by county funds.
• (b) Relief from the parish by pensions paid to the destitute, by the grant of a house, or by arrangements for free board and lodging in the house of some parishioner.
• . Children.
• 3. Provision for children by apprenticeship.
• (a) To masters. (b) To the masters of the Bridewells or industrial schools of the time.
• 4. Schools for little children and orphanages.
• ?. Able-bodied poor.
• 5. Relief given to prisoners.
• 6. Provision of funds to provide work for the unemployed.
• 7. Methods of providing work.
• (a) Stocks used to employ the poor in their homes or elsewhere.
• (b) Introduction of new trades.
• (c) Workhouses and Jersey schools.
• (d) Bridewells.
• (e) Emigration.
• (f) Pressure on employers.
• (g) Advancement of capital without interest.

We have seen how the poor were relieved in times of special emergency; we will now examine the kind of help that was bestowed upon those classes of poor who in almost every community were more or less constantly in need of assistance. We will notice first the relief given to the impotent and aged poor; secondly, the measures adopted to provide for destitute children; and lastly, the methods used to find work for the unemployed or to suppress vagrants.

The method of relieving the impotent poor differed very considerably from that with which we are familiar. The workhouses of the seventeenth century were mainly places for people who could work, the aged and impotent poor were often relieved by almshouses controlled by public and by private authorities, but founded and maintained by private liberality. It was indeed an age in which almshouses or hospitals as they were often called abounded. Probably there were nearly as many in existence then as there are to-day, in spite of the fact that our population has increased sixfold. Some of these hospitals were old endowments that had survived the Reformation; others had been dissolved with the other religious houses and regranted to the municipal authorities of the place to which they belonged; many more were founded during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I.

The well-known Hospital of St Cross at Winchester is a good example of an old foundation that has had a continuous existence from its first endowment in the middle ages until the present day. The modern tourist, like the wayfarer of mediÆval times, may partake of the refreshment provided by its ancient regulations, and may still receive his bread and beer like a seventeenth century beggar. But it has also been an almshouse since the time of Henry II. By the Charter of Foundation "thirteen poor men, feeble and so reduced in strength, that they can scarcely, or not at all, support themselves without other aid, shall remain in the same hospital constantly; to whom necessary clothing, provided by the Prior of the Establishment, shall be given, and beds fit for their infirmities; and daily a good loaf of wheaten bread of the weight of five measures, three dishes at dinner and one for supper, and drink in sufficient quantity[493]." This hospital was not dissolved by Henry VIII. but continued under its old regulations throughout the Reformation. Laud ordered inquiries to be made concerning it shortly after 1627, and the thirteen pensioners were then maintained with full allowances[494]. Many hospitals survived the dissolution besides St Cross and remained in private hands; a few like St Giles's, Hereford, or St Bartholomew's at Sandwich had been governed by the town-rulers from the time of their foundation[495], and these for the most part retained their old endowments and remained under municipal management.

Other hospitals were regranted to the Corporations of their respective cities and towns soon after the dissolution in the same way as St Bartholomew's had been given to the City of London. Such was the case with St Bartholomew's of Gloucester. Queen Elizabeth stipulated that some of the payments formerly made by the Crown should be remitted, but placed the rest of the revenues in the hands of the Corporation on condition that a physician and surgeon and forty poor people should be there maintained[496]. Two other of the ancient hospitals of Gloucester came into the hands of the Corporation. One of these, St Margaret's Hospital, provided for ten poor men in 1562, and was then governed by the town authorities; the other, St Mary Magdalen, was granted to the city both by Queen Elizabeth and King James, and was called King James's Hospital[497]. Even if a hospital came into private hands it often returned to its original purpose. Sentiment as to its rightful use was probably very strong in the case of any institution which had been founded to do a work which obviously needed doing. Thus Kineburgh's, another of the old hospitals of Gloucester, had been sold at the dissolution to a Mr Thomas Bell, and was afterwards refounded by him and placed under the care of the Corporation. His donation was confirmed by Queen Elizabeth, and during the reign of James several other small endowments were added by various donors for the maintenance of the poor there[498].

Gloucester was perhaps especially fortunate in retaining so many of its old endowments, but elsewhere similar arrangements were made. St Giles's of Norwich, St Leonard's of Launceston, St Edmund's of Gateshead, St Thomas's and St Catherine's of York, St Mary Magdalen's of King's Lynn, and Trinity Hospital of Bristol were all old foundations which, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, came into the hands of the corporation of the town to which they severally belong[499]. St Giles's Hospital of Norwich may be taken as an example of these re-established hospitals. According to the Letters Patent of Edward VI. it was granted to the Mayor and Corporation of Norwich, and was to be called the House of God or the House of the Poor: forty men and four matrons were to be provided for; they were to receive bed and bed-clothes, bread, meat, drink and firing. The pensioners were not appointed for life, but were removable from week to week or from day to day[500]. This hospital therefore was very much like a modern workhouse, except that it was supported by endowments or by voluntary subscriptions.

Occasionally these ancient charities came to be managed by the vestry. Thus in Bristol there were three old endowments of this sort. Redcliffe almshouse was supposed to have been established about 1440 by the famous Bristol merchant William Canninge; the Temple Gate almshouse and Burton's were probably foundations of an even earlier date. The two former were governed by the vestry of St Mary, Redcliffe, and long before 1821 had become simply houses in which aged paupers were placed by the overseers[501]. Burton's almshouse was governed by the vestry of St Thomas's parish, and was used as an almshouse from which paupers were not excluded. These institutions had thus then become part of the compulsory and legal system of poor relief rather than of the voluntary charity which existed by its side.

But not only were there many old foundations for helping the aged poor, but the century from 1550 to 1650 was itself the great time of the foundation of new almshouses. It is rare to find a town of any size in which some institutions of this kind were not established during these years, though in country parishes they were not so frequent. They were governed in many different ways, but generally by some public body or by some set of men closely connected with the authorities who were responsible for the administration of poor-relief. Some were governed by the Corporation like the small almshouse founded by Fox at Beverley. Many resembled the Temple Hospital at Bristol; this was endowed by Sir Thomas White and was vested in trustees who were members of the Corporation. A few were managed by merchant or craft companies associated with the government of the town; such was the case with the Merchants' Hospital of Bristol and Dame Owen's almshouses in Islington. Others were in the hands of private trustees sometimes connected with the founder's family, at other times with his position. The Archbishops of Canterbury were generally associated with some of the favourite charities of the time. Grindal provided a stock for setting the poor to work, Abbot a workhouse, Laud apprenticeship endowments, and Whitgift an almshouse at Croydon for twenty-eight poor people, the government of which he vested in his successors in the see of Canterbury. These hospitals were usually filled by the aged and impotent of the poorer classes. But occasionally they also supplied the wants of the poor in a better social position. The Charterhouse of Colonel Newcome fame was a foundation of the reign of King James, and supplied a refuge for eighty poor gentlemen, merchants, soldiers, or mariners.

Altogether the almshouses of the time formed a very important part of the provision for the poor. In some towns like that of Hereford[502] they were extremely numerous. Other places like Morton Hampstead seem to have established a public almshouse for the poor, but as a rule these institutions were privately endowed, and the help given by them was thus free from the sting that is attached to legal and compulsory charity.

But besides the almshouses many other charities were founded to help the aged poor, some of which have proved of doubtful benefit to their successors. Many pensions and gifts of small amount were distributed by public or semi-public bodies. The City Companies of London frequently received bequests of this kind. Thus the Clothworkers administer the gift of Sir Thomas Trevor. In 1622 he bequeathed £100 in order that six poor women might have 20s. a piece in quarterly instalments. At Bristol every week some one poor widow receives 10s. from Mr Whitson's charity, and two poor householders have 20s. each, though neither widow nor householder can have the gift more than once in the same year[503].

Innumerable smaller charities also exist in particular towns and parishes ordering the distribution of sixpences and shillings on particular Sundays or Feasts, or after the hearing of some sermon. Even more frequently bread charities were established. Thus in Hereford Cathedral twelve poor people receive a loaf every Saturday, and sixpence on twelve of the principal feasts and vigils of the year[504]. Sometimes so many poor men or women are "apparelled," or gowns, shirts and smocks are bought and distributed: more often fuel and wood are provided[505]. Bequests of this kind are very numerous, but the amount of relief afforded to each individual is often ridiculously small. Still the value of money was three or four times greater then than it is to-day, and a pension of 10s. or 20s. was a much greater contribution towards the maintenance of the poor person. Moreover, parochial authorities and officials of City Companies had comparatively few people to deal with, and it was possible for them to know something about the recipients of these charitable doles.

Altogether the number of endowed charities which afforded assistance to old people was large in the seventeenth century in comparison with the number of persons who were in need of relief. Moreover, new almshouses were continually founded throughout this period and until the close of the century. Probably many of these are in existence to-day, but there has been no increase at all proportionate to the growth of the population, while a few of the old institutions like the Redcliffe almshouse at Bristol have become part of the legal system of relief while others have disappeared altogether[506].

But although the aged poor were largely relieved by almshouses there were still many who were provided for by the legal and compulsory system. Some hospitals were supported by the county funds. There were several in the North Riding of Yorkshire which were used as almshouses for the impotent and aged poor and received grants from the County Treasurer[507].

Aged soldiers and sailors were also provided for not by the parish but by the county. As we should expect this was found to be a heavy charge in Devonshire, and the magistrates grumbled at the amount they had to give for this purpose[508].

More often the aged poor were relieved by the funds raised by the parish. Two methods seem to have been adopted. The most usual was what we should now call a system of out-relief. Pensions were granted varying in amount from threepence to two shillings a week, but generally about one shilling[509]. Sometimes in addition rent was paid and often habitations were provided which were built by the overseers on the waste[510]. But the poor in these were not under any special control but were allowed to look after themselves in other respects. In some parishes, however, instead of receiving weekly pensions the poor were billeted on the rich. In a report from the district of Furness and Cartmell, one hundred and seventy-six people were relieved in this manner, and two hundred and eighty-eight by means of pensions. In this case each parish adopted one method or the other exclusively; thus in Alythwaite thirty-nine poor were billeted, in Coniston twelve were provided for by money payments[511]. In other cases the method of billeting existed as an exceptional practice side by side with the pension system. Thus in Staplegrove, Somerset, in 1599, after the list of payments given for the poor, there are the names of two men, each of whom kept a poor impotent person in his house[512].

The parochial system of the time was therefore mainly a system of out-relief and sometimes free lodging, but it was modified by a practice of "boarding out" the aged. It was of considerably less importance than it is to-day because the amount of endowed charities bore a much greater proportion to the number of old who were to be relieved.

We will now consider the main methods of providing for the young. Compulsory education does not seem to be peculiar to the nineteenth century. In the reign of Charles I. all children had to be taught to work and trained to a trade. The method chiefly employed was that of apprenticeship. But schools, training homes and orphanages also existed in which children received the technical education of the time. Parents were obliged to apprentice their children or put them into service as soon as they were old enough. If the parents were able they paid the preliminary fee themselves; if not, the parish found masters for the children, but in this case they often had to work at the more unskilled trades. Sometimes money was paid for the pauper apprentice as for any other child, but at other times men were forced to keep the children without payment. There was often, as we should expect, a great deal of friction in the matter. In a report from Yorkshire, signed by Lord Fairfax, we are told that the justices do their best to find masters and keep the children with them, but that there was considerable difficulty in so doing[513]. Elsewhere there are also hints that the masters wished to free themselves from any burden of the kind[514], but there is much to make us think that on the whole the method at this time worked well. It was apparently the favourite remedy for the time for the evils of poverty. The writers of the legal handbooks insist that it was an especially important part of the duty of overseers[515], while throughout the seventeenth century numerous bequests for the purpose were left by private persons[516]. This is very strong evidence that the philanthropists of the time thought that the binding of poor children apprentice was an excellent way of providing for their maintenance and training. Laud himself was especially interested in the matter. In his own lifetime he made a gift for the purpose of apprenticing ten poor boys of Reading[517], and either during his lifetime or by his will he also provided funds for the same object in Croydon, Wokingham, Henley, Wallingford, and New Windsor[518]. Moreover the Privy Council appear to have specially enforced this part of the relief of the poor and to have demanded and received more detailed reports on this subject than on any other. This action of the Privy Council and the number of these bequests therefore make us believe that the evils of pauper apprenticeship were not very prominent in the seventeenth century. No doubt the fact that it was then the usual custom for an apprentice to board with his master and not a practice chiefly confined to children brought up by charity, made a great difference. Both kinds of apprentices were bound in the same way and would tend to be dealt with in the same manner. The selection of the master would make the principal difference; and the welfare of the apprentice would depend upon the care taken by the administrators of the charities and the parochial funds in providing masters for the children.

The picture in the Fortunes of Nigel of Jenkin Vincent, the London apprentice of this time brought up at Christ's Hospital, could not have been very unlike the reality. Great hardship must have been inflicted in some cases[519], but when the practice was new and the custom general, the apprentice bound by charitable funds would not usually be treated much worse than other apprentices. Otherwise it is not probable the Privy Councillors in their public capacity, and an Archbishop and many other charitable people in their private capacities, would have taken so much trouble to extend this practice by finding the funds for the purpose of thus providing for the maintenance and education of poor children.

But not all destitute children were bound apprentice to masters in the town. The bridewells or workhouses of the time had often a special children's department which seems to correspond with our own Industrial schools.

The London Bridewell had thus two distinct functions to perform. On the one side it was a House of Correction, on the other it was a technical school for young people. Sometimes the orphaned sons of freemen were received there, at other times children were sent by the overseers of the parishes, and often young vagrants were brought in from the London streets. They were trained in very various occupations: a full report of the hospital was drawn up in 1631, and we are then told that "four silk weavers keep poore children taken from the streets or otherwise distressed, to the number of forty-five."

There were also more than a hundred others at that time in the Hospital who were apprenticed to pinmakers, ribbon weavers, hempdressers, linen weavers, and carpenters[520]. Christ's Hospital at Ipswich, the Hospital at Reading, and the Nottingham House of Correction, had all training departments of this kind in which many of the poor children of these towns were taught trades.

Besides all this, children who were too young to be apprenticed were in many places taught to spin and sometimes to read and write. We have seen that in Norwich in every parish "a select woman" was appointed for this purpose in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in 1630 a similar order was made to the effect "that a knittinge schooledame shalbe provided in every parishe where there is not one already, to sett children and other poore on worke[521]." Even in the hamlets like those of Whitwell and Sellside, in the county of Westmoreland, three poor boys were maintained at the school by the parish who were to be taught trades as soon as they were old enough[522]. In Hertfordshire we are told that many had been placed as apprentices "and such as are not of fitt yeares to bee put forth wee haue caused to bee sett to spinning and such smale worke as is most meete for them according to the tendernesse of their age that idlenesse may not fasten in them[523]."

These schools were not improbably very numerous. In documents containing the instructions of justices to overseers knitting schools were advocated. Thus in directions issued in 1622 by some of the justices of Norfolk for the hundreds of Eynesford and South Erpingham, the justices resolve "that poore children be put to schoole to knittinge and spinninge dames and the churchwardens and ouerseers for the poore to paie the schoole dames their wages where the parents are not able[524]."

All this points to a system of popular education of the kind then approved.

In the largest towns orphanages also were established about this time. Christ's Hospital in London, as we have seen, was originally established for the little children of the London streets. During this period there were from seven to nine hundred children maintained at the cost of this institution, some in London and some at nurse in the country[525]. At Bristol there were two establishments of the same kind. Queen Elizabeth's Hospital was founded by a citizen named John Carr after the model of Christ's Hospital in London. The boys were subject to the same regulations and still wear the same blue and yellow dress[526]. The Red Maid's School was endowed by the will of John Whitson in 1621. It was to consist of a matron and forty girls. The children were to learn to read and sew and do such other work as the matron and the Mayor's wife should approve. They were to be apprenticed for eight years, to wear clothes of red cloth, and attend on the wives of the Mayor and aldermen on state occasions[527]. In Plymouth, Exeter, and Norwich also there were similar institutions, but they seem to have only existed in the large towns. Both in the country and towns orphaned and deserted children were generally "boarded out" until they were old enough to be apprenticed, and payments were made for them from the rates amounting to about a shilling a week.

Children were thus very well provided for, and their training was considered a matter of national concern. Parents, whether they were very poor or not, were compelled to send their children to work or school and either to apprentice them or to find situations for them. We are apt to consider popular education an exclusively modern movement, but in this, as in many other matters, the aims of the seventeenth century anticipate those of the nineteenth. They had ideas which were very different from those of to-day as to the kind of training which was necessary, but they attached an equal importance to the necessity of training. The Town Council of Norwich and the justices of Hertfordshire and Norfolk took energetic action in the matter.

We will now see how the administration of the time affected the able-bodied poor. The help given to the unemployed is by far the most important part of this relief, but some aid was also given to prisoners.

The prisoners of the sixteenth century must have suffered great hardships. No adequate means seem to have existed for their maintenance. Their friends supported them, and under certain regulations they were allowed to beg. Several statutes made in the reign of Elizabeth provided partially for their support as part of the relief of the poor[528]. By the statute of 1601 prisoners were to be relieved by a county rate. The County Treasurer, who was responsible for the relief of soldiers and hospitals, also disbursed a part of the funds to them, and every county was bound to pay at least twenty shillings a year to the prisoners of the King's Bench and Marshalsea[529]. Still the help given was very small; up to 1650 the allowance granted to the poor in the Norfolk prison was only a penny a day[530], and this sum could barely have sufficed to keep them alive. In Devonshire their allowance was increased in 1608 because "divers of them of late have perished through want"[531]. We must remember that incarceration in these prisons was the fate of debtors. Charitable people tried to help these people, and bequests were often made for the purpose of granting them some assistance. Thus in the reign of Charles I. George White of Bristol left a gift of five pounds a year to be used for the purpose of freeing or relieving some of the prisoners in the Bristol Newgate, and there are many other bequests of the same kind[532]. Still the amount of these legacies was wholly insufficient for the need. Certainly neither the legislators nor the administrators of the reigns of the earlier Stuarts made the criminal poor more comfortable than the unfortunate poor. If we realise the condition of the prisoners of this time we can understand why Houses of Correction were regarded as charitable foundations. We can also see how it was that whipping and stocking were so frequently inflicted and that they were comparatively merciful punishments.

But the provision for the unemployed workmen is by far the most characteristic part of the early seventeenth century administration. A man who was unemployed and had no resources had either to beg or to steal. If he begged, he was whipped; if he stole, he went to one of the terrible prisons of the time. The bands of armed vagrants, who made themselves terrible by their numbers and defied the law, were therefore only a natural consequence of the social conditions of the period. Repressive measures were tried but did not succeed because force could not restrain a man from begging if that was his only means of escaping starvation. The provision of work which had been made for the unemployed before 1597 was quite inadequate, and it remained for the earlier Stuarts to develope and extend the system.

We will examine first some of the methods of raising funds which now came to be utilised, and secondly a few of the various plans adopted in different places at different times with the object of employing the poor.

It is characteristic of the time that the money was frequently provided by private people. At Guildford Archbishop Abbot founded a workhouse, and we are told that the poor men of the town were employed to spin flax and hemp into cloth, and that this was found to be a "great comfort to many poore workefolke men, women and children[533]".

At New Windsor several sums of money were left for this purpose. One of these was bequeathed by Andrew Windsor in a will dated 1621. He bequeathed £200, the annual interest from which amounted to fourteen pounds. With this the poor were to be set to work in the making of cloth. To some extent the donor's intentions were fulfilled up to the present century. During the eighteenth century and up to 1829 the money was expended in setting the poor to work to spin sheeting[534].

There were many other gifts of the same kind, but of some no farther trace has been found, while others are employed for a somewhat different purpose[535].

Besides these voluntary contributions the finding of work for the unemployed was still in some cases regarded mainly as a municipal duty. Thus at Richmond in Yorkshire before 1631 the money for this purpose had been provided from the town chest, and about the same time a contribution was requested but not obtained from the Corporation of Wells[536].

Usually however the funds were provided by means of parochial rates. A lump sum was raised called the "stock." This was expended in purchasing materials and implements, and ought to have been continuously replaced when the finished products were sold. A "stock" was thus obtained in the three parishes of Beverley; each parish contributed six or seven pounds, besides the amount they formerly had, and the poor were employed in spinning hemp[537].

It was usually in these three ways that the money was raised for the purpose of finding work for the unemployed, but many different methods were used in the administration.

We will now examine some of the more typical cases of setting the poor to work. Generally we hear that stocks were raised and the poor found with work, but we do not hear that the work was done in any public building. It does not follow that a building was not used, but we do not hear that one was provided. We will first notice a few instances in which the poor were set to work in this way, and we will then examine some of the Jersey schools and the workhouses and Houses of Correction of the period. Lastly, we will endeavour to see what expedients were adopted by public or semi-public authorities to provide the poor with work without directly employing them. Under this head we will notice such expedients as emigration, putting pressure on employers, and the various ways in which a young artisan or tradesman was helped to set up in business for himself.

We shall see later that all these expedients were adopted much more often after 1631 than before it, and it is at that date that our information is most complete. About that time we hear of several ways in which the poor were employed directly or indirectly by the public authorities, but in which we are not told of the erection of a workhouse or other building of the kind. In Winchester, for instance, the stock was placed in a clothier's hands; at Maidstone "the towne doth ymploy poore women and their children in spinning, making of buttons and twisting of threed for the same." In two of the hundreds[538] of Shropshire "the poore of euery paryshe w^thin the said hundreds are sufficiently provided for and are not permitted to wander or beg but are set to worke on husbandry as the state of the countrey doth require."

All these and many other instances are reported in 1631, but there are examples at other times. At Norwich many plans were tried[539], but in 1625 it was resolved that the stone-mines should be used for that purpose. The workmen were to be "sett on worke" the next Monday at eight o'clock and surveyors were ordered to be present. "And the Belman ys required to warne all such as want worke and dwell not in infected howses to repaire thither at that hower w^th barrowes and fittinge tooles to digg stone & they shall be compounded w^thall for reasonable wages[540]."

At King's Lynn also different expedients were adopted. As early as 1581 money had been spent in changing St James's Church into a workhouse, and shortly afterwards we have evidence of employment being then given to the poor. In 1623 the building was pulled down, and possibly in consequence of this we find an agreement made in that year between the citizens on the one side and a merchant taylor, a glover and a woolchapman on the other. These last undertook not only to teach children to spin worsted yarn, but also to give employment to the poor, and to pay proper wages to those who were not learners. In June, 1631, the Mayor and the Recorder sent in a report to the Sheriff, in which they said that then they had "bought materialls to sett the able-bodyed poore on worke not suffering to o^r knowledge anie poore to stragle and begg upp and downe the streets of this Burgh[541]." In Lynn, therefore, the authorities on several occasions made energetic efforts to find employment for those out of work, and very possibly some arrangement of this sort was in continuous operation from the year 1581.

Sometimes the authorities utilised the labour of their poor in order to establish a new trade. Thus in eight of the towns of Hertfordshire public funds were obtained for an unsuccessful attempt to employ those out of work in making serges and baize, then called the "new drapery[542]." A project of the same kind was suggested to the justices of Pembrokeshire, but they were very cautious about committing themselves to its adoption[543].

Our informants generally tell us only that stocks were raised and the poor set to work. But from the instances we have just examined we can see that many kinds of employment were used. On the whole clothmaking and the provision of flax, hemp and tow were the most usual expedients.

But both private employers and public officials found that if the very poor took work into their homes they might embezzle the materials. Moreover, the seventeenth century administrators often carefully provided for the training of workers, and this could be more conveniently done in some building. We, therefore, hear of the erection of workhouses and Jersey schools and the continued use of Houses of Correction. At Newbury and Reading institutions of this kind were founded by Mr Kendrick. At Newbury we are told threescore persons were employed in the trade of clothing and other manufactures, most of these "being houskeepers and havinge wyfes and children depending upon their labours." Besides this fifty households were set to work by spinning for the workhouse, and a "stock" was raised by taxation to be partly expended "to imploie the poore in worke[544]."

We have detailed accounts of the Sheffield corporation. From these we find that they spent about two hundred pounds in building a workhouse and providing the necessary materials. The details of the construction were very carefully planned; the carpenters were sent to Newark to see the workhouse there and every item of expenditure is set down in the accounts[545].

At Taunton and Abingdon similar institutions seem to have been established in consequence of the special activity of the years after 1630. The Taunton workhouse was newly built in May 1631, and some children and others who were able to work were already sent there to be trained in labour[546]. In June also in 1631 the Mayor of Abingdon reports that "wee haue erected w^thin our borough a workehouse to sett poore people to worke[547]."

At Cambridge the workhouse was also a House of Correction. In 1628 many houses had already been built for the benefit and employment of the poorer sort of people, and in that year Hobson gave the town the site without Barnwell Gate on condition that a more convenient place should be erected. This was soon afterwards begun, and was partially paid for by certain sums, which had been sent to the town for the plague-stricken poor in 1631, and which after that time remained in the hands of the Corporation. In 1675 Hobson's workhouse was still not only a House of Correction but a place where five combers could be employed if they wanted work, and where all the poor people of the town that desired to have work in spinning and weaving were to be provided with employment and to be paid the usual wages[548].

In these cases the workhouses are all in large towns, but in one country district there were small institutions of the kind in the parishes. The justices responsible for Little Holland in Lincolnshire report in 1635 that in "all our seuerall parishes wee haue a Towne stocke with a workhouse, a master and utensills and that there hath beene aboue two hundred poore people sett on worke and imployed weekly by the officers[549]."

Workhouses were thus fairly numerous and varied greatly in size. They were not then like a modern workhouse, but were places where people who could work were sent that they might be trained and employed. They were, too, municipal or parochial institutions, whereas Houses of Correction were not parochial, but were either municipal or county undertakings.

In the sixteenth century we have seen that the distinction between the two was not very great, but in this period the new Houses of Correction are much more like gaols. This is especially the case with those erected by public funds, those which were privately endowed still retained much of their old character. London, Bristol, Norwich, Gloucester and many other places had organised their Bridewells either before or during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and we have already noticed that there were four Houses of Correction in Devonshire in 1598[550]. If was during the early part of the seventeenth century however that Houses of Correction appear to have been established in every county. They formed a necessary part of the system of the time. You could not provide work and maintenance for everybody unless you had some arrangement for coercing idlers. A great many of these institutions appear to have been established or revived after 1597. In 1598 one was founded at Liverpool, and in 1601 some measures of the same kind were taken in Nottingham and in Kendal, Westmoreland[551].

Others were erected shortly after the statute of 1610 was passed: thus in 1614 the City of London consented to help the counties of Middlesex and Surrey to build Houses of Correction: about the same time the Nottingham burgesses furnished and reorganised St John's Hospital for this purpose, and both Preston and Manchester had followed the same example before 1620[552]. In the reports of 1630 to 1639 the existence of Houses of Correction is assumed, since the justices state how many idlers have been sent to them[553]. Sometimes the reports give a few details concerning them; at Hastings the justices tell us they have kept their House of Correction in good repair[554], and from the justices of Edwinstree and Odsey in 1631 we learn that a House of Correction had been long maintained at Buntingford, and that the justices send their prisoners there although there is a more important institution of the kind in the county, fourteen miles distant[555]. The justices' reports thus indicate that Houses of Correction were established in most places before 1635. This impression is confirmed by a letter from the Earl of Pembroke to the justices of South Wiltshire. He complains that there is no place of the kind nearer than Devizes, and he asks the Council to enforce his request that another should be built in Wiltshire[556]. This letter would hardly have been written unless in 1623 it was usual for Houses of Correction to be nearer than Devizes is to South Wiltshire, and seems therefore to show that they were now a general institution.

Their character seems to have been much the same as in the preceding century. They provided a temporary lodging for stranger vagrants and a house of detention in which the idlers and offenders convicted for small causes could be made to work hard and were possibly reformed. Coarse kinds of labour were used at the London Bridewell, mainly the beating of hemp, but sometimes other plans were tried and the prisoners were put under the care of undertakers who agreed to keep them all at work and made such profit as they were able[557].

But there were many other ways in which the unemployed were provided for. The modern remedy of emigration was adopted, pressure was put upon employers and there were various ways in which money could be lent to set a young householder up in business.

It was about this time, and partly in connection with Bridewell, that the remedy offered by emigration was adopted. It was the age in which several of our colonies were founded and first developed. The earliest vagrant emigrants were sent to Virginia. We hear of a payment of 12s. 3d. from a London parish "towards the transportacon of a hundred children to Virginia by the Lord Maior's appointment," in 1617 and in 1619[558]. Again, in 1622 and 1635, vagrants were detained in Bridewell for Virginia, who were usually paid for by municipal funds and collections, though in a few cases we are told that the parochial officials sent particular people and paid their expenses. A few years later some vagabonds were sent to sea, and others were put to work in the Barbadoes[559]. The emigrants did not come only from London; three boys of Barnstaple departed in 1633-4, and probably there were many more both from Barnstaple and other places. The emigrants thus sent out were bound apprentice for some years to some employer, and at the end of their term of years they were to have the opportunity of making plantations for themselves. There is a declaration made in 1647, by the Earl of Carlisle, who was Lord of the Caribee Islands, in which it is stated that there was not land enough in Barbados for all who had served their time[560], and that every freeman unprovided with land may have a grant in his other island of Antigua.

In the midst of all the abuse heaped upon the vagrant in his own time and in our own, it is interesting to remember that he sometimes did something useful when he got the chance. Even in the days of the Stuarts he and his descendants played a part in developing the British Empire and in founding the settlements which led to the existence of the United States.

But work was also provided for the unemployed by means of pressure exercised on employers. We have already seen how both in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Privy Council endeavoured to compel cloth manufacturers to continue to carry on their trade, and how cloth merchants were called before the justices and judges and ordered not to dismiss their men[561]. Another instance of the same kind of interference occurred soon after the outbreak of the Civil War. After Bristol was captured by the Royalists, Prince Rupert endeavoured to relieve the distress of the time by ordering the clothiers to keep their workpeople employed for one month at least[562].

In another case we can see the justices exercising pressure on particular individuals not because of a fluctuation of trade, but in order to carry out the ordinary provisions of the poor law. Hitchen was the centre of an agricultural district, there was no manufacture in which men could be employed: wages were very low and many were out of work. The justices therefore ordered the "richer sort" to give employment, but they thereby only occasioned complaints, for in this part of the country there seems to have been a permanent difficulty in finding work for the poor[563].

At other times municipal rulers exerted their influence in favour of the inhabitants of a particular town. Thus in 1623 at Reading certain poor complained; the clothiers were warned to appear and thirty of them came to the Guildhall. It was arranged that two clothiers should be appointed to consult with the overseers and see that the poor were set to work. However the complaints still continued, and both at this time and in 1630 the difficulty was met by ordering the clothiers to have all their work done in the town and not to send it into the country. The distress at Reading was thus lessened at the expense of the surrounding district[564].

That the public authorities of state and town thought they had a right to exercise pressure of this kind is evident, and many incidental sayings show us that the employers considered they had a duty in the matter. Thus at Norwich the hosiers, finding that they cannot sell their stocks, tell the town rulers that though they have not yet dismissed their men their money is exhausted and they find it is impossible for them to go on much longer[565]. They thus intimate that it was their interest to have dismissed their men sooner but that they held on as long as they could. In another case an employer writes to Nicholas about some payment, and hopes he will be used well by the Council because during a bad time, when most men stopped work, he continued his manufacture and kept nearly one thousand people at work, although he lost heavily by so doing[566].

All this shows that the employers recognised some sort of responsibility for the men whom they usually employed. The continuance of business would save much hardship if the cause of distress was merely a temporary fluctuation in trade. In the cloth-manufacture this was often the case, and therefore the pressure brought to bear on employers in this direction must be considered a real method of helping the poor.

But there was another way in which pressure was put on employers. We occasionally find that the town, instead of providing a stock of materials to set the poor to work, reported that the inhabitants found employment for them or that the inhabitants provided hemp and tow and flax and set the poor to work themselves[567]. This not improbably points to some plan like that of the roundsman system of later days. A man in want of work, on applying to the parish authorities, was sent round to different employers and was set to work by each of them for a short period. This plan does not seem to have been much used, for in most cases the justices mention that the overseers had raised stocks of money in order to provide work for the ablebodied, and thus imply their intention of giving direct employment.

Perhaps the charity which was most peculiar to the seventeenth century was that of lending sums of money to set young tradesmen and artificers up in business for themselves.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries capital was growing a more and more important factor in production and it was becoming an increasingly difficult thing for the young journeyman to become a master.

We must remember that six to twelve per cent. was the ordinary rate of interest at the time. The difficulty of paying so much probably prevented many poor young men from starting business. Moreover all through the Middle Ages lending money for interest was considered contrary to Christian morality, and many men still held to the old opinion. In great numbers of places therefore funds were bequeathed to what have been termed "Lending Cash Charities." Sums were lent to young men, or sometimes to older men who had lost their capital, either for no return or at what was then a low rate of interest, and the borrowers had to find security for the repayment of the original sum. Many of the City Companies are responsible for the administration of very considerable sums of this kind. The Haberdashers' Company alone possesses £2510 which ought to be lent gratis and which was bequeathed by many different donors between the years 1569 and 1638. The Mercers' Company possesses at least twenty-one gifts of this kind. One of the most considerable of these is that of Lady Campbell, who in 1642 bequeathed £1000 which was to be lent gratis on good security to eight young men of the Mercers' Company; shopkeepers of the mercery were to be preferred, and next to them silkmen[568].

Not only the City Companies but also the town rulers of most provincial towns and sometimes parish authorities were trustees for such charities. At Ipswich bequests of this kind are especially numerous; they are much smaller in amount than those of London, but they are typical of the kind of charity that once existed in almost every town in which old records remain. In common with twenty-three other towns, Ipswich had an interest in Sir Thomas White's will and received in its turn £100 to be lent to four poor tradesmen. Besides this no less than eleven other legacies of this sort were received before 1635. Amongst these Mrs Alice Scrivener gave £100 to be lent gratis to ten people for four years, Christopher Cock gave £100 to be lent to four clothiers for five years, and John Barrett £20 to four shoemakers without interest[569]. At Reading the same kind of thing was done; in 1626 Mr Ironside left £100 to be lent gratis to two clothiers and two shopkeepers, and in 1633 Richard Johnson gave £100 for four tradesmen for twelve years[570]. At Oxford there were once many sums for such loans, but these have most of them either been lost or are used for other purposes[571].

In Barnstaple, Bristol, Newbury, Lichfield, Wolverhampton and Colchester[572] there were similar bequests, and apparently in most towns charitable funds of this kind were in existence during the reigns of the earlier Stuarts. It was one of the ways in which the philanthropists of the time endeavoured to give employment, only in this case it was not to the vagrant, but to the householder or skilled workman. Usually these sums were given by private people and administered by the town. But at Hitchin we find something of the kind suggested as a method of poor relief. The justices in their report recount the sufferings of the poor during the plague, and say that "three poore tradesmen who were shutt up And haue lost their custome and spent their meanes haue petitioned for stock to put them into Trade againe[573]." The matter was not yet decided, but from the justices' language it is clear that they regarded it as quite within their power to grant relief in this manner. John Lock, tailor of London, bequeathed gifts of £5 to £10 to the apprentices of Bridewell with a similar object, and, having regard to the circumstances of the time, few charities would probably have had a better effect if they had been honestly administered.

We thus see that many different methods were employed to relieve the old, to train the young and to give work to the able-bodied. The examples we have already given afford some evidence that legal poor relief had become well established in many districts, but it was not equally well administered at all times and in all places. We will now inquire when and how the administration of the law was improved, and the answer to this question may suggest the reason why the history of the English Poor Law is different to that of the rest of Western Europe.