Benevolence to the poor
At a meeting of the Edinburgh Parochial Board, Alexander Macknight (Number 47), was as vociferous as ever: ‘It is an individual’s own fecklessness, combined with drink, gambling, and immorality, that casts them into poverty. Compulsory provisions encourage vice, imprudence, unthrift and every kind of wickedness.’ Yet even the many Macknights of the time accepted that certain sections of society, such as orphans, the insane, the disabled and the infirm, required help. Churches created charitable structures to help, although there was no coherent approach, and the provision depended on donations from the better-off churchgoers. There was growing concern among the ruling classes at the increased calls for political reform in Britain that followed the 1789 French Revolution and the earlier American Revolution. Existing reform societies were given new impetus, and new associations formed, some organised by ordinary working people who objected to the patronage and control of the wealthy. Those in positions of authority judged such debate as subversive: ‘Gentlemen, to whom are these positions addressed...to the ignorant, to the credulous, to the desperate.' Therefore, whereas before there had been a strong view that poor relief should not be given to anyone able to work, concerns that poverty resulting from particular hardship such as crop failure might be channelled into revolution brought a more charitable view. In 1826 economic problems and poor harvests led to a rise in unemployment and a number of Albany Street residents donated to the fund launched for ‘The Relief of their Suffering Fellow Countrymen in the Manufacturing Districts of Scotland’. The call for funds stated: ‘The exemplary patience and resignation with which the distress of (the Workmen of Scotland) has been endured by the sufferers, their quiet, peaceable and orderly conduct under most trying circumstances, and the good sense and feelings of propriety and submission to law which that conduct evinces, given our suffering countrymen peculiar claims on the sympathy and benevolence of this country.’ There is more than a hint that the charitable support was a reward for the sufferers accepting their hardship without challenge.
Similar public subscription campaigns were regularly launched and large newspaper advertisements would appear listing the amounts given. The majority of individuals were content to have their names listed alongside their donations, and many of these names were Albany Street residents. In 1826, when economic problems and poor harvests led to a rise in unemployment, money was solicited for ‘The Relief of their Suffering Fellow Countrymen in the Manufacturing Districts of Scotland’, and William Pringle (Number 51) subscribed three guineas. In 1836, the Reverend John Brown (Number 53) gave ten shillings towards the appeal to alleviate hardship in the Shetland Islands. ‘The greatest Distress exists at present in the Shetland Islands, from the want of Food consequent upon the failure of last year’s crops, and the extreme severity of the past winter. From those causes many families are reduced to a state bordering on starvation.’ However, other donors preferred to remain anonymous and often used non de plumes such as: ‘A Trifle in Honesty to Help’; ‘A Conservative half-crown’; ‘A Hard Up Auld Cobbler’; ‘A Friend to a Great and Noble Cause’; and ‘A Poor Printer’s Pop at Protection’.
Many women helped organise fund-raising events or collected items to sell. For example, Mrs Dickson (Number 13) was one of a small group advertised as receiving items for a ‘Sale of Ladies Work’ to support the establishment of small travelling libraries of ‘useful Gaelic books’, while Christian Paterson (Number 47) helped raise funds at a Grand Bazaar in the Assembly Rooms, ‘to open a number of Coffee Houses near the Coach Stands, in different parts of the city, where comfortable refreshments will always be ready, apart from the snares of the Public House. By this means the comfort of Men will be greatly promoted, and much Cruelty to Animals prevented. The first Coffee House to be established is near the New Railway, and the second in Grassmarket.’
While both male and female residents subscribed to such appeals, when it came to formal roles on committees it was primarily men who were appointed. Those overseeing these benevolent institutions did so in a voluntary capacity, and many Albany Street residents served on the management boards of such bodies. James Ogilvy (Number 42), an accountant, was a director of the Edinburgh Magdalene Asylum (engraving) in Gorgie Road . The asylum opened in 1797, originally as a half-way house for women coming out of prison, but very soon became one of many such institutions set up to: ‘shelter and occupy in useful labour those women who may be reclaimed from prostitution to the paths of virtue.’ The female inmates were kept in solitary confinement for the first three months ‘to eradicate the taint of moral contagion.’ Their heads were then shaved and they were admitted to the asylum. There are many accounts of ill-treatment, including beatings. The Society for the Suppression of Begging was active in the city. Repressive as a number of the Society’s activities were, the Society also initiated at least one enlightened approach. In 1813 they established the Edinburgh Savings Bank. Set up along the lines of a model established thirty years previously in Hamburg, the Bank encouraged thrifty habits amongst small and medium-sized savers such as craftsmen and domestic servants by accepting far smaller amounts than the commercial banks of the day. In the case of the Edinburgh Savings Bank the minimum deposit was only one shilling. William Marshall (Number 18) served as one of the unpaid board members.
Enquiries into the state of the poor led in 1845 to the establishment of local Parochial Boards in all Parishes, overseen by a national board. Each Board was able to decide such points as whether to raise poor relief funds voluntarily, or to impose a poor rate; provide direct support in cash or in kind, or set up a poorhouse to shelter the sick or destitute, but not the able-bodied. Each Parish appointed an Inspector of the Poor to examine all applications for relief, and John Grieg (Number 29), a surgeon, worked for a time as the Inspector of the Poor for the Parish of Edinburgh. Recognising that a cleaner population and city would reduce disease, support for public baths began in the 1840s. The Reverend Charles Hugh Terrot (Number 39), the Bishop of Edinburgh, was unsurprisingly called on to serve on a wide range of charitable organisations, and he attended many of the meetings to discuss the establishment of baths. The Scotsman reported that at one meeting Mr Simpson, an advocate, received loud cheers from the assembled supporters when he said: ‘the washed cannot return to wallow in the mire; the working-man, issuing from the bath, cannot resume foul garments, return to a dirty house, endure a slattern wife, or tolerate ill-conditioned children.’ Yet in spite of many supporters, raising the required funds to build public baths failed at the time, and it was not until the 1885 that the first public baths opened in Edinburgh. Wider public health concerns led to the appointment of Medical Officers and William Brock (Number 13) served for Mid- and West Lothians and Peeblesshire. One issue he dealt with was the negative environmental impact of mining on the quality of river waters. In a number of rivers fish stocks were almost completely wiped out. In 1892 when Brock surveyed the Almond River he described the river’s extremely poor water quality: ‘The water along its whole course has an ochry colour. Fish cannot live in it. Horses, cattle and sheep drink sparingly of it, if at all, and for industrial purposes it is almost useless on account of its destructive effects upon boilers.’While it was mainly men who were invited to serve as trustees of charitable organisations, a small number of women did gain more direct roles, especially where the organisation had a focus on female needs. Cassandra Rutherford (Number 14) acted as the Assistant Secretary to the Ladies Association for Foreign Missions. A significant element of Scottish missionary work was working with women, and in 1837 the Scottish Association of Ladies for the Advancement of Female Education in Western India was formed. It sent out its first single woman missionary in 1839, and despite early difficulties expanded to provide educational work for girls from Bombay and Poona to Calcutta. By the 1860s schools for girls had been opened in Madras and Ceylon, and during the 1870s there began an annual Women’s Conference during the sitting of the General Assembly. Work was expanded to other fields of the Church of Scotland’s Mission and work by female medical missionaries began. In 1883 the Association changed its name to The Church of Scotland Ladies’ Association for Foreign Missions.