detailed notes on the almhouses

Private charity alone was never sufficient for the relief of the poor. And by the end of the 1500s the lack of any alternative source of support meant that the poor were becoming a very major problem indeed. The number of poor was growing at an alarming and rapid rate, and their numbers were such that they was perceived to be responsible for a general breakdown in law and order.We know something of the general situation in Somerset from a letter written by a Somerset JP to Lord Burghley, Elizabeth I's chief minister, in 1596

I must report that there are an infinite number of wandering people and robbers of the land who are the cause of a dearth of food for though they labour not yet they spend double as much as the labourer doth for they lie idly in ale houses day and night eating and drinking excessively. A thief that was executed at the last assize told me that he had lain for three weeks in an alehouse with two others and that in that time they had stolen 20 fat sheep besides many a poor mans oxen too so that he was left unable to plough. I do not see how it is possible for the poor countryman to bear the burdens daily laid upon him, This year there assembled 80 people in a company who took a whole cart load of cheese from one driving it to market and dispersed it among themselves. There are three or four hundred idle wandering people in the shire and they go by two and three but sometimes meet up at fairs or in alehouses or in barns as many as 40 or 50 - no man dares to call them into question. in truth work they will not, neither can they without most extreme pains, by reason their sinews are so benumbed and stiff through idleness as their limbs being put to any hard labour will grieve them above measure. Some felons have begged me to hang them rather than be made to work. Rapes and thefts multiply daily.

The bequest of Sir George Sydenham outlined above, and the letter of the Somerset JP to Lord Burghley show that people then as now had conflicting attitudes towards the poor. On the one hand they felt sorry for them, and they felt that they had a moral obligation to help them as an act of Christian charity; but at the same time people were also scared of the effect on society of large numbers of poor people, and felt that the poor were poor only through their own idleness.

This conflicting attitude is reflected in the Tudor response to this which was a series of Acts of Parliament which culminated in the 1601 Act made in the last few years of the reign of Elizabeth the First. On the one hand this recognised that some people were unable to work – because they were old, infirm or orphaned children – but it was also premised on the belief that the majority of the poor were not working due to their own idleness – it wasn’t that they couldn’t work but that they wouldn’t work – and as such should be compelled to work. And the Tudor’s didn’t pussy foot about when it came to legislating for this...

The provisions of the act with regard to whipping applied to children of 7 years and above.

Turning to those who it was recognised couldn’t work – the so called impotent poor – the legislation had three main thrusts: firstly, it put responsibility for the first time on to the civil parish for providing for and looking after its poor. Secondly, the parish was required to raise money from its inhabitants to provide for the poor – this was done by levying rates according to property values. Thirdly the parish was required to annually elect overseers of the poor who were responsible for the operation of the new poor law. These overseers were required to identify eligible paupers for receipt of the funds which they had raised.

And so it was left up to the parish to decide how much to raise and how it was to be spent and on who and for what. In modern terms it would be a bit like handing over all the functions of the welfare state to the parish council.

Luckily for us, another requirement of the Act was that the overseers were required to keep accounts, and a large number of these accounts survive. They are in the Somerset Record Office and by and large they form the basis of the research which has been undertaken for this article. They give us a remarkable insight into life of fairly ordinary people, and of people down on their luck, over two hundred years or so.

A few of the many hundreds of entries in Stogumber's overseers of the poor accounts are given below

1668

Given to Mary Galesworthy 4d

Given unto Huntsman’s Boy 1 shilling

John How 1 shilling

Laid out to ye widow

Attawell in sickness 1/6

paid out for a shroud for ye wid attawell 3/6

For making of her grave 1/0

For drink to ye ringers 6d

Laid out unto Joane Terrill in need 6d

Laid out for mending of Harwerds shoes 8d

Laid out unto ye Huntsmands in sickness 2/0

Laid out unto ye Huntsmans and Quicks in sickness 2/6

Laid out unto Dorothy Witch in necessity 1/0

Laid out unto Henry Stephens in sickness 2/6

Laid out for sending about Slade’s business 4/0

Laid out for reed for Elizabeth Shattocke 2/6

Laid out for house rent unto Thomas Osmond for the hatter woman 11/0

Laid out for a shirt for Stephen Hayward 3/10

Laid out to James Tuck in necessity 2/0

Laid out to ye widow Crocker in sickness 6d

Laid out for a blanket for Mary Greenslade 6/6

For carrying of James Worth to Minehead to the Irish Doctor and for a short coat for him 4/0

Laid out for a shroud for John How’s wife and for her burial 5/0

Mr Doddington for the curing of Elizabeth Almonds child's head

Laid out unto William Brice in his need 1/0

laid out for a pair of shoes William Brice 3/6

paid our for a shirt for William Brice 3/8

paid out unto David Pleace for a piece of pork for William Brice 6d

For cloth to make a coat for William Brice 4/11

paid out for buttons and for making of a coat for William Brice 1/3

Paid Mary Boshe for tending William Brice 6d

Paid out unto Mary Besley for ye paynes and charges there was about William Brice in his sicknesse

laid out for a shroud for William Brice and for his funeral 4/10

1669

pair of stockings for Joan Terell

pair of shoes for Joan Hagley

to the almshouse people to buy wood in the snowe

paid for a key for one of the almhouse doors

To Jon Ingram for carrying him to Bath and for expenses

1670

to Liz Uppington for keeping of Crockers children

for making of a shirt and smocks for Crockers children

John Pippin being sick

Elizabeth Uppington for keeping of Mary Crocker's two children

Jo Pippin and his children being sick

Jo Thomas his wife being sick for four years

David plea for wood

for making of a grave for widow Osmond's child

tending Joan Terril and making her a mat

1675

A pair breeches for James Stevens

1681

Edith Goodman when she went to Bath

Mr Lewes the surgeon for coming to George Stickey £5

for a man and a horse for Mr Lewes

a woman for tending George Lewes 3 days and a night

2 women for stretching forth of him

2 women for going to the justice

for writing the affadavit

for a man and a horse to send to the surgeon that the man was dying

for a man and a horse to fetch the coroner

for a man and a horse to send to the court of ye hundred with the coroners warrant

for a joint of meat for the coroner and ye court of the hundred

for half a bushel of wheat for his widow Joane Stickey

1683

A blanket for joan smart

a pair of stockings for prescotts boy

mending his shoes and for clothing him

1684

John Whitts famaly allbeing sick in the small poxe; in attendance and other nessysaryes two weeks

for butter cheese and bacon for John Whitt’s family

for soap and candles

a seam of wood

a peck of peas

a shroud and shrouding for his daughter

for making her grave

and carrying of her to her grave and ringing and for making and writing the affadavit

for washing of Mary Clouters bed cloathes

for removing her bed and beadstead and setting it up in ye church house

for a pair of trousers for prescotts younger boy

a shift and trousers for prescotts eldest boy

John Commans daughter being bad and to go to Mr Greens for his advice towards her cure.

Welsh Evan’s charges for his intendance in his sickness and for meate and drinke and carrying to his grave and a shroud and ringing and makeing his grave and for makeing of the affydavitt

Simon middeltons charges in his sickness in meate and drinke and candells and wakeing wth him and for ringing and makeing his grave and stretching him forthe and for makeing affidavitt

ffrancis prescotts boy having the smalle poxe

humphrey webber being sick in the small poxe his intendence and things nessysary

payd unto Mrs Lanisse for plasters and salve and hir coming over to Stogumber concernign John Welshmans wifes ledgs and honnor whitts

John selyes daughter having bad eyes charges att crekharne

payd hugh sweetting for tape to swath john greedys neck boane

Jane Warmoths childs shroud

hir grave

in beere and ringing hir knell

for stretching hir forth

for makeing of affadavitt

Cristyane Weslake having a bad hand

John Whitts family a blanket

All of the payments to the poor, the whole of this system was based on the parish looking after its own.

And only its own and not those of other parishes and vice-versa.

You might think that this would be straightforward enough and many suppose that places like Stogumber were very insular and isolated places in the past with most people spending their whole life in the parish, but this was not necessarily the case. And the devil with this apparently straightforward requirement lay in the detail as so often is the case.

For instance if you were born in the parish, did that give you legal settlement ? What if your parents were born in another parish and were only here for a brief period, what then ?

Or if one parent was born in the parish and another elsewhere ? If they moved, or one or both died, then what ? It’s perhaps easier to understand these problems if we substitute the word UK for parish – so being born in the UK is not enough on its own to make you a UK citizen.

Faced with these problems of interpretation laws relating to settlement changed and became firmer over time but basically one of three requirements had to be met to be legally settled in a parish. The underlying principle was that people took their legal settlement from that of their parents at the time of their birth; or they could gain a legal settlement by renting property in the parish over a certain value; or by having a contract to work in the parish for a period of a year or more.

They therefore did not necessarily have to LIVE in a parish to be legally settled there. And so what on the face of it seems a very simple idea – that the parish look after its own - produced some unexpected and sometimes bizarre outcomes

Consider for example James Hayes, a man who was born and lived all his life in Milverton but at age of 24 became too ill to work or even to leave his bed and consequently claimed relief from the parish of Milverton. Milverton however sent the bill to Stogumber as although James had lived all his life in Milverton, and his parents both lived there and had done so since he was born, they were nevertheless legally settled in Stogumber.

And so the remit of Stogumber’s overseers could pass well beyond the parish. For instance in 1768 they paid for a nurse to attend William Longs family who had smallpox but who all lived at Bristol.

When there was a dispute or uncertainty about where somebody was legally settled then either they or the overseers had the right of appeal to the magistrates – examined and statements taken such as these here.

The evidence of James Bellamy, labourer, residing at Bristol 1767

The place of my last legal settlement was and still is Stogumber which I gained by reason of being a covenanted servant of George Bickham a farmer of the parish for two years. I have not since leaving the service of George Bickham gained any other place of settlement.

This information sworn before an officer of the corporation of Bristol and was read over to James Bellamy being blind. And further he did guide James Bellamys hand to sign the said evidence.

The evidence of Ann Simmons residing at Berkely Place Bristol 1838

I married my husband John Simmons at Sampford Brett on 12th December 1833 by whom I have one child, Mary Ann aged 2 years and upwards. I have heard and believe that the last legal place of settlement of my husband was in the parish of Stogumber by his hiring and service to Mr Allen of that parish for the space of 12 months and upwards which service he left 8 or 9 years ago and has not to my knowledge or remembrance .been in any place of service for twelve months since or rented any tenement of the value of £10 a year or done any other act to gain a subsequent settlement. And I have further heard and believe that the last legal settlement of Thomas Simmons the father of my husband is also in the parish of Stogumber and that he is an inmate in the poor house. I am now about four months pregnant and my husband left and deserted me about 3 months since and he has not since returned or contributed anything to my support and in consequence myself and my child have become chargeable to the parish of St Augustine in Bristol

The evidence of Elizabeth Thorne 1835

who being sworn upon her oath says as follows I am about sixty one years of age and was born in the parish of Boscombe in the county of Devon as I have been told and do believe. My late husband William Thorne has been dead twelve years. I was married to him at the parish church of Halberton in the said county of Devon in the year 1802. He was legally settled in the parish of Stogumber in the said county of Somerset and gained his settlement there by renting a house and a mill of one Mr Wrentman for which he paid twenty pounds a year. He took the premises for oneyear as I heard him at the time say and lived there near eight years. He carried on the business of a miller and baker. When I was married I went with my said husband immediately to Stogumber and lived there with him all the time he resided there. My said husband never rented any tenemets to the amount of ten pounds a year after he left the said parish of Stogumber nor did any other act to gain a settlement to the best of my belief He went from Stogumber to Bristol where we lived four years. My husband rented a house there by the month in the parish of st Philip and st James in the city of Bristol aforesaid My husband myself and family came to Bridgwater where we rented a house at seven pounds a year and lived here after his death He worked as journeyman baker for Mr Clouter and Mr Danger. I have three children living but they are not with me. I have done no act to gain settlement except as aforesaid and am now chargeable on the said parish of Bridgwater

The testimony of John Bevan residing at Minehead 1832

I was born in the parish of Old Cleeve where my parents then resided and were legally settled as I have heard and do believe. I am now about 56 years old. When I was about 20 years old I hired myself to the Reverend Escott of Hartrow in the parish of Stogumber for a year a the wages of six guineas a year and served him in that parish for a year for five following years under different hirings. I was them married to Jane Barton who died in about four years thereafter leaving me with one child about a twelvemonth old. I then hired myself to Mr Sweet Escott of Brompton Ralph for a year and served him in that parish for a year and three quarters. I then hired myself to the late Mr Luttrell of Dunster Castle and served him in that parish for two years and upwards. I then married my present wife Ann in the parish church of Dunster by whom I have six children. Five of them are now living with me as part of my family- John aged 17 years or thereabouts, Mary Ann aged about 14, George aged about 12, James aged about 10 and William aged about 4 years. On the death of my first wife my mother took the child which I had by my first wife into her care and maintained her until she was fifteen years old when my mother placed her out at service. Two or three years after I had so placed the child with my mother I gave her a clock as remuneration for taking care of her and also I occasionally gave her a few shillings as I could afford it. I have never taken a tenement or other property for £10 nor served any public office nor done any other act whereby to gain a settlement and am now chargeable to the parish of Minehead

The evidence of Robert Hawkins labourer residing in Stogumber 1830

I was born in the parish of Llydeard st Lawrence where my parents resided and were legally settled as I have heard and do believe. I am not about 35 years old. When I was 15 I hired myself to and served George Davis in lyd st lawrence for one year and then hired myself to and served his brother same parish for another year. I then went to and lived at Elworthy for about 6 months and then I went and hired myself to Mr Trevelyan of Fitzhead for a year. I then went and lived for 6 months in the parish of Bishops Lydeard after which I returned to Fitzhead and hired myself to serve one Thomas Taylor from Michaelmas to Lady day and served him in that parish accordingly for that period when I hired myself to him for a year but served him for six months. I then left my master with his consent and went to Bristol and hearing that the landlord of the White Hart in Broad Street wanted a porter I went to him and said to him, "Sir don't you want a Porter " he replied that he did and I asked "Sir what are your wages ?" He replied " I give no wages but the vails of my house are quite sufficient if you like to take the service you might or you might leave it at any time"

Nothing more passed and I entered his service and served in it for upwards of two years. I had my meat in the house but lodged and slept in the Parish of St Nicholas in the said city of Bristol. I had no wages but depended upon presents from the coach passengers and others upon whom I attended. I was then taken ill and unable to work and another porter was taken in my place. When I got well I went to Bath and lived as a porter there for about six months and then returned to the said parish of Lydeard st Lawrence and have ever since worked for various persons as a day labourer until about nine years ago when I was married by banns in the parish church of Lydeard st Lawrence to Ann my present wife by whom I have three children living sarah 9, william 3, thomas 12 month and I am now actually chargeable to the said parish of Stogumber

All this moving people about the place was not cheap. As well as the expenses of physically transporting people about, the overseers also had to pay out legal expenses to secure the orders which gave them the authority to make these removals, or they had to pay the reciprocal expenses of parishes which had ordered people back to Stogumber. But this had to be weighed against the cost of keeping people in the parish who had become chargeable to the parish.

Clearly all these parishes wanted to minimise their expenses and were keen to move on problems as it were – and this was a game in which some parishes were more successful than others – for every winner there was a loser.

The driving force were the overseers of each parish, but the people who issued the orders for removal and settled appeals against such orders were the magistrates – these were often members of the local gentry such as the Trevelyan’s, the Wyndhams, the Carews and so forth.

Such people were unlikely to want a large number of poor and unsavoury folk in their immediate neighbourhood, particularly when they were building magnificent and gorgeous houses such as Crowcombe Court. Moreover the poor rate fell not on landowners but on the occupiers of land or property – so large landowners were only liable to pay the poor rate for their immediate holdings in the parish in which they either lived or farmed themselves.

– and so a pattern emerged of villages with a large, single, powerful and politically well-connected dominant, resident landowner having quite a different social complexion to villages such as Stogumber which had absentee landowners and many smaller, independent landowners, or tenants who lacked such clout.

The former are now referred to as having been closed villages and the latter open villages. Places such as Crowcombe were essentially closed to undesirable elements taking up residence there.

In the exampes below are two people who managed to make themselves quite at home in Stogumber but would not have found a ready welcome in a closed village. Stogumber was a place in which an absconding soldier found a ready acceptance, or a vagrant sea roving man thought a convenient place to bring his heavily pregnant wife.

Open villages were associated with a large number of alehouses and disorder –Stogumber had six alehouses at one point – and that was just the licensed premises – there were also prosecutions for the selling of ale from unlicensed premises or tippling houses. Open villages also tended to be places where the reach and authority of the Church of England was relatively weak, and where there were a large number of non conformists. Stogumber had a very large and prominent Baptist community. Open villages tended to be poorly planned, sprawling, with cheap housing compared to closed villages which had fewer houses, were more compact and had an altogether tidier appearance.

And so it is argued the poor law came over time to have a major influences on how different villages developed and the social character that grew from these developments

The evidence of Alexander Vaughan 1752

I was born in the parish of Northam in Devon and have ever been a sea faring man until about a year and a half since when I married in the parish of Abbingdon in Oxfordshire to Christian Collins of the City of Bristol and since have been roving up and down as a vagrant. I came into the parish of Stogumber the 18th day of July this year and the day following my wife Chirstian bore a female child of her body and upon oath I have gained no other legal settlement but at Northam

The evidence of Robert White now a soldier in the ninety ninth regiment of foot commanded by Colonel Byng 1762

I am now about 33 and was born in the parish of Rockbeer in Devon as I have heard and do believe. I served an apprenticeship to Henry Chosen of Exminster which expired when I was 21 years old. I then was hired and served another year in the same parish as a covenanted servant to Robert Carter and after the expiration of that service I went to Exeter and enlisted as a soldier in a regiment of foot called the Welsh Fusiliers and received one guinea and one crown advance money but was not sworn before a magistrate. In the night after I had enlisted I made off and carried the money with me. After I had wandered about the country for two years I went into the parish of Stogumber and there hired myself as a covenanted servant for one year to John Clapp and served him for two years. I then married Mary Andrews by whom I have two children since which time I have done no act to gain a settlement elsewhere. About five weeks since I enlisted as a soldier in the 99th regiment of foot commanded by Colonel Byng.

The sale of Mary Bacon and her children.

A problem with the whole concept of settlement was that people might be removed to places of which they had but the most fleeting and distant of associations, or indeed to which they had never been. It is this which lies behind one of the more well known incidents in Stogumber’s past when William Bacon sold his wife and children in the market place to Robert Jones in 1785

William Bacon was born in Sampford Brett but in 1745 when he was fifteen he obtained a settlement in St Decuman’s by hiring himself for a year’s service. Three years later when he was 18 he married a Stogumber girl called Mary Gadd – who was pregnant – in Stogumber church.

At least that’s what it says in the church register and what Stogumber’s overseers maintained but William Bacon on the other hand said that he knew of his own marriage only by hearsay since he was "carried to Stogumber church by the officers of the parish", and "being very high in Liquor he doesn’t know whether he were married or not".

In other words Stogumber’s overseers seemed to have arranged a shotgun marriage to get a pregnant girl who was about to become chargeable to the parish off their hands and onto St Decuman’s books.

Immediately after the marriage William Bacon left Mary and moved to Bridgwater and then Spaxton where in the fullness of time he became quite wealthy and gained a new place of legal settlement and also a common law wife and several children. Mary meanwhile went to live with Robert Jones a labourer in Stogumber and had a further 10 children with him.

And that was the end of that – at least for the next 36 years.

At which point the overseers of the poor in Stogumber obtained a legal order to have Mary Gadd and her children – one of whom was single and pregnant herself - removed from Stogumber to go and live with the husband she had not seen for nearly four decades , in a place where she had never been, and with her husband's new family.

On 20th December – the day the removal order was due to take effect – in a desperate attempt to avoid the removal order taking effect, William Bacon came from Spaxton to Stogumber and met Robert Jones in the market place, where he agreed to sell Mary and the children to Robert for five shillings . The transaction duly took place.

There are aspects of this story that are quite amusing to us now, but we should not forget that these were desperate measures being taken by desperate people – none of the parties involved wanted this to happen.

The magistrates were unrelenting and shortly after Christmas 1784, Mary and her children Mary aged from 20 to 9 were removed to Spaxton.

As time passed attitudes to poor people change, they become more and less tolerant, they wax and wane with changing economic conditions. By the 1720s there was a widespread feeling that the poor were having it too easy, and that rather than being given relief they should have to earn it in some way.

This is reflected in the action of the parish overseers who in 1722 used money from various bequests to the poor to purchase land in Bishops’ Lydeard as an investment which would pay an income to the benefit of the poor of the Parish. But not just the poor – they specifically detailed that the income was to be used only for ‘the respectable poor who attempted to live independently of the parish’ – so as we might say nowadays these funds were intended as a hand up not a hand out.

There was also at this time a big move to making poor people work to earn their benefit. Parishes bought raw materials, typically wool, which poor people were required to spin to ‘earn’ their relief. There was also a movement nationally to provide accommodation for the poor in which they were required to do this work – called workhouses. An Act of Parliament was passed to this end in 1722 and Stogumber probably set up its first workhouse in 1725, although the document which is supposed to show this is so damaged that it is not entirely clear if that is the case.

There definitely was a workhouse by 1752 when in another echo of our times the running of the workhouse was contracted out to a private operator.

An agreement made the 31st March 1752 at a Parish meeting held at the Swan Inn in Stogumber for three years that the Parishioners have agreed with William Perry to give him five hundred six pounds eight shillings and nine pence to be paid in five rates a year for taking care of all the poor people belonging to the parish of Stogumber in finding them meat drink clothes washing and lodgings and all other things usually paid out of the poor rates and we are to give him three guineas for cleaning the poor

The workhouse was rented and it is not known where exactly it was – and indeed there came to be more than one eventually. In 1834 there was one on the site of what is now the pub skittle alley, but this was not owned by the parish but rented from Sir John Sydenham; the parish also rented 5 other houses for the poor as well as the of course having the alms houses

None of these houses were ever called the workhouse in Stogumber but rather they were called the poorhouse. We should not think of them as Dickensian institutions where the poor were incarcerated and made to work, but they were more perhaps like sheltered accommodation or social housing. Certainly the majority of the poor in the parish never lived in them and continued to receive relief outside of the workhouse system.

There were never a huge number of people in the poorhouse – it opened with eight and in 1765 there were thirteen people in the workhouse: four men, seven women and two children. In 1834 shortly before it closed there were eleven old and disabled men and four old and disabled women living in it.

One of the great things about the workhouse from the point of view of the historical documents is that they began to keep itemised accounts of all the expenses incurred in the workhouse and so we get a peep into their lives – and it paints quite a surprising picture – it seems to have been far from the bleak place we might imagine.

One of the things that stands out is that they ate an extraordinary amount of beef: in November 1754 for instance they got through 236 lbs– 1lb each per day. They also consumed 60 lbs of cheese in that month - 1/4lb each per day - and large quantities of wheat. They occasionally had a change from beef with mutton or bacon. All of this fare was accompanied with turnips, peas and potatoes. Perhaps the poorhouses was providing meals for poor people who did not actually live there ?

To swill it all down they must evidently also have been brewing their own beer as their are regular sums spent on hops and malt.

Through to the 1760s life just seems to have got better and better in the workhouse. We start to see money being used to buy tobacco for John Eames, one of the inmates; a twine string for pair of spectacles was purchased; by 1762 sugar and treacle were appearing in the accounts; a hogshead of cider was purchased in October – over 50 gallons or 400 pints ! - and the following month wine appears as an item of expenditure. An annual dinner makes an appearance which must have been sumptuous affair as it was listed costing two pounds for dinner and drink

But then the pendulum swung back the other way and there was what seems to modern sensibilities to be a darker side to the parishes provision of this relief .

Historians can’t make their mind up about these badges. One camp maintains that this was degrading and was intended to shame the poor and so force them to out to work. The other camp maintains that it was a mark of genuine need for the poor who wore them because it marked them out as deserving poor and not scroungers. The one camp thinks of it as being like the yellow star that the Nazis made Jews wear, but the other camp thinks of it as being more like the blue badge that disabled people have in their cars to park.

The spinning idea did not last long and by 1759 had virtually stopped – probably because the local cloth industry had collapsed. However the Overseers seemed to have been an enterprising lot and they branched out into selling the poor’s labour and produce in other ways.

There are quite frequent references to receipts for labour of poor people going to work at Vellow wood; a bill was raised ‘for ye old mens labour’ at one point; also for work done on the lime kiln; and by the time the parish workhouse closed the overseers were employing a man to labour permanently on the parish roads.

There are regular entries which show that once the demand for spinning wool had dropped off they turned to mending shoes – setting up as a cobblers in effect, and one entry suggests that they also were acting as a barbers with receipts for shaving people.

They also listed receipts for selling apples, and grain presumably grown by the poor. They definitely kept a kitchen garden and bought leek seed for instance and kitchen plants.

The whole idea of making the poor work for their relief was never very successful and it was often found that the money they were able to bring in did not even cover the cost of the raw materials provided to them.

It has to be said though that none of these activities bought in anything other than what must have amounted to a bit of pocket money for the poor involved, and it certainly didn’t make a significant contribution towards the costs of running the poorhouse.

The fact that the overseers decided to tighten up on the badge wearing in 1768 suggests that attitudes towards the poor were hardening in Stogumber and this would fit with the national picture. This was a period when the number of poor was again starting to grow and demands on the overseers funds and on those who paid poor rate in the parish was increasing. There were several reasons for this connected with economic changes in wider society.

Against all this background something of a calamity struck the parish in when an outbreak of small pox occurred.Thenumber receiving emergency monthly payments shot up. The poor bill for the year rose by more than half from £205 the previous year to £310. The number in the poor house also rose dramatically from 13 in 1765 to 30 four years later.

Extract from the poor accounts during the smallpox epidemic

• Mary Hunt sick 2/0

• Mr Hughes rent 10/0

• Eames wife in need 2/0

• Mary Ash in need 1/0

• Thomas Hall sick 1/6

• Bett Bindon sick 1/0

• Mary Joanes sick 1/0

• Tamson Medrick 6d

• Elias Manfield 6d

• Joan Andrews 6d

• WIlliam Knight in need 6d

• Ann Warman 6d

• John Andrews sick 2/0

• John Lewis sick 4/0

• John Coles 2/0

• John Webber sick 2/0

• Bett Brenfield 6d

• John Webbers wife 6d

We can get some idea of the crushing blow that this combination of events caused to some people from the circumstances of James Smith, a yeoman farmer at Rowden, who appears in the parish records as a ratepayer contributing to the poor rate until the 1760s; in 1768 he was forced to quit his farm and he disappears from view until 20 years later when he was arrested as a vagrant found begging in the precincts of the Bristol Castle with Ann his daughter described as a lunatic aged 32. He told the Bristol authorities how the last legal settlement of him and Ann was Stoke Gomer in which parish he occupied an estate of his own of the yearly value of £80 upwards of 30 years.

The costs which the parish had to bear increased again shortly afterwards when in 1782 parliament alarmed at the growing number of rural poor introduced an amendment to the poor law act. This effectively introduced what we would now call unemployment benefit or perhaps working tax credit – whereby the able bodied labourer who found himself temporarily out of work, or with wages which were too low to support his family, was able to claim relief from the parish. In Stogumber top up payments were made to labourers with large families.

The effect of this extension of relief was that nationally the amount paid out in poor relief climbed from around £2m in 1785 to £7m in 1820. And this was reflected in the poor relief in the parish of Stogumber which having held steady at around £200 a year for decades, rose inexorably until in 1832 it stood at £1,150 per annum.

Faced with an ever more expensive system and ever growing numbers of poor claiming relief, attitudes towards the poor again hardened, and a political backlash grew. The governments response was to set up a commission of inquiry which toured the country taking evidence in the 1830s. Their report makes alarming reading:

It was said that single mothers were better off than married mothers, and that some women deliberately gave birth to 2 or 3 bastard children so that they could live off the income.

It was said that the payment of relief to the able-bodied unemployed encouraged idleness and drunkenness and made people dependent on the parish instead of standing on their own two feet.

It was said that the payment of relief to those having large families discriminated against single men and those with smaller families, and that it encouraged families to breed excessively as the more mouths there were to feed the more relief they gained.

it is now our painful duty to report that in the greater part of the districts we have been able to examine..the fund directed to be employed in setting to work children and persons capable of labour and in the necessary relief of the impotent, is applied to purposes opposed to the spirit and letter of the law and is destructive to the morals of the most numerous class and to the welfare of all'

The deterioration in the character and habits of a person receiving parochial relief pervades their whole conduct; they become idle, reckless, and saucy; and the younger learn from the older all their malpractices and are ready to follow them. The regular applicants for relief are generally of one family, the disease is hereditary and when once a family has applied for relief they are pressed down for ever. They have no care, no thought, no solicitude on account of the future.

Stogumber's overseers reported no problems with the existing system in Stogumber and noted that they paid an allowance for families with 4 or more children.

The Commissioners chose to ignore the evidence which the Stogumber Overseers submitted, and instead chose to include in their report the evidence of a Stogumber resident called Charles Rowcliffe. Rowcliffe was a solicitor, a staunch churchman, and a man who apparently held strong views - and views which were very much opposed to the system then pertaining,

"An allowance is made, unhappily; beginning at three children. I consider that nearly all the work is partly paid for by the parish, and that this fact is a crying evil, working great mischief, and distress, and carelessness, and indifference about his family, in the mind of the labourer."

This selective use of evidence was very much a reflection of the general approach of the commission of inquiry. It is now widely recognised as having been one of those government commissions which already knows the answer it wants to hear before it begins.

And so it is no surprise to find that the commissioners' final recommendation was that, apart from medical attention, all able bodied persons and their families should cease to receive 'all relief whatever ....otherwise in well regulated workhouses', and that these workhouses should offer an inferior standard of living to the lowest paid worker outside of the workhouse. The intention being to deter people from claiming relief and force them into work. Further they recommended that parish overseers should be abolished, that parishes should join together in unions, and that guardian be appointed to workhouses who would not be locally elected but appointed by a national board.

Sir John Trevelyan of Nettlecombe Court wrote this comment in a private letter about the new arrangements.

the union house at Williton is finished at the enormous cost of £12,000 and will probably serve for Good Barracks at some not distant day for the act proves every thing but useful or desireable for districts such as ours. Its machinery is far too expensive and the management placed in hands irresponsible and too far removed from the payment of their measures. The building is I am informed ill done, and the expences are increased very considerably and most loudly complained of throughout the whole district.

The act to this effect was passed just two months after the submission of the report in August 1834. And with it was swept away the whole machinery of parish responsibility and parish administration that had been in place since the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First.

tabulated poor rates for 1814 & 1822