Chapter 26

[488]The sequence in the Metropolis seems to have been, first, the exceptional distress in the East End during 1866-7; then a strict administration on deterrent principles, agreed to by conferences of East End Guardians in 1869, under the influence of Mr. Corbett, who had become inspector for the Metropolis in 1866; Mr. Goschen's Circular of 20th November 1869, and the consequent inquiries into Poor Law practice; Mr. Corbett's powerful Report of 10th August 1871; and then the Circular of 2nd December 1871, with the conferences resulting therefrom. Mr. Longley was appointed inspector for the Metropolis in March 1872 (Mr. Longley's Report, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp 196-7).

[489]Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, pp. 63-8.

[490]The first notice that we have seen of the fact that some districts contain "a much higher proportion of the weak and old," than others, and that some have also a much higher rate of mortality among husbands than others, which vitiates any simple comparison of their pauperism, is in a Report by Mr. Culley (inspector) in 1873 (Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 66, 72-3). But the hint was not acted on in the tables of statistics used by the inspectors.

[491]Mr. Longley did definitely recommend that outdoor relief, even to the widows with families, the sick and the "disabled"—by which he meant the aged—should be discontinued, except in cases that might be found to fall outside a series of categories so defined, and so extensive, as practically to include the whole of these classes. Moreover, in his view it was to be "regarded as the next step in the advance towards improved administration that applicants for out-relief shall be called upon to show special cause why they should not receive indoor relief" (Mr. Longley's Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 142).

[492]E.g.MS. archives, Newcastle Board of Guardians (lithographed letter of Mr. Hedley, inspector, drawing attention to the comparative outdoor pauperism of his unions, and urging reduction).

[493]History of the English Poor Law, by T. Mackay, 1899, vol. iii. p. 154.

[494]Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, pp. xix-xx.

[495]Mr. Dodson (President of the Local Government Board) to deputation from Newington and St. Saviour's, Southwark, November 1881, inLocal Government Chronicle, 26th November 1881, p. 951.

[496]Fifth Annual Report, 1875-6, pp. xvii-xix.

[497]Letter, signed by Sir John Lambert, to Mr. Albert Pell, M.P., Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, pp. 51-7.

[498]It is to be noted that Mr. Longley, in 1873, drew attention to the uncertainty of practice caused by the lack of definition of "able-bodied," and the different senses in which it was used in the official documents. He pointed out that the absence of definition seriously impaired administration, and urged that authoritative instructions should be issued (Mr. Longley's Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 174). We do not find that any action was taken.

[499]Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 67. With regard to the 85,386 persons who received outdoor relief on 1st January 1873, as "able-bodied male paupers" (including, it must be remembered, 18,037 wives and 45,285 children of such men, 15,133 men relieved on account of their own sickness, 5572 on account of the sickness of wife or child, and only 1339 merely for want of work), the Central Authority observed without discrimination, that: "There would be, in our opinion, no material difficulty in enforcing, throughout all the unions, thesalutary provisionwhich forbids the allowance of relief to this class of persons except in a workhouse" (Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. xiv). But no such "provision" existed, in any Statute or Order, or even in any official Circular, so far as we can discover. Mr. Corbett had once suggested that he should "encourage boards of guardians to abstain farmore than at present, from giving out-relief to able-bodied men on account of their own sickness or accident." But even he did not propose its refusal in all cases (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871). We cannot find that the Central Authority had ever before formally seemed to give its approval, if it really intended to do so by thisobiter dictum, to the suggestion that sick persons ought not to receive outdoor relief.

[500]Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. xvii. It also received "applications from a few other unions for assent to temporary out-relief in the case of boatmen or other persons thrown out of work by the frost." Sanction was not actually refused, but it was pointed out that the guardians should have offered the workhouse (ibid.).

[501]Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. xviii.

[502]Letter of Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p. 56.

[503]Local Government Board to Bristol Union, 16th January 1879,Local Government Chronicle, 25th January 1879, p. 69.

[504]Local Government Board to Bedminister Union, January 1881; inLocal Government Chronicle, 8th January 1881, p. 35.

[505]Letter, Local Government Board to Warrington Union, March 1878; inLocal Government Chronicle, 30th March 1878, p. 253.

[506]Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 67;seeMr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.

[507]Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.

[508]Instructional letter to inspectors (?) December 1878; cited by Mr. Culley (inspector), to Newcastle Board of Guardians,seeMS. archives, 28th December 1878.

[509]Local Government Board letter to Holborn Union, 9th February 1886, in House of Commons, No. 69 of 1886, p. 40.

[510]Ibid.pp. 40-1.

[511]Special Order to Whitechapel Union, 18th April 1887. This new departure was not mentioned in the Annual Report, and the Order has not, as far as we know, been generally published.

[512]Mr. Corbett's Report of 14th January 1868, in Twentieth Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1867-8, p. 126; repeated in his Report of 10th August 1871.

[513]Office Minute by Mr. Longley, 1873. Much the same words occur in his Annual Report. The "lax discipline of the workhouse" in London is described as tending "to deprive it of its function as a test" (Mr. Longley's Report in Third Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1873-4, p. 166).

[514]Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis; in Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. 49.

[515]Ibid.p. 42.

[516]Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis, in Fourth Annual Report, 1874-5, p. 43.

[517]Ibid.p. 47. We have not verified the statement that the intention of the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 included the allocation of separate workhouses exclusively for the able-bodied. We see that in January 1868 Mr. Corbett was suggesting it as if it were an idea of his own. "I am more than ever convinced," he says, "that one of the great wants of the Metropolis is the establishment of new, or the appropriation of existing workhouses for the able-bodied classes ofgroupsof unions, in each of which one sex only should be received; a far more complete system of classification maintained than has hitherto been attempted, at least in Metropolitan workhouses; and strict discipline enforced under proper regulations and superintendence" (Mr. Corbett's Report of 4th January 1868, in Twentieth Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1867-8, p. 126). Whether or not this was exactly in the mind of the legislature or of the Central Authority in 1867, it seems true, as Mr. Longley pointed out, that the provisions of the Metropolitan Poor Act were extensive enough to cover, "whether directly or indirectly," not merely an improvement in workhouse sick wards, but "the reception in distinct buildings of separate classes of paupers or ... classification, not in a workhouse, but by workhouses" (Mr. Longley's Report on Indoor Relief in the Metropolis, in Fourth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1874-5, p. 42).

[518]Special Order to Poplar and Stepney, 19th October 1871; Special Order to Poplar, 6th March 1872 (extending the use of the Poplar Workhouse to the able-bodied of any Metropolitan union); Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871.

[519]First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. xxiv; Second Annual Report, 1872-3, pp. xxvi-xxvii.

[520]Second Annual Report, 1872-3, p. xxvii.

[521]Letters, Poplar Guardians to Local Government Board, 4th November 1878; Local Government Board to Poplar Guardians, 19th December 1887. Even this very strict Board of Guardians had, in 1871, used, as a labour test for women, "a task of work in aneedle-room... provided by the guardians," and this had been recommended even by Mr. Corbett (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871). But oakum-picking had apparently been substituted for needlework, and the Central Authority, in 1878, did not see its way to any alternative. "With regard to the objection ... to oakum-picking as an employment for women ... very great difficulty was experienced in finding labour which shall not interfere with the market for the work of the independent poor, and ... even oakum-picking is not altogether free from this objection.... Work of this description is in use in workhouses in various parts of the country, not as punishment ... but as one of the most available means of employing the able-bodied indoor paupers.... General experience has shown that it is not physically injurious, and in this particular workhouse it is found that many of the female paupers can pick the prescribed quantity with ease.... It is erroneous to suppose that a particular description of work is necessarily degrading because it happens to be exacted in gaols, since there are but few kinds of menial work in all large institutions to which the same objection may not also be applied; and it should be added that, unless this kind of employment is resorted to, it would not be practicable to find sufficient occupation for the female inmates of the workhouses, and that enforced idleness is more demoralising than even disagreeable work" (Local Government Board to Poplar Union, 19th December 1878, inLocal Government Chronicle, 4th January 1879, pp. 8-9). Twenty years later the official view, as we shall see, completely changed.

[522]Special Order to Poplar Union, 4th February 1881; Local Government Board to Poplar Guardians, 9th February 1881; MS. Minutes, Poplar Guardians, 18th February 1881.

[523]Special Orders of 13th October 1880, 24th August 1881, and 11th February 1887.

[524]MS. Minutes, Manchester Guardians, July and August 1887. The Manchester Guardians did not act on this, but ten years later united with the Chorlton Guardians in setting aside (under the Poor Law Act 1879) one workhouse for the double purpose of a casual ward and "a test house for able-bodied paupers" (See Special Orders to Manchester and Chorlton, dated 20th March 1897, and 9th April 1898; Twenty-Seventh Annual Report, 1897-8, pp. 127-8). This still continues. The whole experience of these Able-bodied Test Workhouses is reviewed in the Minority Report, 1909.

[525]Mr. Lockwood's Report, in Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, p. 446. Already in 1898, however, the Central Authority had told its inspectors to urge that oakum-picking, which had been the staple of the test workhouse, should be given up, as an occupation for workhouse inmates, especially for women; and did not suggest any possible alternative (Twenty-eighth Annual Report, 1898-9, p. lxxxiv). "Oakum-picking by the inmates of the workhouses should be discontinued," said Mr. Chaplin (Hansard, 23rd May 1898, vol. 58, p. 326). This was a complete reversal of policy. As recently as 1890 the Central Authority had actually invited the Poplar Board of Guardians to undertake some oakum-picking for the Government, and the board had undertaken to pick 30 tons at £3 per ton (Local Government Board to Poplar Board of Guardians, 9th July 1890). By 1904, not only oakum-picking, but also corn-grinding with a piecework task, was given up. "As regards the proposed task of corn-grinding, the board states that in cases where their consent is necessary they do not sanction a task of corn-grinding by quantity, and they consider that a time limit should be fixed for such work. As to oakum-picking, they are of opinion that, on account of its associations, it is open to objection as a task for workhouse inmates, and as far as practicable, it should be discontinued for all inmates of workhouses" (Local Government Board to Islington Union, September 1904;Local Government Chronicle, 8th October 1904, p. 1049).

[526]34 & 35 Vic. c. 108, sec. 4; Circular of 18th November 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 54.

[527]Mr. Chamberlain to Metropolitan Board of Works, 19th February 1886, in House of Commons, No. 69 of 1886, p. 44.

[528]The Circular incidentally criticised the character of the labour test usually imposed on the able-bodied applicant for poor relief, as being unfit for skilled artisans. Spade labour was suggested as "less objectionable"; and "the board will be glad to assist the guardians by authorising the hiring of land for the purpose" of setting a task of work to able-bodied paupers on outdoor relief (Circular of 15th March 1886, in Sixteenth Annual Report, 1886-7, p. 6). This has now been done at Leicester, where the board of guardians hires land on which to set the able-bodied to dig (Thirty-third Annual Report, 1903-4, p. 205).

[529]Circular of 15th March 1886, in Sixteenth Annual Report, 1886-7, pp. 5-7.

[530]Mr. Ritchie to deputation as to children in workhouses,seeLocal Government Chronicle, 17th December 1887, p. 1058.

[531]Circular of 16th January 1891, in Twentieth Annual Report, 1890-91, p. 206; Local Government Board to Poplar Board of Guardians, 21st January 1891 (seefor the action thereon of Boards of Guardians, MS. archives, Poplar Board of Guardians, January 1891).

[532]Circular of 14th November 1892, in Twenty-second Annual Report, 1892-3, p. 38.

[533]Circulars of 27th March and 30th September 1893, Twenty-third Annual Report, 1893-4, pp. lxiv-lxv; Board of Trade Report on Agencies and Methods for dealing with the Unemployed, 1893 (C. 7182), pp. 187-206.

[534]Twenty-fourth Annual Report, 1894-5, pp. lxxi-lxxiii. The local authorities were taking action before the Circular was sent;see, for instance, MS. Minutes, Bradford Board of Guardians, 4th February 1895, showing that they had decided on a deputation to the town council on 23rd January; and that the town council, on 25th January, had agreed to find work in clearing away snow.

[535]Ibid.p. lxxiii; First, Second, and Third Reports of the Select Committee on Distress from Want of Employment, 1895.

[536]Twenty-fourth Annual Report, 1894-5, p. lxxiv.

[537]Third Report of Select Committee on Distress from Want of Employment, 1895, p. 560.

[538]The Lord Mayor of Manchester, in reply to deputation from the Chorlton Board of Guardians, 1895;seeSecond Report of Committee on Distress from Want of Employment, 1895, p. 54.

[539]Third Report of Committee on Distress from Want of Employment, 1895, p. v. The Committee also recommended the abolition of the penalty of disfranchisement, on persons in receipt of poor relief, so far as "the deserving man forced to become dependent on public aid" was concerned (Ibid.).

[540]Ibid.p. iv.SeeMr. Shaw Lefevre's answer in House of Commons 18th February 1895 (Hansard, vol. 30, p. 969). The Central Authority persisted in its attitude with regard to these powers, and the rules, without which they cannot be used, have not in fact been issued;seeMr. Gerald Balfour's answer in House of Commons, 19th July 1905 (Hansard, vol. 149, pp. 1179-80). Similar powers were, however, granted to distress committees of local municipal authorities by the Unemployed Workmen Act 1905, under which the necessary rules have been issued.

[541]5 Edw. VII. c. 18 (Unemployed Workmen Act 1905); Local Government Board to Metropolitan Mayors, 20th October 1904, and Circulars of 24th and 31st October 1904, 20th September, 10th October, 8th and 22nd December 1905, 13th January 1906; Orders of 20th September, 10th October, 6th December 1905, 13th January 1906. Thirty-fourth Annual Report, 1904-5, pp. cxxii-iii, 150-6; Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1905-6, pp. clxxx-cxcii, 349-438.

[542]In answer to an inquiry in 1887, as to what action had been taken on the Circular of 1886, the Poplar Board of Guardians replied that no exceptional measures had been taken, and that they had found it unnecessary even to open a labour yard (Local Government Board to Poplar, 11th January 1887; Poplar to Local Government Board, 12th January 1887).

[543]Local Government Board to Poplar Board of Guardians, 15th January, 6th June, 17th August, and 4th October 1895; MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 1895-1900.

[544]No Order appears to have been issued, sanctioning or regulating this new experiment, the Local Government Board's approval being apparently conveyed, partly by a brief letter, partly by verbal communications through the inspector MS. archives, Poplar Board of Guardians, 8th and 22nd July, 16th and 30th September, 21st October, 25th November 1903; 13th April 1904; Local Government Board to Poplar Union, 16th and 28th July 1903, and 11th April 1904. The Central Authority refused to modify the General Dietaries and Accounts Order 1900, which had prescribed model dietaries for inmates of workhouses, but had not included any for men engaged all day out-of-doors at agricultural labour, but it sanctioned the extra expenditure illegally incurred for a more appropriate dietary (Local Government Board to Poplar, 10th January 1905; MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 11th January 1905).

[545]Special Order to Poplar of 4th February 1905 (modified workhouse test). It is not clear whether: (i.) the men at the farm colony; or (ii.) their families, were in 1904 included in the statistics of indoor, or in those of outdoor, pauperism; nor whether any change in the actual statistical classification was made on receipt of the Order of February 1905.

[546]MS. Minutes, Poplar Board of Guardians, 30th March, 18th May, 15th June 1904; Local Government Board to Poplar Board of Guardians, 25th March and 2nd June 1904.

[547]Local Government Board to Bradford Board of Guardians, 14th January 1905. The Bradford Board had asked the Central Authority in vain, two years before, to get powers to enable Boards of Guardians to combine to form labour colonies of their own, especially for vagrants (MS. archives, Bradford Board of Guardians, February 1903).

[548]Local Government Board to Poplar Board of Guardians, 1st December 1903.

[549]34 & 35 Vic. c. 108, secs. 5, 6, 9.

[550]Circular Letter on Vagrancy of 18th November 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 55.

[551]This Circular was issued after the passing of the Pauper Inmates Discharge and Regulation Act, and a few days before the General Order, of which the provisions will shortly be described. In the next year the Board reported a diminution in the number of vagrants, and allowed some of the less stringent of the Metropolitan casual wards to be closed, an action which caused difficulties in later years. In the unions where there were no casual wards, ordinary vagrants were referred to that of a neighbouring union, but the workhouse officials were bound to admit any applicants who, from sickness or other cause, were unable to proceed farther, and generally any case of urgent necessity (Second Annual Report, 1872-3, pp. xxii-xxiii). In 1872 also the Board advised guardians to dispense with the services of police constables as assistant relieving officers, and appoint the superintendents of the casual wards instead (Circular on Vagrancy in the Metropolis, of 30th May 1872; inibid.p. 17). No reason is given for this change, and thirty years later the co-operation of the police in this manner is still assumed, for the board sanction a subscription by the guardians towards the cost of providing a mid-day meal for vagrants when proceeding from one workhouse to another, "where the superintendent of police is appointed assistant relieving officer for vagrants" (Local Government Chronicle, 29th November 1902, p. 1203).

[552]45 and 46 Vic. c. 36 (Casual Poor Act 1882); General Order of 18th December 1882, in Twelfth Annual Report, 1882-3, pp. 64-71. The Metropolis was now deemed to be one town for the purpose of punishing resort to the casual ward more than once in a month.

[553]Circulars of 16th April 1885, 7th November 1887, and 18th January 1888;seeFifteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Annual Reports.

[554]Circular of 13th June 1892; Order of 11th June 1892; Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1892-3, pp. 14-15.

[555]Seeits Report, Cd. 2852 of 1906.

[556]By the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act 1876, the law which had for poor relief purposes put a woman whose husband was beyond seas in the same position as a widow was extended to a married woman living separate from her husband (39 & 40 Vic. c. 61 sec. 18;Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board, vol. iii. 1888, p. 186). It is also to be noted that under the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, a married woman having separate property was made liable to maintain her husband, and, concurrently with her husband, also her children and grandchildren if they became chargeable to the poor rate (45 & 46 Vic. c. 75, secs. 20, 21).

[557]Circular, 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 67.

[558]For the "Manchester Rules"seeFifth Annual Report, 1875-6, pp. xvii-xix, 130-133. Somewhat similar rules were at the instance of the inspectorate adopted by the Cheshire Unions as late as 1891 (Twenty-first Annual Report, 1891-2, pp. 164-5).

[559]Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 67. This suggestion we trace to Mr. Corbett, in 1869, though in the milder form of limiting the grant of outdoor relief to recently deserted wives, to two or three weeks only (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871, as reprinted by the Central Authority for official circulation, February 1873). Ten years later the Central Authority found that this policy was not justified by the law, so far as regards deserted wives having children under seven (as is the case with most of them). In such cases it was found necessary in 1880 to advise that outdoor relief could, in case of destitution, not be refused, even if the woman was able-bodied, and irrespective of her character, the cause or duration of the husband's absence, possible collusion with him, etc. The Central Authority decided that, "assuming that the applicant in this case is a married woman, whose husband, though living, is not residing with her, she would not be liable for the support of the children, who, being within the age of nurture, cannot lawfully be separated from her; and the guardians would not be justified, under these circumstances, in withholding out-relieffor the children" (Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board, vol. ii. 1880, p. 71).

[560]Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p. 56.

[561]Circular, 30th August 1882, in Twelfth Annual Report, 1882-3, pp. 43-4.

[562]"Widows and their dependent children [on 1st January 1873, 25,740] constitute 33 per cent of the total outdoor pauperism of London, and 57 per cent of so much of that pauperism as is caused otherwise than by age and permanent infirmity" (Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 179).

[563]Circular of 2nd December 1871, in First Annual Report, 1871-2, p. 67. The injurious results of this policy were reported by Mr. Culley,seehis Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 74. On the other hand Mr. Longley preferred the "offer of the House" to widows, in order to make their deceased husbands provident. "The condition of a widow with a large family," said Mr. Longley, "however deplorable it undoubtedly is, is one of the ordinary contingencies of human circumstances, which may, in some degree or other, be provided against equally with sickness, or accident, or other bereavement.... A man in receipt of regular weekly wages may be fairly called upon to secure his widow if [un]able to work for her living, against dependence upon Poor Law relief" (Mr. Longley's Report, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 183, 185).

[564]Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, p. 56. Some of the inspectors altogether disapproved of the policy of taking the children into the workhouse (see, for instance, Mr. Culley's Report, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 74). One inspector, at least, realised the connection of the destitution due to widowhood with the absence of compensation for accidents and industrial diseases among workmen. "Male life, at least, is longer in the rural than in the manufacturing, mining, and seaport unions. In the latter ... male life is more frequently cut short by illness or accident arising from the nature of the employment.... The proportion of children (exclusive of orphans) to widows ... varies from 0·48 in the purely agricultural union of Bedale to 2·30 in the manufacturing and shipbuilding district of Jarrow.... I found ... on examining the returns from the different relief districts that the highest rate of mortality amongst husbands prevailed in the inland portion of the union, a state of things which the relieving officers attributed to accidents in shipbuilding yards and the unwholesome nature of the employment in chemical works. In the same manner, in Tynemouth Union, I found that the proportion of widows with young families was considerably higher in the mining district than in the town of North Shields.... In Teesdale the rate of mortality amongst the leadminers is very great, owing, I was informed, to the bad ventilation of the mines" (Mr. Culley's Report, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 72-3). We do not find that the point was followed up until the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1900.

[565]Local Government Board to Chairman of Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, 1877-8, pp. 55-6. We find the policy of reducing "the widow's six months" suggested by Mr. Corbett in 1869. At the Conference of East End Guardians summoned by him, it was agreed "that the widows without children should, as a rule, after a period not exceeding three months from the commencement of their widowhood, be relieved only in the workhouse" (Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871; as reprinted by the Central Authority for official circulation, February 1873).

[566]Ibid.

[567]Twenty-third Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1870-1, p. 374.

[568]Third Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1873-4, p. 588; Twenty-first Annual Report, 1891-2, p. 365.

[569]It is, however, to be noted that in the model rules which the most zealous inspectors were pressing on Boards of Guardians in 1902—herein differing from the much commended Manchester rules of 1875—the widow with only one child is recognised as a fit case for outdoor relief (Mr. Preston-Thomas's Report, in Thirty-Second Annual Report, 1902-3, p. 100).

[570]Twenty-third Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1870-71, p. 378.

[571]On 1st January 1892, the 336,870 children of 1871 had fallen to 177,245, probably the lowest figure of the whole seventy years (Twenty-first Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1891-2, p. 365).

[572]36 & 37 Vic. c. 86, sec. 3 (Elementary Education Act 1873); 39 & 40 Vic. c. 79, sec. 40 (Elementary Education Act 1876); 43 & 44 Vic. c. 23, sec. 5 (Elementary Education Act 1880). It was held in 1877 that the guardians might, if they chose, pay, besides the school fee, also for books and stationery (Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board, vol. i. 1880, p. 49).

[573]39 & 40 Vic. c. 79, sec. 10 (Elementary Education Act 1876).

[574]Circulars of 30th December 1873 and 30th December 1876, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp. 4-7, and Sixth Annual Report, 1876-7, pp. 23-6; MS. Minutes, Bakewell Board of Guardians, 12th January and 9th February 1874.

[575]Ibid.30th August 1880.

[576]31 & 32 Vic. c. 122, sec. 37 (Poor Law Amendment Act 1868).

[577]Circular of 31st December 1888, in Eighteenth Annual Report, 1888-9, p. 105.

[578]52 & 53 Vic. c. 44, secs. 1, 12 (1889); 57 & 58 Vic. c. 41, sec. 1 (1894); Circular of 30th September 1889, in Nineteenth Annual Report, 1889-90, pp. 92-5.

Back to Index Next