by Dark Days of Georgian Britain- Rethinking the Regency (retail) (epub)
There was a flurry of attempts to use charity to help the widows and families of those who had died at Waterloo in 1815. The ordinary seamen had been discharged from their warships and there was not enough trade to absorb these men into the merchant navy. The fate of the poor British soldiers and sailors would have been obvious to the public. Unlike today, military men appeared in public in their uniform and they were a very common sight during the Napoleonic Wars, especially in the southern coastal towns. By 1818 sailors were regularly spotted in the streets, shoeless, near naked, and with empty bellies, to the extent that the newspapers worried that professional ‘sturdy beggars’ were impersonating them.
A fund set up by William Wilberforce raised £7,000 in 1817–18. It could do little to help the 65,000 sailors – two out of three of the whole Royal Navy – demobilised since 1815. The debate in parliament was concluded by William Wilberforce himself, who suggested that the government simply cut its naval budget faster and more savagely. People at the time would not have seen this as a contradiction; charity was voluntary, targeted and conditional. Income tax, another way of redistributing wealth, was fixed, compulsory, and a wartime tax only.
Unlike the help for the middle ranks, the money from Wilberforce’s ‘Society for the Aid of Destitute Seamen’ was spread out amongst considerably more people. Each applicant was examined by a Royal Navy officer. The 250 men – many more had to be sent away – were given temporary low-grade lodgings and given a wholesome breakfast of porridge every morning. The papers reported that they were particularly grateful when the accumulated filth of the streets was washed off their bodies and they were given second-hand clothes. The society also applied to other missionary societies for bibles for the distressed sailors – the need for moral reformation was seen as a crucial part of the rehabilitation process. Bibles were also ordered in foreign languages – the British army and navy that defeated Napoleon was multi-racial.
Each city and town organised a subscription society to alleviate the distress of the poor. The society meeting in Norwich in January 1817 will serve as an example. It was a meeting of the most respectable members of the local society. In this case, the chair was William Hankes and the first speaker was Alderman Harvey. They were desperate to distance themselves from radicals and revolutionaries; there would be a loyal toast somewhere in the proceeding, even to the Prince Regent, whose unpopularity united all classes except the ruling one.
These meetings normally started with an explanation of the local distress. In the case of Norwich, the cotton manufactory had lost 900 of its 1,000 workers, exports from small workshops had collapsed due to lack of demand in Europe, and the second year of poor weather had produced high prices for all foodstuffs. Factories in Manchester were undercutting local workshops. The workhouse was now full with 700 inmates, and there were 3,000 people applying for ‘outdoor relief’ – supplements to their wages. Alderman Harvey stressed that the 3,000 were ‘honest, laborious men’; another element of these distress societies was the determination to only help the deserving poor. Alderman Harvey also pointed out that the poor of Norwich were some of the most grateful paupers in the country. In the eyes of the ‘Respectability’ present at the meeting, it was absolutely vital that the poor were humble and grateful. This gratitude acknowledged the contribution of the rich and avoided the poor being spoilt and demoralised by too much help.
That was certainly the case in Norwich. Mr Gurney, the next speaker, gave some examples:
Mr Gurney then related several cases of extreme distress that had come under his notice, where from the want of work, industrious men with large families have been obliged to part with their clothes, and even sell their dishes for their dinner, before they would apply for relief; and one weaver, who had a wife and three children, and earned 7 shilling a week, and in better times had saved up a little money, burst into tears on being obliged to part with his furniture and resort to the Court of Guardians for relief. Such deserving persons were peculiar objects of attention.
Mr Alderson spoke next and modified the philanthropic atmosphere. He pointed out that people had migrated to Norwich from as far away as Berwick-upon-Tweed; that distress was no worse than last year apart from the increased price of bread, and that was due to a bad harvest caused by God’s providence, ‘and it was the duty of the poor and the rich to submit to it’. He had clearly forgotten about the Corn Laws.
Mr Alderson was a Poor Law overseer and administered the workhouse and outdoor relief. He welcomed further subscriptions from the concerned citizens as this would keep the Poor Law rates under control. He had perhaps also forgotten that those in the room would be the people paying the most on poor rates. He worried a little that the working man, while needing relief, also needed his independent spirit maintaining for the future. He wanted non-Norwich people removed, in case they became a burden. They would be forcibly removed from Norwich to their place of settlement if they became unemployed or ill. His view about who qualified as deserving poor was trenchant and specific – you had be guilty about receiving help, grateful and hard working. And from Norwich.
Mr Gurney took the stage again. He, too, asserted that more money was needed. Some of the independent-minded poor had not even asked for relief; they needed to be sought out, but their self-reliance was laudable, if a little misplaced. Many of this praiseworthy, independent sort had sold all their possessions at the pawnbroker, but now even the pawnbrokers were running short of capital as their shops were overflowing with pledged items.
The gentlemen ended their meeting with some resolutions. There would be soup kitchens; a door-to-door collection; a subscription, and a distribution to the deserving poor. The initial idea – to employ the poor in repaving the town – was not followed up. It would have cost too much to buy the raw materials – it would also have created real jobs.
The concerned citizens of Norwich seem to have forgotten the events of their town in the previous year, 1816, when relations between the classes were a little less rosy. There had been vandalism in the city in May as part of the rural food riots all over East Anglia. When windows were broken, the Poor Law officials announced that, yes, they would repair all the damage, but the cost would be subtracted from the funds available to the poor.
Other poor people had showed similar ingratitude. The weavers of Calton, Glasgow were under pressure from Irish immigration and new technology which allowed the unskilled to do their weaving jobs and an increase in bread prices. It was 11d per quartern loaf in Glasgow market in July 1816, with a 1d discount if you had a ticket from the Calton Bread Society and bought it from them directly. The organisation was set up in 1810, employed its own staff and set itself up in competition against the local bakers. It urged the workers to spend any money saved from buying cheaper bread on material and moral improvements. The real problem however, was that the quartern loaf was 2d in 1810, and in Glasgow in July 1816 it was 11d, and such a small discount made no difference at all.
On Thursday 1 August, in response to the worsening distress in Calton, a soup kitchen was set up. At first glance this seemed to be a generous gesture; there was no attempt to vet the recipients in order to rule out those whose poverty was the result of moral failings. There was no ostentatious display of names and amounts pledged in the newspapers that was an almost inevitable part of the distress societies. This one seemed to be a ‘no strings attached’ charity.
The attitude of the local people was novel. First they threw stones at the soup kitchen and then went on to break the windows of those who generously set them up. By 4pm the military had selected the ringleaders and imprisoned them. Then a larger crowd attacked the soldiers, and they fired back and injured people. The riot continued into the next day until sufficient military force of dragoons could be mustered. One youngster had died in an accident; he was discovered with a chisel in his head (some reports say it was a shard of glass in the eye) and this was removed in an unsuccessful and uniquely painful trepanation of the skull.
The Oxford Chronicle reported that on the first day of the riot, the mob began ‘in the usual way of throwing stones at the soup kitchen, breaking the windows’. The tone had a world-weariness about it, as it seemed to have been a popular method of protest for the poor in 1816. The newspaper speculated somewhat sarcastically that it was the quality of the broth that was the root cause, but then settled on the belief that it was a handful of mischievous people exploiting the economic distress for their own political ends.
The Calton rioters were not forelock-tugging agricultural labourers. They were a tight-knit community of skilled workers who had no time for broth as the answer to their problems. They had been suffering for more than twenty years and had rioted previously in 1797 and 1800. They knew that soup kitchens were a consequence of their problems and not the cure. A truer cause of the anger can probably be seen in the fact that the rioters tried to burn down a factory that manufactured the type of power looms that was creating unemployment and depressing wages.
The local Justices of the Peace announced at the end of the disturbances that they would still be providing relief for the poor weavers of Calton, despite their goodwill being mightily tested. The local subscription society put a notice in the papers after the riots, complaining about ingratitude. Why would benevolent gentlemen volunteer to help with a reaction like this?
Individuals did contribute to charity for the poor. The Prince Regent was always ready to have more of any luxury item that was not selling well. In December 1816, in response to starvation in East London, the prince generously spent more of his taxpayer subsidy on Spitalfields silk. He purchased 2,000 yards of silk for the Princess Charlotte and her new husband, the Prince of Coburg. His influence meant that people who appeared at court followed his example. As people were starving, it was suggested that courtiers should wear plain velvets, which were quick to manufacture and able to produce wages before even more people perished. This was not the end of the prince’s generosity with the money of others. On Christmas Eve of the same year, 1816, the ‘Prince Regent’s Bounty’ distributed 9,500lbs of beef and 10,000 loaves of bread to 6,000 poor people.
Each town and city would have local worthies ready to make donations to the poor, aping the example of the monarch and aristocracy. It was thought particularly important that the poor should eat at Christmas. One example that will stand for thousands is that of John Fenton Cawthorne, who donated 1,300lbs of beef (two fat bullocks) and potatoes to feed 400 poor families of his native Lancaster from 1810 to at least 1823. In 1815 he donated 10 guineas to the Lancaster Waterloo fund for soldiers and their families; he also gave £100 and some land to build a school for girls. He was a generous man, but it was generosity with a self-interested purpose.
Cawthorne, a lifelong opponent of Catholics and supporter of the slave trade, had arrived in Lancaster in disgrace after being found guilty of embezzlement of the funds of the Westminster Militia. After a socially embarrassing court martial he wished to reinstate himself as a member of parliament. ‘His personal interest there had been established through largesse and was strong enough to secure his unopposed return in 1806, and again in 1812.’2
Despite his annual generosity to the poor, he was a harsh landlord and factory owner. In most of the primary references to Cawthorne he is at the local race track; and it is perhaps not a coincidence that when he died in 1831 he left less than £100, and his fine house, Wyreside Hall, had to be sold. Politics and gambling were the most expensive hobbies a member of the local ‘Respectability’ could have. Although Cawthorne was perhaps a little more villainous than most benevolent gentlemen, it does rather suggest that the motivation of the rich was sometimes suspect.
Charity was a social hobby. It was thought to be a particularly good occupation for the ladies. Many charities would specifically invite ladies to meetings and give publicity to their donations. It would be part of the social round for the young too, as this 1818 poem/joke from the Northamptonshire Mercury suggests:
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
As a belle of high fashion was boasting one day
Of the clothing and food that she had just given away
To the poor, A satirical elf,
Her Uncle, exclaimed ‘you the hungry may feed
But as to you clothing the naked – indeed
You had better begin with yourself!
The young woman is boasting about her charity; her uncle, like elder relations throughout the ages, disapproves of what she wears, and clothing the naked may have been the reality rather than an expression.
Evening balls and afternoon lunches were a common vehicle for the rich to enjoy themselves and help the local poor. The superbly named Grateful Society of Bristol, who still do charitable work today, met on 13 November 1818 to raise money by a divine service, sermon, and lunch (‘dinner will be on the table at precisely 3pm’). Ladies were particularly welcome to contribute money at the church doors after the service and their recommendations for charity were actively solicited, possibly because of the number of poor women the charity helped. Since 1758, the society had helped 7,376 women who were about to give birth and had provided apprenticeships for 214 Bristol boys.
Other charitable events on November 1818 included an acting performance in Dublin in support of the local Society for the Suppression of Street Begging. Despite its name, it did have charitable intentions, as it was designed to protect children from being used, endangering their physical and moral welfare. The Mendacity Society report of 1818 believed that vulnerable looking children – the blind were particularly sought after – were hired out for the purpose of begging, and that parents used their begging money to drink spirits and ruin children’s lives.
The Exeter Sunday Schools also announced in November 1818 that it had provided reading and religious instruction for 372 of the poor through voluntary subscription. The Bishop of Chester promised a charity sermon (an idea that shows how very far we are today from the ideas of two centuries ago) in favour of the local Blue Coat Charity hospital. Since 1815, these institutions had provided a basic education to poor children – it rarely included writing, as this would encourage ideas above their station. Some charitable schools did more. Thomas Finigan, master of the Irish Free School, not only organised the education of the Irish poor of St Giles, but also provided food and clothes for children. He also stopped asking for parental contributions to the schooling, as the parents could no longer afford them. As usual, there was a catch; the school was trying to wean the youngsters off their native religion by offering what they called a ‘non sectarian’ religious education.
Charity was usually provided via education or a copy of the New Testament. No money was provided by voluntary organisations without the most careful scrutiny of individual circumstances. The only cash payments were made by the Poor Law officials, and they would examine the recipients carefully before handing over any money. Some charities would hand over goods, such as clothes for the poor, but surveillance and instruction were never far below the surface. A letter to the Carlisle Patriot in November 1818 welcomed the new charity for clothing the poor; it would make sure that they had no excuse to miss Sunday school, and asked whether it could be arranged that only children who worked during the week could receive these clothes, as their only chance for an education was on Sunday. The implication was that even regular work could not guarantee regular clothing.
Not everybody was grateful. Leigh Hunt’s The Examiner suggested that somebody who gave £50 to help a local organisation was going through the process of almsgiving, not charity. If that person enforced high rents for his tenants or drove down the wages of his workers, they were in no way charitable.
William Cobbett was scathing of charities; they came with too many strings attached. He would have objected to the November 1818 meeting of the organisation to ‘Relieve the Poor Widows and Orphans of the Clergy of Ely’ – not because these people did not deserve support, but because the rich clergy were not paying the bill. It was coming directly fro
m the rich of Cambridgeshire and therefore indirectly from the poor who paid their taxes and rents and ate expensive bread.
Chapter 8
Old Corruption: The General Election, 1818
Parliamentary reform – that is, the fair geographical distribution of seats, the widening of the franchise so that more people could vote, and the end of corruption that gave power to those with money – was not a new subject in the Regency. Prime Minister William Pitt was in favour of reform in the 1780s:
Without a parliamentary reform the nation will be plunged into new wars; without a parliamentary reform you cannot be safe against bad ministers nor can good ministers be of use to you
This was one of the many necessary changes put on hold by the war with France and the fear of revolutionary ideas.
Instead of reform, the British lower orders were constantly encouraged to love their constitution. They certainly enjoyed more liberty than was available on the continent and they were constantly reminded of this too, but the country was not democratic; indeed the word was an insult to the ears of almost everybody, creating images of anarchy, chaos and the worst excesses of the French Revolution. Reform was therefore halted and a rigid system, pickled in precedent from medieval times, was in place, but also under attack during the Regency.
Parliament consisted of an unelected House of Lords (which remains the same in the twenty-first century) and a House of Commons of 658 members, a very similar number to today. One hundred Irish MPs were added in 1801 with the union of the two countries. There were fifty-three from Scotland, twenty-seven from Wales and 484 from England.
It was property, not people, that was represented in the House of Commons; or to be more precise, property when it belonged to the right kind of people. The same principle applied to the qualification for being an MP. There were no women, Catholics, or practising Jews as members of parliament. Except in Scotland, MPs had to be members of the established Anglican Church; so people who rejected the role of bishops in Church governance were acceptable MPs in Scotland but not in England.