North View 1791 - 1869
PAGE INDEX
Location
For those who have not known East Preston above thirty years, the site of the workhouse is easily found. Stand at the front of the public library and look south across The Street, and on the opposite side the present square surrounded by houses is faintly reminiscent of the yard on this same spot, with workhouse buildings each side of it, built in 1792. In 1873 this was replaced by the vastly larger central block of a new workhouse, just beyond where the houses are on the south side, and which remained until its demolition in 1969.
|
|
In order to satisfy those who merely wish to know the dates of the main events, relating to the Union and its House, the following brief chronology should be sufficient.
The Gilbert Union of Parishes came to include 19 parishes, and was not permitted to increase until after it was finally reformed in 1869.
Littlehampton, Goring, Ferring, East Preston, Burpham, Leominster,
Climping, Ford, Tortington, Amberley, Lancing, Broadwater [Worthng]
West Tarring, Durrington, Houghton, Wiggenholt,
Angmering, Poling, Rustington.
Chronology
1782 Gilbert's Act - An Act for the better Relief and Employment of the Poor
1791 Union under Gilbert's Act agreed by five parishes of Littlehampton, East Preston, Ferring, Goring, and Burpham, and first meetings of parish guardians.
A two acre site purchased at East Preston for a workhouse.
1792 Building of workhouse.
1793 Union of 6 parishes, Lyminster or Leominster joins.
1799 Union of 12 parishes, with Amberley, Broadwater, Climping, Ford, Tortington, Lancing.
1803 Union of 16 parishes, with Durrington, Houghton, Tarring, Wiggenholt.
1806 Union of 19 parishes, with Angmering, Rustington, Poling.
1806 Residential block of workhouse enlarged.
1832 Schoolteacher employed to teach children reading.
1834 Report on East Preston workhouse.
1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, intends whole country to be divided into Unions.
1837 Poor Law Commission order to dissolve Union, and reform under 1834 Act.
1838 Abortive court case against East Preston Gilbert Incorporation.
1843 Report on East Preston Incorporation and workhouse.
1843 New building work including a schoolroom and infirmary.
1844 Parliamentary Inquiry.
1869 Order reconstituting East Preston Union.
1873 Foundation stone date on new "Experiar" workhouse.
1930 Workhouse taken over by County Council
1969 Demolition of North View home - workhouse
1970 Site sold for housing, Fairlands road and estate built 1971-1972
Sources
West Sussex Record Office
Most of the following history is derived from Union records at the WSRO. These consist largely of account books, plans, and deeds, and, for a period from 1855 to 1869, a Guardians Minute Book.
WG2/1 to 9.
Add Mss 2754, 2755, 6281 to 6287.
WG9/56/18
In addition, there are several sets of Poor Law Abstracts and Returns which will be used.
Parliamentary Papers
There are also the massive volumes of Parliamentary Papers, 1843 report and 1844 inquiry [Q & R refs], into the Incorporation. 1843 E247 and 1844 E291 [by permission of the British Library].
The Report by Assistant Poor Law Commissioner H. W. Parker on the Incorporation followed two visits by him to East Preston that year, and comprises 13 pages and a map of the union. The 1844 minutes of the Select Committee on Poor Relief is a massive document with at least 120 pages directly concerning East Preston. There is evidence from the clerk of the peace; George C Lewis, a commissioner; Henry Parker, the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner; James Float governor; Mary Float his wife and matron; the clerk; treasurer; guardian for Broadwater [with Worthing]; George Olliver the visitor; and an inmate from Broadwater.
The Assistant Commissioner, Henry Parker, had supervision of nearly 80 Unions in counties to the north and west of Sussex, including just five recalcitrant Gilbert Unions, three in Hants and neighbouring Sutton and East Preston in Sussex. East Preston was by far the largest Gilbert Incorporation comprising 19 parishes with 14200 inhabitants in 1841.
In this account references within the text will be kept to a minimum, but a more detailed account with full references will be placed in the WSRO.
Abbreviation:
PLC is used in the text as an abbreviation of Poor Law Commission, created by the 1834 Act to reorganise the unions and supervise the Poor Law.
Origins
Poor Law and Gilbert Act
Previous to Thomas Gilbert's Act of 1782 poor relief was largely in the hands of individual parishes working under Acts of 1601 and 1662, with Overseers of the Poor in charge of relief under the parish vestries. Legislation In 1722 permitted parish officers to obtain houses in which to lodge or employ the poor, and for parishes to unite for this purpose. Several local parishes had cottages in which the needy were lodged, such as the Rustington cottages next to East Preston church, but no Unions had been formed.
Gilbert's Act of 1782 was enabling legislation, for unions of parishes and provision of central poor-houses to which only the aged and infirm, and needy children and mothers might be admitted. Each parish would now elect a Guardian to administer relief, who might be paid, and these corporately formed a board to administer the house of industry under the executive control of a Visitor who also heard appeals for relief, although the magistrates had final jurisdiction. The able-bodied were to be found work, with low wages subsidised out of the rates. It is estimated that only a thousand parishes in England took this opportunity.
Population and Poverty
The problem that really beset the nation was a rapidly increasing population, and consequent large scale unemployment. In these rural districts the population had fallen to a minimum about 1720, but by 1740 a gradual and sustained increase took place, due probably to a lessening in frequency and intensity of epidemic disease especially plague. The towns were not now soaking up the natural increase of the rural parts, and by the end of the 18th century, even with new local towns arising, most of the villages were expanding. Whereas earlier the labour to work the farms must have been minimal, now there was a surplus, and no new industry was in the offing to take up the slack outside the resort towns. Although in East Preston at under 500 acres, if a rate of four or so men (in addition to boys and others) was needed to work a hundred acres, as well as the farmers themselves, the 1801 population of no more than 100 was minimal. Only orphans or sick and old were candidates for the workhouse until after 1800.
Some figures can be put forward to illustrate the case.
Selecting thirteen of the nineteen parishes that eventually formed the Union, excluding principally the town of Littlehampton and new town at Broadwater (Worthing), namely, Amberley, Burpham, Climping, Poling, Goring, Lyminster, Ford, Rustington, Ferring, Tortington, Angmering, East Preston, and Houghton. We find their combined population to be 3523 in the 1801 census, and this can be compared with tentative figures calculated from a census taken in 1724 [EpI/26/3] giving rather under 2200 people. The estimated 439 "families" in the thirteen parishes multiplied by five. That is to say a 60% increase in three quarters of a century, but if some local towns were included the increase would be more like 90%.
In the absence of efficient birth control, and with no social and economic measures promoting later marriage, a population explosion threatened and was taking place.
Foundation and Motives
What the local incentive had been for founding the East Preston Union was lost to memory before the various reports and inquiries of the 1830s and 40s, and research into parochial records is unrewarding. It may be relevant that western Sussex was characterised by religious conformity and larger landowners than the east, while East Preston itself had recently fallen into the hands of its farm occupiers. And in 1792, the year the workhouse was built, both churches of Preston and Ferring were restored by these local gentry. Indeed the first Visitor was James Penfold the Vicar of these parishes and Goring, . As already stated, the time was one of rising population with rural parts lacking the industry to provide employment, although it was the early decades of the next century that saw the most significant increases locally.
Gilbert's Act provided the legal basis for incorporations, with Sussex blessed by a concentration in the western part. Petworth and Arundel as single parish foundations, and Easebourne, Westhampnett, Yapton, Sutton, Thakeham, and East Preston, as unions of parishes.
Much of the incentive would have come from the expanding port town of Littlehampton, and with James Penfold at the hub of three parishes, it is fairly evident the seeds of union already existed. After individual parishes had held meetings and elected prospective Guardians, a united meeting was held on 22 June 1791 at which Union was formally agreed. The founding deed was ratified on the 30th June by the magistrates and a Visitor appointed, to supervise a workhouse to be built "at or near East Preston", for the five parishes of Littlehampton, Goring, Ferring, East Preston, and Burpham. No sooner was the House built than, on 7th January 1793, Leominster [Lyminster] joined the five.
Why then did not Kingston, a part of the prebend of Ferring, ever join the Union? The answer is that it had the dubious advantage of recently becoming a closed parish. The land and all on it was the property of the Olliver family its long time tenants. As will be noted later, they soon had little need of any Poor Law, and certainly not the expense of a workhouse. But George Olliver also owned a farm at East Preston, and by this right was eligible to become the first Guardian for East Preston.
It seems likely that a site had been found at the outset, and this consisted of two acres of land taken out of the House on the Bend farm owned by Joseph Sanders of Arundel. The deeds for this are dated September 1791, and cost £150.
Surviving workhouse accounts are incomplete, but at least £2600, and it was later said £2700, was raised in the form of £50 bonds, purchased by private investors in the district at 4.5% interest. In 1796 £2150 remained undischarged, but as more parishes joined so they had to sell bonds and contribute to the fund. At least another £2000 was raised in this way, but in 1834 a sum of £1000 had yet to be repaid although this should have been done long before.
A plan for the workhouse, now lost, prepared by the surveyor or architect a Joseph Henley of Arundel, cost all of five guineas. Mr Constable the builder received his final instalment in April, and at least £1359 in all, besides bills to other contractors making at least £1500 expended initially on the building itself. Then throughout 1792 the work of furnishing the house proceeded, including weaving utensils and looms to provide "Employment of the Poor" the product of which was not made clear until 1797 when a report to the magistrates specified sacks, in much demand by farmers.
In 1806 a John Henly of Arundel, no doubt related to Thomas, contracted for an addition to the main accommodation block, at £220, with another £10 for an additional dormer window, chimney and partition. This was the last known enlargement of the buildings, of any substance, until 1843. It is perhaps relevant that the previous insurance at £3 17s 6d rose to £4 8s per annum later. The addition was needed to cope with demand from additional parishes.
The buildings partly enclosed a half-acre square yard against The Street, with single storey workshops to the east, and a two storey residential range with attic rooms on the west housing inmates, with the governor's quarters near its north end and the kitchen and bakehouse at its south end. A large garden extended west of this block.
Union Expansion to 1806
Climping, Ford, Tortington, Amberley, Lancing and Broadwater [with Worthing] joined on 21 January 1799, making 12 parishes. West Tarring, Durrington, Houghton, and Wiggenholt, on 4th July 1803, making 16. Then on 5 May 1806, Angmering, Poling and Rustington brought the union to its final complement of 19.
The resulting Union was rightly criticised for being dispersed, its workhouse fairly central to the original parishes, but Wiggenholt detached at the maximum permitted distance of ten miles. Whilst inside the area both Kingston and Heene were isolated parishes not in union until 1869, remaining under the Old Poor Law.
In 1844 the PLC pedantically considered this Union enlargement was not permitted by the Gilbert Act, provision being made only for disunion at three year intervals. Reasons assigned for this dramatic enlargement was the "depauperizing" effect of the system and, more scandalously, the "social character" of local gentlemen attracted by monthly guardians dinners or "festivities" at the workhouse.
2. ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 1806 - 1869
Location
For those who have not known East Preston above thirty years, the site of the workhouse is easily found. Stand at the front of the public library and look south across The Street, and on the opposite side the present square surrounded by houses is faintly reminiscent of the yard on this same spot, with workhouse buildings each side of it, built in 1792. 
In 1873 this was replaced by the vastly larger central block of a new workhouse, just beyond where the houses are on the south side, and which remained until its demolition in 1969.
Chronology
1792 Building of workhouse.
1806 Residential block of workhouse enlarged.
1843 New building work including a schoolroom and infirmary.
Architectural History
At the outset the site consisted of two acres of land taken out of the House on the Bend farm owned by Joseph Sanders of Arundel. The deeds for this are dated September 1791, and the land cost £150.
Surviving workhouse accounts are incomplete, but at least £2600, and it was later said £2700, was raised in the form of £50 bonds, purchased by private investors in the district at 4.5% interest. In 1796 £2150 remained undischarged, but as more parishes joined so they had to sell bonds and contribute to the fund. At least another £2000 Was raised in this way, but in 1834 a sum of £1000 had yet to be repaid although this should have been done long before.
A plan for the workhouse, now lost, prepared by the surveyor or architect a Joseph Henley of Arundel, cost all of five guineas. Mr Constable the builder received his final instalment in April, and at least £1359 in all, besides bills to other contractors making at least £1500 expended initially on the building itself. Then throughout 1792 the work of furnishing the house proceeded, including weaving utensils and looms to provide "Employment of the Poor" the product of which was not made clear until 1797 when a report to the magistrates specified sacks, in much demand by farmers.
In 1806 a John Henly of Arundel, no doubt related to Thomas, contracted for an addition to the main accommodation block, at £220, with another £10 for an additional dormer window, chimney and partition. This was the last known enlargement of the buildings, of any substance, until 1843. It is perhaps relevant that the previous insurance at £3 17s 6d rose to £4 8s per annum later. The addition was needed to cope with demand from additional parishes.
The buildings partly enclosed a half-acre square yard against The Street, with single storey workshops to the east, and a two storey residential range with attic rooms on the west housing inmates, with the governor's quarters near its north end and the kitchen and bakehouse at its south end. A large garden extended west of this block.
The development of the site and its buildings after the initial phase of its building, can be deduced from a variety of sources, in particular a plan of the complex made shortly before demolition, and an 1856 watercolour of the main block taken from the vantage point of the east side of the yard, besides a number of large scale maps.
There is a loose leaf sketch plan of the main block, bearing no date. None of the surrounding site is shown but it must be supposed to represent the house before 1806.
Its rooms were unreliably dimensioned but can largely be related to the 1869 house. The 20ft bakehouse at the south end, then a similar sized kitchen-cum-brewhouse, the men's room at about 28ft which was by 1869 for women, and then a larger women's room later split into an infirm men's room and matron's kitchen, with the 15ft governor's room at the north end. That leaves to be built on in 1806 a governor's parlour and pantry, both large rooms, followed by what became the nurse's room, and finally an infirm women's room at the north end. This extended the range 58ft hard against The Street to make a final building about 180ft by 22ft overall. [54.9 metres x 6.7 metres, but metrication often hides meaningful Imperial modules].
An O.S. map of c1810, a 2in to the mile version, shows the site and its central yard with ranges each side, which cannot reliably be measured, but the general layout of the buildings had already been established.
The next stage of alteration related to the Classification of inmates after 1837, and the first stages of this are shown by the large scale parochial Tithe Map of 1838. The House occupies the length of the west side of the yard, while on the east side is another range known to have been the workshops. A small building at the south of the yard is taken to be the boardroom, now used also for a school. The south-east quadrant of the yard has only that year been divided off, and is for the able-men who occupy a part of the workshop altered to make a day room with a sleeping loft over.
Apart from various internal alterations in layout, the work that took place thereafter involved the building of a stable and a schoolroom-cum-boardroom on the north, or Street side, of the yard in 1843 [Par.Report]. At 33ft by 13ft the room was probably larger than it might have been purely for the school. At the same time the old boardroom was converted to an infirmary, which was extended in 1863. Then about 1850 came another and final boardroom at 26ft by 17ft, nicely segregated from the inmates, projecting from east side of the House into the gardens.
In the yard itself, further classification of inmates resulted in the quite horrendous division of the south half into sections for women, and boys about 1861. Whilst the rest of the workshops were converted to rooms for the girls, with their own yard adjoining the schoolroom. A small workshed and punishment cells were located against their yard wall, although a more roomy penitentiary ward had been made next to the infirmary.
In 1856 the watercolour, previously mentioned, illustrates the appearance of the main House. Its construction is not clear but almost certainly used flintwork with brick dressings to the windows and quoins. The term House is apposite since it had a domestic character, with tiled roof and dormers, and with eight doors virtually every room had its entrance. The windows were small sashes, nineteen to the upper floor bedchambers, about 3ft wide. Fixed above the door to the governor's apartment a bellcote was used to warn the inmates of visitors. By the time of this painting the yard had perhaps been made into a garden, with borders around a lawn. A high wall is shown to the right against The Street.
Just before demolition, the accurately surveyed site plan previously mentioned, was drawn up, perhaps by a Mr Snewin. The heating of the place was undoubtedly by open fires, although several of the inmates rooms appear deficient.
3. WORKHOUSE OFFICERS 1792 - 1869
Governors
1792 Thomas Filmer the first Governor recorded
c1800 James Mills, Governor
1813 Church baptism: William and Mary Sandal, Master of Poor House
1820 Mary Sandal widow marriage to James Float
James and Mary Float, master and matron in all records
1847 decease of Mary Float
1851 Census Return: John Imrie master (James Float sack manufacturer)
c1852 John and Ann Harding, master and matron
(their son George Harding appointed porter)
(1871 Miss Margaret Maconochie appointed schoolmistress
and 1873 matron at Arundel)
1875 John and Ann Harding resign
Governors 1792 - 1869
The exact lineage of governors in the first few years is uncertain. The first governor mentioned in 1792 was Thomas Filmer, assisted by a matron. After Thomas a William Stead took over in 1793 following his marriage to the matron, Mary Overington. Then about 1800 James Mills is mentioned. But in 1812 there began one of two dynasties ruling the workhouse until the end of the 19th century.
William Sandal [Sandle] came into office in 1812 only to die in 1814, however he had married a Mary Older in 1810 and she took a firm grip on the House thereafter. On being widowed she managed alone, apart from the most irregular arrangement whereby her mother's second husband, Richard Launder of Yapton, was the official governor although she said he remained absent. Naturally this could not continue, and a new husband was needed.
There now appears on the scene the "infamous" James Float, who had the misfortune to be "baseborn" in 1789 and spent his childhood at Yapton workhouse, where he learnt the trade of sack making. He then transferred to East Preston to take over the manufactory there, and shortly afterwards in 1820 became the fortunate husband of Mary Sandal, and was made nominal governor in 1821. The remarkable feature is that he was completely illiterate, unable to keep the accounts or registers that were his legal responsibility. No doubt existed in any quarter that it was his wife who ran the House, while he did little more than continue in charge of the manufactory. Mary held such respect with the Board and visitor that she remained in office until her decease in 1847, whereupon James lost his governorship and in about 1856 retired to Newhaven. Mary herself is buried at East Preston aged 62, relict of William Sandle.
It must be assumed John Imrie [Emrie] became Governor in 1848 when James Float was demoted, and remained in the post until after the 1851 census. Then by 1854 John Harding had taken the post and a new dynasty began, with his son George succeeding when he retired in 1875.
Governor's Salary 1792 - 1869
Early records are poor, but Thomas Filmer received a salary of at least £25 per annum. Whether he had profits from sack making, and other perks, does not appear.
There are good accounts from 1818, when the governor had a salary of £23 11s 6d and matron £5. Then after Float came onto the scene in 1820 the husband and wife team had only £22 6s 6d together. This rate continued until 1832 when they had a substantial increase to £50, but with minutes lacking the reason is not known.
In the 1840s the clerk reckoned that of the £50 salary £30 was for Float and £20 the matron, although nothing in the accounts suggest this, but Mary was obviously the dominant partner and she went so far as suggest it was all hers, and the "gentlemen' were joking".
What happened later is uncertain, but £10 rises were noted in 1857 and 1866, presumably for the combined salary, which would have made it £70.
After the workhouse was reformed in 1869 the governor was still only receiving £60, but with the matron on £20, making £80 in all.
Manufactory 1792 - 1869
Prior to Messrs Float there is virtually no information on employment in the house. In 1792 Thomas Filmer both purchased and had weaving utensils made, and obtained a large quantity of flax. That this was the beginnings of a sack making business, is confirmed by the 1797 report to the magistrates.
Sack making certainly continued when Float arrived, when a "sack machine" was purchased. In 1834 the Commissioner reported, "There is a manufactory of sacking, ropes, and bedding, to an extent not exceeding £20 a year, (as the profits of the labour of this house go to the contractor, it is not easy to ascertain the amount)."
James Float in evidence made it appear that his sack making concern was taught only to the older boys of 14 and 15, but this was not accurate for in 1837 the Visitor had noted in a letter that both male and females children were employed, and the 1843 Report also mentions aged people. This is confirmed by the very informative 1841 census, in which of eleven working children under 15 there were two weaver boys, two spinner boys and a girl, and a boy hemp dresser. In fact the business also included making bed canvases and cart covers, largely sold to local farmers. It is not known if the business survived Float's retirement.
In 1835/6 there are accounts in which James Float was paid for making 11 loads of sacks, of which more below.
Whether the manufactory survived Float's retirement in 1856 is not yet known.
Governor's Income and Food Contract
Although the governor had the food contract it is doubtful that he was allowed to make any significant profit out of it. Besides his salary there were other considerable perks from the manufactory, and from Deficiency payments.
It has to be concluded that Mary Float was not quite accurate when she told the 1844 Inquiry that before 1837 she and her husband had no salary, and their "profits" had been no more than their current £50 salary. From 1823 to 1831 the de facto salary with deficiencies averaged over £59, with additional manufactory profits.
This sack manufactory was an erratic item in the accounts, Float reportedly operating it for his own profit. In 1827/8 expenditure of £18 18s on 13.5 loads, was offset next year by £16 16s income. It is an assumption that Float was paid the eighteen guineas, with the workhouse sustaining two guineas loss. In 1835 Float was paid £13 6s for 11 loads, but with a considerable profit on sale. Since the 1834 Report referred to the manufactory as being worth as much as £20 a year, it must be supposed that about a dozen loads were made each year, without this always appearing in the records.
In 1835/6 their total income may have been about £140, including sack making profits, and their increased salary of £50.
With the reforms of 1837, deficiencies were no longer levied, and the governor and matron may have suffered a cut in income, although not admitted.
Other Officers and Salaries
Under Gilbert, the PLC of 1844 believed, the only officers specified were the parish guardians, who made up the Board and could be paid; a salaried governor to run the house; a visitor to supervise; and a treasurer payable a maximum of £10 a year, all appointed annually. A medical person, or surgeon, might be paid case by case, but no chaplain or schoolmaster was strictly authorized.
But the PLC was not there to advise before 1835, and although the first years are obscure, a number of officers were appointed and paid as the Board thought fit. Besides a visitor and governor a treasurer was paid a £10 salary about 1792, and the clerk is named, but no other officers are known.
The record can be picked up again by 1818, when a permanent surgeon was employed at £21 reducing to £15 in 1822. A clerk received an annual fee of 12s but the treasurer who changed year by year had nothing until 1830 when paid £5, although this ceased when the clerk took on some of his duties. When the PLC fracas began the clerk took over some of the treasurer's duties, in agreement with Mr Olliver. By 1835 his 12s had become a salary of £10 and soon afterwards £20.
It was not until 1832 that the matron's daughter became the first schoolteacher, and besides her board and lodging had a nominal £5 salary. All that was taught initially was reading, and that very minimally, but this was not like a village school in which the children were scholars over a number of years. When asked if anything was done about boarding-out children in compliance with Gilbert, the Visitor had to admit not.
The school mistress, never a man, had £8 by the time of the 1843 Report, and then various rises through to 1869, to £10 by 1855, and in 1860 a two pound rise to £12. Under the new regime, in 1870 it had increased to £15.
This leaves the Guardians, and any fee they had for expenses came from their parish, and not the workhouse. As the chief parish officers they managed their poor through overseers established under Elizabethan Poor Laws, and had workhouse board meetings only once monthly, but entertained themselves afterwards at dinners paid for from the rates, until 1837 when the Visitor decided they had to pay for these themselves.
Nursing was undertaken by any remotely suitable woman inmate until after 1844, and this was just as usual in reformed unions. It was recognised as unsatisfactory and a salaried nurse appears by 1851, at an unknown salary until 1868 when it was £15.
The inmates were expected to go to church every Sunday, women accompanied by the matron and the men by the governor, although it seems doubtful that he always stopped with them. Cases of men absconding at this time were mentioned, and so they were not well supervised. The inmates had been allotted their own pews at the rear of the church since 1792. But it was not until 1839 that a Chaplain was appointed to attend spiritual needs in the House, which is not say the local priest had not been available when needed. By 1844 this chaplain was the parish priest, on a £20 salary until his resignation in 1869.
Therefore just prior to reform in 1869 the officers and committees consisted of the visitor, acting also as auditor, treasurer, clerk, governor, matron, medical officer, nurse, schoolmistress, and chaplain. The committees comprised Union Assessment for rating from 1864, Visiting Committee mainly building work by 1855, and Finance appointed in 1869. Just prior to reform each guardians was made Inspector of Nuisances for their parish.
(See Appendix 1 for a fuller list of Guardians, Visitors and Officers)
4. PAUPERS AND WORKHOUSE COSTS
Chronology
1832 Schoolteacher employed to teach children reading.
1834 Report on East Preston workhouse.
1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, intends whole country to be divided into Unions.
1837 Poor Law Commission order to dissolve Union, and reform under 1834 Act.
1838 Abortive court case against East Preston Gilbert Incorporation.
1843 Report on East Preston Incorporation and workhouse.
1843 New building work including a schoolroom and infirmary.
1844 Parliamentary Inquiry.
1869 Order reconstituting East Preston Union.
The Parishes and Poor Relief
Population 1801 - 1831 At this point it is opportune to consider the parishes that made up the union by 1806. It is immediately obvious there were two categories, town and country. Broadwater containing the rapidly expanding resort of Worthing, whilst Littlehampton was a growing seaport town, but all the other parishes had villages largely dependent on agriculture. As a result, although the more thriving towns grew to 50% of the Union, their unemployment and poor relief reduced in proportion. The most striking contrast was with the large parish of Angmering, where poor relief was well in excess of its share of population.
1801 Population: Broadwater 1018; Littlehampton 584; Angmering 708; 19 parishes 6000.
1831 Population: Broadwater 4576; Littlehampton 1625; Angmering 928; 19 parishes 12421.
Above population of the 19 parishes excludes inmates of the workhouse.
The Averages and Poor Relief 1806 - 1835
The Average was based on the previous three years poor relief expenditure in each parish, providing the percentage each paid towards workhouse establishment, or House funding. These were made for the completed Incorporation in 1806, and remained in force until the 1834 Act enabled another set to be made in 1835.
With accurate unemployment figures difficult to arrive at, at least the relative amounts spent on poor relief in each parish are demonstrated by the two Averages. Although there may have been fluctuations over time the general trend is indicated.
In 1806 Angmering had 11.5% of union population but almost 17% of total Union poor relief and establishment funding, while Broadwater had nearly 17% of population and only 10% funding, while Littlehampton had 9.5% of population and 6% funding.
By 1835 Angmering had 7.5% of union population but 13% of funding, while Broadwater had 37% population and only 21% funding and Littlehampton 13% population and only 6.5% of funding.
The poor relief expenditure of the Union in the three years to 1835 had averaged £6560. This means that Angmering spent about £850 and Broadwater about £1380, which agrees fairly well with returns about then. By 1842 it was claimed by the Visitor that Union expenditure had fallen to £4000.
In comparison, for several years from 1800, there are returns for 16 of the parishes that eventually joined the Union, but these are suspect and it is only an estimate that all 19 parishes had an annual outlay over £10,000. The poor rate for the 19 parishes in seven years from 1811 to 1817 inclusive, certainly averaged over £10.000, and about £1.2 per head of population.
If the amount said to have been spent on the poor in the year 1835, is correct, at just over £6000, then the average per head for just under 13000 population at mid-census time, was £0.47. That is to say it was a reduction to well under half in those terms. More interestingly the variation in each parish was from just over £0.2 in Broadwater and Littlehampton, to between £0.4 and £1 elsewhere. East Preston for instance was rather high at £0.9.
After 1806 a variation of the Average was used to allot to each parish its share of the inmate capacity of the House. Previously the notional capacity had been 60 paupers, but after the 1806 alterations it was increased to 70. Henceforth East Preston and Littlehampton tended to have fewer inmates, keeping more to their allotment.
WORKHOUSE AVERAGES From 1806 [Selection]
Parish Average Averages % Paupers
Angmering 33s 10.2½d 16.93% 11.75
Broadwater 20s 0.7½d 10.03% 7
Littlehampton 12s 4.5d 6.19% 4.5
East Preston 8s 4.00 2.75
Total £10 100% 70
Indoor and Outdoor Paupers
There are several returns with expenditure and numbers receiving relief, of variable reliability.
In 1802/3 Angmering had 30% of its population on some form of relief, but of the twelve parishes then in union Burpham relieved 26% of its population, and Broadwater only 9%. For all nineteen parishes, 1200 people or 20% had relief at least as a supplement to wages. There were 44 on permanent relief in Angmering and 26 in Broadwater, with a total of 316 in all nineteen parishes. It is obvious that if many of the latter category had been ordered to the workhouse, it would have been a vast institution, with great social implications.
From the twelve Union parishes only 56 people were reported as interred, which compares fairly well with figures in workhouse accounts. Of these Littlehampton had 14, Goring 8, and East Preston 7, but Preston as the workhouse village was probably making a virtue of its presence. Overall only 1.4% of the 4119 total Union population were interred.
By the 1820s no parish of any size had as much as one percent of its population in the House. And in 1825/6 even without figures for four of the parishes, those on permanent outdoor relief numbered 590. [Lancing, Amberley, Houghton, Wiggenholt excluded]. Angmering topped at 86, with Broadwater at 55 about the same as Lyminster. Nevertheless Angmering had a favourable percentage that year at 12% compared with many other villages at over 20%.
How typical that year 1825 was for poverty is uncertain, but later if the 1835 Average is used, Angmering still had a high rate of expenditure. Broadwater and Littlehampton had much less than their share.
In 1831/2 there were 26 males in the House mainly old, and 19 females mainly below the age of 40, and this may be assumed as typical.
This outdoor relief, as most of it was, may not have been exactly Speenhamland, but at least it was head money, with payments related to the size of families and price of bread. Local magistrates provided some degree of consistency, with poor people able to appeal to them, a right removed by the 1834 Act in Gilbert areas.
Numbers in the House moved in par with the economy, as many as 90 in 1800 to 1802 despite fewer parishes being in union. Then in the middle years an average of 50 in the summer and 70 in winter was estimated and is about right.
After 1835
From 1834 to 1842 the yearly average increased to 75, with highs in the early Hungry Forties. An increased union population and policy contributed to this later increase. Nevertheless, in 1843 less than one percent of the population were incarcerated, and of this 112 only 12 were able men, 16 were old men, 6 old women, and 24 young women. Olliver doubted that more than three of the able men were really fit.
Despite this the PLC thought that some parishes such as Lyminster and Poling were stringent about sending their poor to the House.
Accounts
Two Accounts.
Gilbert's Act logically divided workhouse accounts between pauper maintenance in food and fuel [Gilbert - schedule 16], and expenditure on buildings and furnishings [Gilbert - schedule 15]. These were made in simple income and outlay form.
East Preston has the reverse fortune to Sutton, in having lost its Guardians Minutes previous to 1855, and therefore anything that is to be known about the House before that year, is either from external sources or the Treasurer's books which themselves only survive in part. The House accounts are for the period 1819 to 1837, whereas Pauper Maintenance accounts, do not begin until 1834, apart from some in the very early years.
As it is there were ragged edges, with clothing and shaving paid for direct by the parishes, but these were constant omissions. The accounts were made overly erratic by changes in how the interest on £50 bonds, and guardians dinners were paid. At times these were directly by the parishes, at other times out of the house account or, in the case of dinners, pauper account. What is more bemusing is how other charges - the deficiencies - were at times entered in both accounts as income and expenditure, inflating the apparent overall expenditure on the workhouse.
House Accounts
The House or establishment costs were paid by each parish according to the Average scale. That is the Average of £10 was divided amongst the parishes according to their poor relief expenditure, and if say £100 was needed for the House account, each parish would pay in its allotted share. East Preston in the 1806 Average had its share as 8s in £10, or 4%, so that if £100 was to be raised its share would be 80s or £4
Pauper Accounts
Paupers or inmates keep was charged for per capita, on a scale related to the price of corn. That is to say according to the current Agreement, in which if corn was say £10 a load the paupers weekly keep would be say 2s 9d, or some other amount, and each parish would be billed this amount for each inmate from that place. If East Preston had 12 paupers in the House and the rate was 2s 9d, its bill would be 33s for each week.
A per capita rate for food continued after 1837, but henceforth it was related less to corn prices and more directly to the current requirements of the rations. The Board placed out contracts direct to local tradesmen in Littlehampton and other towns, now keeping proper accounts of expenditure.
In fact before 1837 the pauper account was not complete, because it did not include itemised or overall expenditure on food and fuel. At East Preston the Governor, or his wife, kept the food accounts although the PLC considered this contracting illegal, but these are lost.
Agreements
These Agreements were with the governor, regulating the amount to be paid for each inmates keep.
Initially a flat rate was imposed of 2s 9d per pauper per week, but with vast fluctuations in commodity prices this had to be altered, and in 1800 the rate was fixed according to the prevailing price of wheat, and this method remained in force thereafter.
Unfortunately perhaps, the Agreement of 1800 was changed quite often, causing a rise or fall in the income derived.
And then, the subtlety or perversity of the overall system, was that it was not a payment in direct proportion to the price of corn, or commodities in general. The 1800 Agreement paid 33d when wheat was £12 per load, and then an additional 1d in the £1 where the wheat price was higher.
"...if Wheat is £12 per Load to give him [the Governor] 2s 9d per head per week, if £13, 2s 10d - and so in proportion to advance one penny for every £1 on a Load of Wheat."
But there were many new Agreements. Some of these are known and others may be deduced from subtle changes in the graphs that have been made, when related together [see 8.2].
The graph indicates the following probable changes in the Base: Rate at £15 load
1800 First known base & year 33d at £12 load 36d
1804 ? 36d at £12 load ? 39d
1813 ? 39d at £10 load ? 44d
1822 Known base and year 30d at £10 load 35d
rising with known agreements
1826 Known base and years 36d at £10 load 41d
1835 ? 30d at £10 load ? 35d
reducing:-
1838 ? 18d at £10 load ? 23d
increasing effectively although not now strictly based on corn prices
1841 ? 24d at £10 load ? 29d
1843 ? 18d at £10 load ? 23d
increasing
1847 ? 27d at £10 load ? 32d
1850 ? 24d at £10 load ? 29d
Ostensibly this ensured that as food rose in price, it was allowed for by the increased rate. In reality the base was virtually always below the reigning price of wheat, and the effect of a mere 1d per £1 addition to the base rate, can plainly be illustrated in terms of the wheat that could have been purchased to make bread. This must have been obvious to the Guardians and may have been justified on the grounds that poor wage earners outside the workhouse also suffered in times of dearth.
The 1800 Agreement as operative, when wheat rose in price above £12 a load:
Allowance per week for one inmates whole maintenance in terms of bread loaves
Wheat £12 load = 48s quarter: Rate 2s 9d = 143s per year = 2.98 quarters = 5.96 quartern loaves
Wheat £21 load = 84s quarter: Rate 3s 6d = 182s per year = 2.17 quarters = 4.33 quartern loaves
Wheat £30 load = 120s quarter: Rate 4s 0d = 208s per year = 1.73 quarters = 3.47 quartern loaves
Deficiencies Average
These charges are interestingly annoying. In conjunction with the Averages already mentioned another set related the nominal capacity of the house at 70 inmates to the same percentage needs of each parish. When a parish had fewer inmates than its allotment, it had to pay for the number deficient at a rate as much as 18d but eventually settling at 9d per head.
That is to say East Preston had a 4% allotment of the 70 inmate capacity of the house, which is 2.75. Thereby if for any week it only had one pauper in the House, it had to pay 1.75 x 9d for that deficiency, about 16d. In fact the payments were made monthly, which made the amounts more sensible.
The Inquiry and previous reports stated this deficiency fund was paid to the Governor as extra income. In fact before 1818 a large proportion went into the house account and the rest to the pauper account. Only after 1822 is it evident, although not certain, that the deficiencies went entirely to the Governor.
The Accounts 1818 to 1837
Fortunately virtually complete accounts are available for a critical period between 1818 and 1837, with a small area of confusion about 1833 to 1835. But even the summaries of these are more than can be used in this article, and only some general trends may be pointed out.
Because of various overlaps between the House and Pauper accounts, it is not possible to use the original totals directly. The following figures are a re-calculation as if only one workhouse account existed, and naturally debits and credits each year are excluded from the totals.
The main feature is a considerable reduction in the cost of food and fuel rations from a high of £799 in 1818/19 down to between £300 and £450 by 1822. Salaries did not increase much, and the outlay on repairs to the house including various taxes, insurance, and a furniture valuation fee, varied widely from £20 in 1819 to £90 in 1832, but with no indication of any serious outlay on new buildings.
The Guardians dinners in 1818 at £50 8s a year represented monthly feasts at 4s for each of them, together with the Visitor, which was about the weekly cost of an inmate. A great economy being made in 1822, reducing the allowance to 3s, in line with deflation perhaps, raised again to 3s 6d in 1826.
The salary bill at first included the governor at £23 11s 6d, matron at £5, clerk 12s, and surgeon at £21, totalling £50 3s 6d. But from 1820 the governor and matron were paid together receiving only £22 6s 6d, so that from 1822 when the surgeon was reduced to £15 the total bill was £37 18s 6d. In 1830 the treasurer at £5 increased the bill, then in 1832/33 the appointment of a teacher cost another £5 with Float increased to £50.
Overall, the total expenditure on house and inmates, excluding such items as clothing and the interest on bonds which were paid by the individual parishes, reduced considerably. An outlay of £975 in 1818 down to the five and six hundreds. An average over 15 full years of little over £650. The parochial outlay on interest for bonds was upwards of £50. This reflected both a fall in the cost of living, basically bread, and a fall in inmate numbers from the upper 50s to upper 40s. Before 1818 inmate numbers were greater and no doubt overall costs had entered four figures.
An expenditure table for years in the 1820s provided by the 1843 Report, taken from returns to the magistrates, is totally unreliable with items included under more than one headings making the totals much too high.
Average establishment or House costs in the years from 1818 to 1832, that is everything accounted apart from food and fuel, came to rather over £160.
There is a very approximate ratio between total workhouse expenditure, and total union expenditure on poor relief of 1:10. That is Union poor relief represented 90% outdoor and 10% indoor.
Accounts after 1835
There are no House accounts after 1837, and it is only from testimony that figures are obtained. According to the treasurer the average for three years to March 1843 had been rather over £186, this was before the large scale building work engendered by the 1843 Report. As ever this figure excluded interest on bonds. Apart from slightly higher salaries, this indicates little change. In the same three years food and fuel had cost an average of just over £400, making a total about £590. This is much the same as in the period immediately before 1834. However, numbers in the house were greater at about 70, some 20 more than in the earlier period. Economies had been made.
Typical whole Workhouse Accounts Summarised:
1820/21 1832/33
INCOME INCOME
Averages 120 0 0 Averages 160 0 0
Dinners subs 50 8 0 Float salary* 50 0 0
Pauper rate 536 5 2 Pauper rate 385 0 0
Deficiencies 71 14 7 Total 595 0 0
Total 778 7 9
EXPENDITURE EXPENDITURE
Food & Fuel 606 4 2 Food & Fuel 385 0 0
Governor 1 15 7 Governor * 49 11 6
Salaries 43 18 6 Salaries 20 12 0
Repairs 77 1 8 Float salary 50 0 0
Dinners [21] 50 8 0 Repairs 89 17 11½
779 7 11 Dinners [2] 4 4 0
Total 599 5 5½
* Source of £50 paid in for Governor's salary in 1832/3 is obscure
5. FOOD AND FUEL( 1798 - 1852)
Weights and Measures
We are nearing a time when only historians will understand traditional English weights and measures, and be bothered to calculate in terms that cannot be used on decimal calculators. But already it is forgotten that the past was even more complicated, with many local and other variations on standard Imperial.
Consider two commodities used at the workhouse, coal and meat. Coal may well at first have been obtained in chaldrons, which is a measure of volume, and meat in stones. The unwary may assume a 14lb stone, whereas the 8lb stone was used until fairly recently for meat. Fortunately, since 1835 legislation required coal to be sold by weight.
Detailed food and fuel accounts from 1836 make it clear that flour was bought by the bag or sack, standardised at 5 bushels of 56lbs, making a sack 280lbs. Each sack could in theory make over 347lbs of bread, which is to say 80 quartern loaves of rather over 4lbs each. Flour came in different grades but the cheaper wholemeal sort may be supposed for the workhouse, to their coincidental good health.
A recipe book of no antiquity, specifies salt, yeast, and 1.5 pints of water, with 3.5lbs of flour, mixed and set to rise, making a quartern loaf.
For general measures and conversions refer to appendix.
Pauper Rates Graphs
In the original Hard Copy Books, printed only in typescript in few copies. Two Graphs are used which purport to show that the amount expended on the maintenance of inmates tended to reduce in value compared with the 1800 Agreement, if that had remained in force.
The graphs begin in 1798 and continue to 1852 when the account books end. Changing and indeed falling commodity prices have to be taken account of, and the cost of wheat as published, generally by the load.
Graph 1
Relates to Costs in wheat and commodities which had to be paid for out of the rates paid for pauper maintenance, their food and fuel. It uses the calendar year.
It will be noted that all of the series naturally have the same peaks and troughs. The peaks in prices coming in 1801, 1812 and 1813, and various smaller peaks including 1805, 1817, 1825, 1831, 1839, 1847, relating to times of high prices due to shortages and bad harvest.
Graph 2
This purports to translate the income fo pauper maintenance into the number of loaves of bread that could have been made by the workhouse if all the income had been for that purpose. This has some significance in relation to the Speenhamland system, under which those on outdoor relief were paid a weekly allowance based on 3 gallon loaves for the men and half that for each woman and child.
This graph and tables from which it is derived shows that, despite the pauper rates being related to wheat prices, when the cost of wheat rose markedly, the increased payments were not adequate to pay for the same number of loaves. In addition to that the basic rate itself was changed on occasion and not always for the better.
From 1800 to about 1812 when prices were high, fewer loaves could be obtained, but the rise and fall was in tune with general prices.
From 1813 to 1822 the same variations took place, but on average more loaves could be bought than under the 1800 agreement.
Then in 1822 to 1835 the agreement provided a living standard not quite equal to what the 1800 agreement would have provided.
But from 1835 to 1852 the graph shows a marked divergence, with the agreement in force providing markedly fewer 'loaves' that is a lower standard of living than if the 1800 agreement been in force.
In relation to those changes certain alterations in management are known. A new Agreement probable in 1813 increased income, and then a known agreement in 1822, reduced the amount payable.
However, these graphs make use only of the bare Pauper rate income. Allowances have to be made for any additional income used for pauper rations, from Deficiencies, and for countervailing deductions made towards guardians dinners, and even to the governor's salary.
Before 1813 there is evidence that the Deficiency fund went largely to the House account, but with part of it into the pauper fund towards food. This raised the standard a small amount from the level on the graph.
Then in 1822 came the quite unmistakable Resolution warning of trouble due to a change in management, and various measures tightening up the budget as with the reduction in salary of the surgeon or" medical man". At the same time the Deficiencies now all went to the Governor if later evidence is true.
After 1822 the graph might now be correct, but for the fact that the cost of Guardians dinners came out of the pauper rate in most years, at £37 16s, although the Visitor and Clerk still had theirs out of the House account. In no year did this amount to more than a 10% reduction of the food fund.
The peak about 1834 can be further levelled out due to the Governor's salary being incorrectly taken out of the pauper rate about this time. As a result the drop in inmates living standards after 1835 is less marked than on the graph. This small crash was undoubtedly due to the effect of the 1834 Act and the PLC inducing tighter rationing. It is conceivable that the guardians realised that wheat prices had been falling, and the value of the pauper rate increasing, and therefore saw no objection to taking a little off the top by taking the governor's salary out of the fund.
The Resolution of 1822 referred to is slightly ominous: 6th May 1822 "Sixth; Resolved that as by the agreement the Governor is allowed to keep the Paupers in a Different manner from what he has been allowed heretofore and as the alteration is expected to create disaffection among some of the Paupers it is hereby resolved that a Guardian from one of the United Parishes visit the House one day in every week the day on which such visit is to be made to be left to the Convenience of the Guardian whose turn it is to visit and it is hereby agreed that the whole of the Guardians shall visit in succession in the order the Parishes now stand in the Average Book ... [etc]".
In 1835 the Poor Law Amendment Act came into force, and it had an effect on Gilbert Incorporations, especially from 1837 when the PLC began its campaign to have them dissolved. At East Preston all inmate food and fuel contracts were taken over from the Governor, by the Union Board, and every penny of income from the Pauper Rate was accounted for in outlay on commodities.
Pauper Ration Tables T
he difficulty in determining inmates food allowances arises from the absolute loss of all dietaries in the workhouse records until after the 1869 reform. In the earliest years there is little to go by, other than the obvious, that in those war years and afterwards there were high prices and poor harvests. This is well illustrated by the graphs.
In 1792 flour was purchased at 28s a sack, which is interesting but not very useful. Fat hogs were bought one assumes for immediate consumption, in the order of 93s to 153 each - and some hogs could be very fat in those days - and this indicates the type of food being consumed. Mention is also made of beer, pease, cheese, beef, and more interestingly meal and bran. If this was not being fed to animals, it points to economies in bread making by reducing the wheat content, in similar fashion to Sutton workhouse. [Hotherstall WSH 1985]
This desert of information is partly rectified by the 1834 Report in which a general dietary description is included, and even more by dietaries in the 1843 Report and 1844 Inquiry.
In 1834 Maclean observed that, "The diet is arranged by the committee and the bread and beer consumed are made in the house. Six meat dinners and one bread and cheese dinner are allowed; also a pint of beer daily. Breakfast consists of milk, bread and cheese or soup, as it may happen; supper is the same."
This is invaluable, outlining the diet when provisions were probably at their best. Unfortunately a dinner may consist largely of starch, with very little and cheap meat. Milk may be watered, and soup signify almost anything. While keeping to the weight and terms of the diet it may yet have been improved or trimmed in quality according to the purse at any moment.
In the 1844 Inquiry is a full copy of the table of rations for able-bodied men, and this bears close comparison to the post 1869 table, have the same rations but on different days.
Scale of Diet for Able-bodied Men in 1844
Breakfast every day Bread 6oz Butter ¾oz Gruel 1½ pints
Supper every day Bread 6 oz Cheese 2 oz
Dinner Sunday Beef pudding 14 oz with Vegetables
Monday Boiled rice 16 oz with milk and sugar
Tuesday Suet pudding 14 oz with Vegetables
Wednesday Broth 1 quart Bread 6 oz
Thursday Cold beef 5 oz with Vegetables Bread 6 oz
Friday Suet pudding 14 oz with Vegetables
Saturday Bread 6 oz Cheese 2 oz
For dinner generally 5 times a week: beer at discretion
Scale of Diet for the Women in 1843
Breakfast Sunday to Saturday bread 6oz. butter ¾oz. gruel 1 pint
Supper Sunday to Saturday bread 6oz. cheese 1oz. beer
Dinner Sunday beef pudding 16oz. beer
Monday boiled rice, milk and sugar, 16oz
Tuesday suet pudding 16oz.
Wednesday bread 6oz. broth 1 quart
Thursday bread 6oz. cold beef 5oz. beer
Friday suet pudding, 16oz
Saturday bread 6oz. cheese 2oz. beer
Pudding and meat dinners supplied with vegetables.
If these are compared with the six sets of PLC tables, published a few years earlier, from which reformed workhouses selected, it will be seen that East Preston had a slightly more varied and compared with some a more substantial diet. Beer was an extra not found elsewhere except in particular cases on medical advice. Women might consider their breakfast better than say 5oz bread and 1.5 pints gruel; or supper better than 5oz bread and 1.5 oz cheese; On the other hand the men might complain at having only 14oz pudding compared with 16oz, in some PLC diets, but be happy at 6oz bread and 2oz cheese compared with 7oz bread and only 1oz cheese.
But East Preston itself was now somewhat under the sway of the PLC, and had cut down its provisions. Previous to 1835 six meat dinners, and milk included in the supper and tea rations, has the appearance of some generosity. If it did not compare favourably with labourers diets outside the House, it would be a revelation.
Sixty and more years before vitamins were discovered, food was largely a matter of bulk in the eyes of the PLC. To modern eyes the principal omission had to be fruit, together with a query about vegetables. As it transpires the vegetables were potatoes grown in the workhouse garden, only bought in when the workhouse crop was poor. Therefore some Vitamin C came the inmates way.
It is clear that the East Preston diet, even after 1837, was comparatively good. In 1841 the inmates requested the West Hampnett tables, a reformed workhouse, but within two weeks changed their minds and were obliged in this by the Visitor.
Some variations were approved by the PLC to suit local custom, with meat pudding in Sussex as compared to bacon pudding in Hants. Most of the bacon used at East Preston was intended for the old and infirm, if the dietaries were correct. Soup was made from salt beef.
A witness inmate in 1844 was extremely complacent about the whole workhouse regime, and stated that he could not afford such good meals at home. This was probably true but he may not have felt entirely free to speak his mind.
Food and Fuel 1836 - 1853
It is a pity the detailed accounts begin only after the point at which the graphs indicate a fall in standards, but this was all parcel of the same cause, the PLC exerting itself to change management.
The accounts provide us with the broad categories, of meat, groceries, flour, malt and hops, and coal. At times a little more precision creeps in, when it is made clear that groceries consisted largely of cheese. Then again it is helpful where there are figures related to standard quantities of coal or flour. By taking the expenditure in each category, and estimating the quantities, and relating these to the pauper numbers for the year, it is possible to calculate the average rations and see how they relate to the dietaries. And in the case of coal to estimate the extent of heating in the House.
From the maintenance accounts between 1836 and 1853 the expenditure on the main categories of food are of some interest, calculated as the amount in pennies each week for each inmate, men women and children.
This is perhaps more useful than the simple gross expenditure for the whole House, taking no account of pauper numbers each year. The groceries also include occasional milk, while the extras are largely undefined amounts spent by the Matron and includes spirits prescribed by the doctor for the sick. The meat ration also includes special meat rations for the sick.
It may be seen that expenditure on flour is more or less related to current wheat prices, while there is more volatility in other areas but on the whole an improvement over time.
Fuel
Any idea that the paupers standard of living was fixed and stable over any period of years, is immediately overturned when the coal accounts are investigated. The Gilbert workhouse was a domestic form of building in compartments with separate entrances. A boardroom to the south of the yard was the only other place requiring heating until 1838, since it is unlikely the workshops were. Heating was entirely by open fire where any was provided, in addition to the kitchen with its cooking facilities, and the bread oven which may have been fired by wood.
In 1838 the old workshops were partly converted to inmates quarters, and additional rooms were built later.
At first no more than 8 fires were needed on the ground floor, in addition to the kitchen, and that includes all four in the governor's quarters; In 1838 the able-mens quarters, made one more; 1843 a schoolroom, made 10; about 1850 the new boardroom, brought several more into use occasionally. That is a 60% increase in fireplaces at most, up to 1853 when accounts end.
The accounts make some mention of wood purchases, but in small quantities, so that if the bread oven was wood fired it may have been donated locally at no expense, and therefore with no appearance in the figures.
At various times the price paid for coal is given, and it can be deduced that it was purchased by the ton. The monthly amounts can be calculated with some assurance. From 1836/37 to 1852/53 there was a fluctuating fall in the price of coal from as much as 35s, down to 20s a ton.
Now it can be stated from experience that an open fire in daytime use, will consume 2 cwt of coal in a week, and be in use for half the year. If the kitchen consumed at the same pace, but for the whole year, the total number of fires in full use can be calculated.
1836/7 Coal: 22 tons 440 cwt 6 open fires plus kitchen
1837/8 Coal: 18 tons 360 cwt 5 open fires plus kitchen
1838/9 Coal: 20 tons 400 cwt 6 open fires plus kitchen
1839/40 Coal: 20 tons 400 cwt 6 open fires plus kitchen
1840/1 Coal: 23 tons 460 cwt 7 open fires plus kitchen
1841/2 Coal: 24 tons 480 cwt 7 open fires plus kitchen
1842/3 Coal: 26 tons 520 cwt 8 open fires plus kitchen
1843/4 Coal: 33 tons 660 cwt 11 open fires plus kitchen
1844/5 Coal: 40 tons 800 cwt 13 open fires plus kitchen
1845/6 Coal: 34 tons 680 cwt 11 open fires plus kitchen
1846/7 Coal: 36 tons 720 cwt 12 open fires plus kitchen
1847/8 Coal: 40 tons 800 cwt 13 open fires plus kitchen
1848/9 Coal: 43 tons 860 cwt 14 open fires plus kitchen
1849/50 Coal: 43 tons 860 cwt 14 open fires plus kitchen
1850/1 Coal: 50 tons 1000 cwt 17 open fires plus kitchen
1851/2 Coal: 40 tons 800 cwt 13 open fires plus kitchen
1852/3 Coal: 51.5 tons 1030 cwt 17 plus open fires and kitchen
If these calculations are remotely correct, it is clear that the heating provision for the workhouse confirms the "dearth" experienced after 1834, followed by a gradual rise in living standards. Only at the end of the accounting period was the house fully heated, and then probably only on the ground floor. Heating was a luxury and any excess or deficiency of income for food had an effect on firing
Bread
For the poor was the staff of life, with potatoes the only likely alternative. It is to be expected therefore, that on analysis the bread ration would be fairly consistent through the period.
The workhouse had the benefit of its own bread oven, so that bread was not purchased until the last year, 1852/53 at which point an unexplained change in policy took place. Thereafter regular bread contracts were placed, and then it may be assumed flour was only used for puddings - cake was unheard of.
1836/7 55 x 347.5 / 2062 = 9.27 lbs per week: 21.19 ozs bread daily
1837/8 69.4 x 347.5 / 3024 = 7.97 lbs per week: 18.23 ozs bread daily
1838/9 70.2 x 347.5 / 3301 = 7.39 lbs per week: 16.89 ozs bread daily
1839/0 68 x 347.5 / 3302 = 7.16 lbs per week: 16.36 ozs bread daily
1840/1 60 x 347.5 / 2831 = 7.36 lbs per week: 16.83 ozs bread daily
1841/2 74 x 347.5 / 3468 = 7.41 lbs per week: 16.95 ozs bread daily
1842/3 104 x 347.5 / 4763 = 7.59 lbs per week: 17.34 ozs bread daily
1843/4 97.6 x 347.5 / 4613 = 7.35 lbs per week: 16.81 ozs bread daily
1844/5 100 x 347.5 / 4836 = 7.19 lbs per week: 16.42 ozs bread daily
1845/6 93 x 347.5 / 4364 = 7.40 lbs per week 16.93 ozs bread daily
1846/7 91.1 x 347.5 / 4361 = 7.26 lbs per week: 16.59 ozs bread daily
1847/8 100.2 x 347.5 / 4781 = 7.28 lbs per week: 16.65 ozs bread daily
1848/9 115 x 347.5 / 4761 = 8.39 lbs per week: : 19.19 ozs bread daily
1849/0 117.6 x 347.5 / 4929 = 8.29 lbs per week: 18.95 ozs bread daily
1850/1 93.8 x 347.5 / 3934 = 8.29 lbs per week: 18.94 ozs bread daily
1851/2 90.2 x 347.5 / 3542 = 8.85 lbs per week 20.23 ozs bread daily
1852 3 months 25.2 X 347.5 / 998 = 8.77 lbs per week: 20.06 ozs bread daily
In order to arrive at accurate figures for consumption, the variables which need to be determined are the year by year quantities of flour, and the number of pauper-weeks to be catered for. Fortunately the monthly pauper-weeks are stated in the accounts, and these must perforce be trusted, while the monthly payments for flour are usually for fairly obvious multiples of 280lb sacks. Indeed the rate per sack is often stated.
The preceding calculations are therefore: the years total of sacks x 347.5 lbs (for the amount of bread each sack could theoretically produce) divided by the pauper-weeks for the year, which provides the quantity of bread available per pauper each week.
This assumes that all the flour is made into bread, but it will be realised that some small portion was used in meat or suet puddings. Rations varied between classes of inmates, with children on small portions, but the trend upwards or downwards will indicate how the dietaries were changing.
By reference to diets for the workhouse in 1843/4 the able men and women had 6 ozs of bread each day for both breakfast and supper, and for dinner either another 6 ozs bread, or a quantity of pudding that would have employed a similar amount of flour. Such amounts required nearly 1 lb of flour a day, which is comparable with the lowest rations calculated for the thirties and forties.
However one of diets by the PLC in 1836, had as much as 21 ozs of bread allowed on most days of the week, eased down by a little cheese. About that same time at East Preston bread was similarly dominant, with other comestibles minimal in the accounts.
Meat and Cheese
For other forms of food the accounts lack enough precision for accurate calculations of diet to be made. Meat may include a variety of cuts, at a wide range in price; and groceries leave the imagination almost entirely free. However, the dietaries show that cheese was the principle grocery item, while the principle meat would have been beef.
There is one accidental survival in an account book on a loose sheet, with a summary of the chief consumables purchased over several years from 1842 to 1849. These were beef, suet, butter, cheese, and bacon, with the total pauper-weeks the rations were to cater for. The only problem is that only the Lady Day to Midsummer totals are included, a quarter year.
What can be derived is that the average daily rations were, beef about 2oz, bacon 0.6oz, butter 0.7oz, and cheese 1.5oz. All in all what may be expected from the diet tables, considering that most of the bacon would have gone to the old people. The amount of suet, around 2 oz a week, is surprisingly small, with suet pudding on the menu.
One of the luxuries was milk, which is mentioned in the 1836 accounts but then drops out of reckoning until 1849 onwards, and at an expenditure of around £2 or less a year, and assuming 1d a pint, it would have made a welcome extra if concentrated in certain months, as appears to have been the case.
In a good year, such as 1849, the inmates either had an improved ration table, or were pampered with extras. Even so the average amount of meat daily, for all classes, may have been no more than 3oz and the same for cheese and butter together
Beer
The one remaining set of commodities not considered is malt and hops, which were used to make beer. This was frowned on by the Commissioners after 1834, unless ordered for medical purposes, but the Guardians held out in this respect and may be congratulated for it. A pint of beer daily, as reported by Maclean in 1834, is a beverage of some food value.
The particular weak table beer brewed at the workhouse was even suspected by the PLC of causing dysentery, although anything boiled and drunk fresh, as this was, must have been less suspect than water direct from the wells. In the course of a hundred years the Gilbert workhouse accumulated nine cess-pits, which will have polluted the ground quite extensively.
In 1844 Mrs Float went into some detail about her recipe and methods, and an inmate considered it compared favourably with beer obtained at public houses at a 1d or 2d a quart. Only about half a pint was allowed at dinners about this time.
Her recipe was based on a brewing of three and a half hogsheads, or 130 gallons of water, and to this she had latterly allowed three bushels of malt. In summer half that quantity was made at a time for "freshness". Presumably to that half quantity was added her 2lbs of hops. In winter when the beer kept longer 1 1/2lbs was used and treacle added.This was brewed and then put to use only two days or so afterwards. Newly made beer is considered best by some modern makers.
The beverage continued as part of inmate rations until 1876 three years after the new workhouse had been built.
The Garden
In 1834 Maclean stated that the main garden west of the house was 3/4 acre, while the yard in the centre was another 1/2 acre. Later on, with the classification of paupers, and building of separate exercise yards, the central area was reduced to 1/4 acre. Certainly the usable area for growing crops, or pasturage, less than an acre.
The foundation deeds of the Union spoke of obtaining land "fit for gardens, orchards, and the keeping of a cow or cows" which sounds very fine and optimistic, but the purchase of milk is evidence that a milch cow had not been obtained. Nor is there any indication from OS and Tithe Maps that the land was ever used for orchards, nevertheless Maclean describes it as a "garden" and from later evidence it was indeed used to grow potatoes, but unfortunately "greens" are not mentioned.
Estimates for potato yield before 1939, and by Arthur Young early in the 19th century, both agree on a rate of 400 bushels or 10 tons per acre, and a similar rate is possible with greens. Continual cropping with potatoes is an Irish Famine mistake or predicament, but this is the conclusion. Perhaps the occasional times when potatoes were bought, reflects disease and bad weather.
On the basis of the 1848 numbers of paupers, as much as 0.75lb daily of potatoes might have been added to the meals, for each pauper throughout the year. In 1837, with fewer inmates, the quantity would have been greater, reducing the discrepancy between the diets in those two years.
It is extraordinary that when they were taken into the House after 1837, able men were left idle, and yet the garden must have been cultivated, and therefore it was worked mainly by the older men - the Inquiry did not think to ask. The yard at the centre of the buildings was humorously described as a "sort of bowling green" or greensward, although with the tramp of numerous feet its greenness is doubtful, it was not used for gardens.
Clothing
There little information about pauper clothing, bit it was funded by the parishes direct and not through workhouse funds. Another loose note dated Jan. 6, but with no year, has the rather quaint (to us) sounding resolution: A Committee to be appointed to look over the Clothing and report to the Board its condition (and ) if it recommends that Round Frocks be provided for the Old Men. The smock was worn in rural England until much later, and no doubt the 'old men' were not accustomed to anything else at home.
In 1844 a description of a typical inmates clothes, besides boots, included round frock or smock, trousers and jackets. The system was thought by Olliver to be an inducement to men to come in ragged, in order to get clothes.
In November 1855 the question was raised as to the need for "one uniform kind of clothing for the inmates" and in December it was decided that clothing would be tendered for in future. Collections at 2d per head were subsequently made on this account, but the clothing account book is lost. This only tends to imply that clothing had previously been more informal, and varied.
6. INMATE CLASSIFICATION AND DISCIPLINE
1834 Act and PLC
With the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 all Gilbert Incorporation were put into the melting pot, the newly created Poor Law Commissioners were intent on firm central control.
The order to dissolve the Incorporation arrived in 1837, and swords were crossed immediately. A Letter Book kept by George Olliver the Visitor recounts the Board's side of the issue. The 1844 Inquiry went into it further. Predictably both sides claimed the moral high ground, with the Board claiming they and the individual parishes could attend the poor more cheaply, and allowing better justice. The cost of a new workhouse with more officers being a substantial point. To this the PLC countered it was better to keep the old and infirm out of the House while putting the able bodied in, at least as a test. They also objected to parochial guardians under no control, not even that of the magistrates since the Act.
In the end a compromise resulted in minimal classification. The Act amended Gilbert so as to allow able-bodied men to be sent in, and these were housed separately in an altered end of the workshops, with their own yard attached. But children as old as 14 were still allowed to sleep in rooms with their mothers, rather than being separated. The accounts were better kept, although few survive for comparison, and certainly the food contract was taken out of the Governor's hands these accounts coming direct under the Board, audited by the visitor. This was all the PLC achieved despite taking the Union to court, at a cost to the parishes of at least £100.
The Visitor admitted the new Act induced improved administration, while preserving the Gilbert discretionary powers in taking families into the House, and keeping control of diet, clothing and internal management. He claimed the average union poor law expenditure just before 1835 at £6560 had been reduced by 1842 to no more than £4000. With the cost of living much the same, this was presumably the result of more punitive measures.
If the General Order of 1844, prohibiting outdoor relief to able men and women, had been enforced in Gilbert Unions the workhouse could not have sufficed without rebuilding.
At the Inquiry of 1844 the Incorporation was damned by the Poor Law Commission [PLC] for not agreeing to dissolution under the 1834 Act, and then condemned for not conforming with the Gilbert Act and amendments. But the Inquiry can be criticised for lack of preparation, not even obtaining a workhouse plan showing how the inmates were accommodated and classified, with questions inadequately cross-checked with other deponents or books. The PLC was a creation of the 1834 Amendment Act, and treated as an interloper in local government. Whatever the facts, it was opinion that ruled.
One item that needs mention is the Swing Riots of 1830, not to mention Tolpuddle later. East Preston and Kingston were particularly involved, with a young man hung for arson in 1831. Reaction to these riots on the part of landowners was two edged, in a certain hardening of attitude which engendered reform of the Poor Law, but also more constructive policies such as the provision of schools for the poor, to educate then into good or submissive citizens. The East Preston incident involved property belonging to George Olliver of Kingston, and he it was adopted as Visitor in 1837, no doubt to oppose the reform of the union demanded by the PLC. He evidently considered that his charities, such as the village school, and influence generally were sufficient without rule from London.
Classification of Inmates
The new Act had repealed that part of Gilbert restricting the type of person to be sent to the House, and now able-bodied men were taken in and pressure from the PLC made classification and separation necessary. And yet that part of Gilbert requiring the able-bodied to be found work outside, remained. And then, while in the House, all inmates should have been provided with work, but the men were left idle.
By 1837 only a separation of men and women was in force, in some minimal degree, but a year later George Olliver had begun arranging quarters for the able men. This was no doubt what was found in 1843, with the old workshops altered to accommodate the men. But despite Gilbert, the sick had not yet been provided with a hospital ward or infirmary. Although five classes were mentioned the Matron admitted there were only two real divisions of people.
Upper rooms had various numbers of beds in them, all five feet wide and commonly used by two inmates. These were equipped with feather mattresses, considered luxurious compared with the hulls or chaff used by many local labourers. Unsurprisingly there were no bathrooms, but about 1843 three baths had been obtained to replace tubs, and incoming paupers were washed in these. Whether they ever saw a bath afterwards is uncertain, but it was required by House rules that inmates keep themselves clean. Previously, according to the governor, incomers were sent straight to their rooms except when there was fear of disease.
For young able-men the only family life was an hour each Sunday and Thursday when they could meet, although their wives and children were left together by necessity rather than humane intent
It is barely explained how it was that in 1835 a hand-mill was erected in the workshops costing £40, with a sack of barley used to test it, but then the machine left unused. The only excuse being that it took eight men, four on and four off, to operate it and generally there were fewer men available. Mr Olliver spoke of the expense of operating it but what this involved is left unanswered.
The real purpose of such machines after 1834 was not profit, or occupational therapy, but to make the House unbearable. This did not impress an inmate in 1844, who was more concerned about family separation.
Delays in building work were blamed on uncertainty about the future, leaving the workhouse in bad order by 1843 when the Visitor estimated some £350 was laid out on unspecified improvements, with more needed. It can only be deduced that this involved the construction of a schoolroom at the north end of the yard, also to be used as a boardroom. At the south end what had been a boardroom-cum-schoolroom, was now converted to a much needed infirmary.
The dreadful conditions for sick people previously, were highlighted by close investigation of the particular case of a "dissolute" and dying young woman. At first she was in the general wards but was removed because of her offensive condition, and placed in an attic room without a window or seemingly any fireplace. She was nursed by a pauper girl who was in a similar but less advanced condition. The woman died soon afterwards. At this time, admittedly, the workhouse was crowded with 112 inmates of whom seven were sick.
In the following years the process of classification continued, although details are unknown. In 1858 alterations costing £80 provided a female ward, and in 1863 another room to the infirmary was built. About 1850 a purpose made boardroom was extended out on the west side of the main block. The rest of the workshops were taken over for the girls, so that apart from the stables none of the old shops remained. A new workshed and cells were sited next to the girls yard, and now the boys and women had their own yards. By 1869 the accommodation was estimated at about 156, without any substantial new buildings constructed since 1806.
Discipline
Great play was made of the fact that Float could not read the rules to his charges, his wife doing so erratically. House rules were made about 1843, with any previous sets lost. These were in seven rather confused sections, and more severe than the PLC approved. The first rules stipulated that every fit person was to work, although it was the women who kept the House going in kitchen, bakehouse, and as chambermaids. Punishments for neglect or leaving the house without permission, included confinement and reduced diets, and for repeated offences an inmate would be taken before a JP with possible imprisonment for up to two months. Other rules sent inmates to bed at 7 to 8 after Michaelmas and 8 to 9 after Lady Day, and forbade liquor, smoking, card games, games of chance, and profane language. What this left semi-literate men to do can barely be imagined.
The only thing saving the able men from demoralisation was their being allowed out by the Governor quite regularly, ostensibly to seek work, although the witness inmate managed to spend time with his friends in Broadwater on these occasions. Less official excursions took place when men "got over the wall" if Float was looking the other way.
Older inmates were not constantly confined, being permitted to take walks down to the beach on asking permission. At this time, as in 1834, one of the paupers acted as gatekeeper or porter, the gate being always locked.
In reformed workhouses a restricted diet was permitted for up to 48 hours, but at East Preston longer periods were inflicted at times. The Governor himself mentioned a 70 year old man who had been on bread and water for three days in a fortnight.
Fortunately the past life of inmates was not considered, and a well-behaved thief was treated equally to a respectable housekeeper. An exception was made with disorderly prostitutes, but even there no separation is spoken of until 1858 when a "loose female" ward was made. Complaints were made of disorderly conduct by older boys, and quarrelsome females, but there nothing changes.
A cause celebre of 1843 which had close scrutiny, concerned three teenage boys, who were accused of stealing a box from an older man, and then absconded. They were seen at Ferring Brook [Ferring Rife] where they had hidden the box. On returning to the House they were kept for three days confined in a passage on bread and water, the lock-up being dilapidated, and then the Visitor had two of them flogged by the Governor with a cane, with as many as thirteen stripes each. According to Olliver this was for running away and not the theft, as the court imagined, which was only discovered afterwards. They were taken before a magistrate, and then to trial at Petworth where the third boy was convicted and sent to prison for four days. The court was incensed at the floggings and warned the Governor.
Fines and Treats
Besides rules for inmates, there were also bye-laws for the Guardians respecting attendance at meetings, with fines of 5s for late attendance. Strictly this was in contravention of Gilbert, which laid down rules with massive fines of between £2 and £5, and the PLC considered the Board was not competent to make by-laws. They were accused of using the proceeds to fund their annual dinner, at the end of their year in office, but it transpired that only half was used this way, with the remainder expended on treats for the old people, of beer, tea and tobacco several times a year. This was in peculiar contradiction of the rules which forbade tobacco.
Guardians and Visitor
Throughout its history, the Board consisted of one guardian from each parish, elected only by £5 ratepayers. In addition a Visitor was appointed, and as with Olliver he did not always live in a union parish. Once elected the parish guardian was in virtual control of relief in his parish, and as one of a select band of gentlemen what he did was seldom questioned at board meetings. This was particularly so in larger parishes such as Broadwater, which had their own parish boards.
There is an impression that Workhouse Board meetings were not all serious business. The early Minutes are lost but not the long series of wagers made by members on every issue of the day. A typical bet in 1843 was for two bottles of wine that the ornaments in Mr Olliver's drawing room at Kingston did not come from Michelgrove. They did not.
Since 1834 the only appeal the poor had was to the Visitor, the Board could not be appealed to corporately as in new unions, and he reckoned he heard as many as 40 or 50 cases in a winter season with a good many from Angmering. He could order a few shillings relief, but did so "very seldom". This lack of a uniform supervised system was criticised by the PLC.
The Visitor was the general manager of the workhouse attending several times a week, to supervise the Governor. His wife also visited in a charitable way, in particular attending the school.
Dinners
Soon after he was appointed Visitor, George Olliver stopped the monthly dinners from being paid out of the rates and began a subscription scheme. As a result only about twelve guardians dined, the rest were termed "water-drinkers". The Governor caused some amusement by saying how the monthly meetings at 12 o'clock were followed by dinner about an hour and half later, and they would "leave as it depends". Only the vegetables were supplied free by the workhouse, with "tobacco pipes" and wine bought in from Littlehampton. The Matron cooked these dinners as part of her normal routine.
7. PARISHES, CENSUS INFORMATION AND THE UNION'S FINAL YEARS
The Parishes
1844 A few of the parishes were investigated in 1844, but only Broadwater by clear intent. Indeed Kingston was not in union, happening to be the Visitor's parish.
The PLC had no doubt that a general system of relief did not exist. In some of the coastal parishes men applying for relief were sent to the beach to dig flint boulders and sand for building contractors to buy, the men paid at 8d a load. Previous to the 1834 Act, magistrates had ordered head money paid to families according to prevailing costs, at the recent rate of 15d to 18d for each child above two in number, presumably in addition to anything the parents received. Mr Olliver denied that whole families were taken into the House, and where possible the man was found employment with only a part of his family taken in.
It has been mentioned how Broadwater in particular had the lowest level of poverty. But with small numbers involved, it is difficult to confirm that Lyminster and Goring were most stringent at sending their poor to the House after 1834. In 1843 the difference is merely between 3% of the population at Goring, down to 0.3% for Broadwater. Although Angmering had a high level of poverty it did not use the House proportionately, and this also applied in earlier years.
With Gilbert Parishes occupying so much of West Sussex until 1869, the effect of this on Settlement Law is of special interest. For instance the Incorporation was not subject to the 1847 Union Changeability Act, and so it was not until 1865 that poor relief and the settlement area became the union, rather than individual parishes. In 1856 this was referred to by the Minutes in the case of a Littlehampton widow, who remained chargeable to that parish. And unlike the new workhouses East Preston did not take in the tramping fraternity, and no provision was made for them until after 1869.
Broadwater
Both George Newland the guardian, and Cave an inmate, were interviewed for Broadwater. The guardian, a farmer, received a parish allowance of 5s for horse-hire each month, to attend