Derby St Werburgh

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Workhouse Correspondence - St Werburgh's, Derby, and Stoke on Trent

ABOUT THIS PAGE: Impending legislation in 1834 to set up Unions of Workhouses across the country prompted local committees to enquire how the existing (1833) system was run so that they could amalgamate the best ideas from existing experienced administrators. A Copy of the Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Workhouse in the Parish of St Werburgh's, Derby together with an accompanying letter to explain the reasoning behind them, was sent by John Moody, Vestry Clerk of St Werburgh's Parish, to Mr Strutt, the owner of Belper Mill as part of this exercise. Both are preserved within The Strutt Papers (01/), at Manchester Archives and Local Studies, Manchester Central Library, along with a letter from G. T. Taylor, an Overseer, relating to the state of Stoke on Trent Workhouse. This page contains an Overview of this Correspondence.

This letter accompanies the Rules referred to above, and begins with Moody expressing a view that the diet regime which had been in use in St Werburgh Parish since December 1826, was preferable to the new system which began in "June last" (June 1833). He favoured the old scheme of weighing the food before it was served to inmates because the responsibility was then taken away from the Governor, and he could not be charged with favouritism towards individual paupers. He said further that everyone was quite aware that some appetites would never be satisfied and "the weight of food allotted to each was amply sufficient", yet under the new system he'd observed that more food was consumed, which was to the disadvantage of the parish: "under the new every thing depends upon the management of the Governor, and he requires much more watching".

Moody then goes on to offer opinions on the best way to manage a Parish and recommends that Rates should be levied on property, but ascribing the payments to individuals "as equally as possible". And payments were to be collected quarterly because many people changed houses quarterly. He advised that a Committee of Gentlemen should be appointed to check the rent book every quarter to see the Collector did his duty and did not succumb to bribes to pretend that occupied houses were empty.

Most important, he said, is the management of the Outdoor Poor, where "everything depends on the parson who has to deal with the Class of Men, the generality of which are of the most depraved and dissolute habits". He said he always took the names and ages of every fresh applicant, with that of his wife and children, and entered them in a book so that in any future application he knew them and was able to ask what such and such a child was getting, and who they were working for. When he had worked out the earnings of the whole family then he gave the man employment to make up the remainder; "according to general rule this employment should always be of a hard description, such as paupers do not like to stop long at".

The principal work in St Werburgh was gravel getting and breaking for the roads. The parish gave one shilling per yard for gravel getting and for breaking according to the family which needed relief.

When the gravel was broken it was laid upon the roads, and he said it was worth 5/- per yard, allowing two shillings per yard to pay for tools, carting and wages of men to lay it on the roads and which meant neither profit nor loss to the Parish.

Moody did not like the Manchester plan of Ticketing paupers for a fixed time, sometimes 3 months, he said "the paupers will feel that ticket to be a license to them to receive the money whether they have occasion for it or not, and after the ticket is given no more enquiry is made until another application is made", and so he recommended frequent checks were made of the family earnings by bringing the recipients before the Vestry committee.

The "abominable expense of Bastardy" left him "scarcely able to give an opinion, not being allowed in this place to know what would be the effect of my own opinions". He did say that he would punish, as much as possible, the Father and Mother, but at the same time he would not starve the unoffending Infant to death. Moody finally stated that the key to the management of Parish Business, Laws, and Rules is to ensure that they are properly managed and administered.

Mr Taylor's letter explains that Stoke on Trent is a very large parish, of nearly 40,000 inhabitants, most of them employed in manufacture of China and Earthenware and in the Collieries. Their previous Poor House had been small and inconvenient but "always crowded and full of Paupers; Idle, Insolent and Refractory ... of the worst description, without the least desire ever to be higher elevated in the scale of Society; demanding Relief as their lawful and freehold right without considering it a favour".

Poor Rates had increased in 7 years from £10,000 to £18,000 per annum, and as an attempt to check the rapid increase in expenditure, Mr Taylor was detailed to investigate how other parishes were managed as - for example - Liverpool, Sheffield, Chester, and Manchester. During his investigation he had heard of the new System which had been adopted at Southwell. His letter is most effusive in praising this new system, and generous in his thanks for the assistance he and his colleagues had received from Southwell, explaining that for the few months they'd been practising the New System in Stoke on Trent "its practicable results exceed all previous calculation".

They had erected the Poor House according to the Southwell Plan, which was "isolated or separated from the bulk of the population and capable of containing from 500 to 700 inmates". Half of the existing population of 1100 receiving Relief in the Old Establishment were given "Orders of Admission" to the New Establishment, but 50 of those didn't go, "consequently making a saving of £70 per week which had previously been paid to them in money".

[Ed: he doesn't say what happened to the other 550...]

Naturally, the new plan was not well received by all, and "brought down a great deal of odium on the present Officers. The Paupers were very abusive and many respectable Rate-payers ... allowing their feelings to get the better of their judgment, have made matters a good deal unpleasant, accompanied with many threatening and Anonymous letters".

They were however determined to persevere on the basis that there was sufficient employment in the parish for those disposed to work, and "when driven back upon their own resources they seldom fail to find employment". It was expected to save £5000 a year with the plan in full operation.

As a final note of conditions within the Workhouse, he explains that it was run on the same principles as the Thurgaton Hundred Workhouse. Within the Workhouse, a principle of "Restraint and Confinement, with proper classification of the sexes" was exercised. And "the separation of Man and Wife is absolutely necessary according to the construction of our building; each bedroom being large enough to hold 18 beds with two persons in each. Although this separating of the married people has caused more complaints than all the rest we consider it would be neither decent nor moral to allow so many males and females to sleep in one room".

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Transcription UK Copyright © 2002 by Caroline Densham from original document(s) in The Strutt Papers (01/273)

Readers may also wish to be aware there is a catalogue to the Strutt Papers (01/) available via the Access to Archives (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a) web site.

[Editing and summary by Rosemary Lockie, 14 September 2002]

© Copyright Caroline Densham, GENUKI and Contributors 2002, &c.
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