Should we ever be transported back in time and have the misfortune to need medical care or the need of a social service, it would be a hit-or-miss process rife with ancient ‘red tape’ and often woefully inadequate. For a time medieval England had its monasteries, and in the 19th century Union workhouses exchanged the labour of inmates for the succour provided, but for the centuries in between the job fell to the parish constable and an ‘overseer of the poor’ to administer relief to those who qualified either through ill health, old age or unemployment.

It is only comparatively recently that social welfare has been the responsibility of the State. In the years prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1530s-1540s) that task was undertaken by the Church. Emerging from the Christian duty of sheltering pilgrims and strangers such establishments became the first hospitals (from the Latin ‘hospes’ meaning both host and guest) with nuns and monks in attendance to help the, ‘blynde’, the ‘dumbe’, and ‘deaff’ the ‘natural fool’, the ‘creple’, the ‘lame’ and the ‘lunatick’ plus those who were suffering the consequences of years of back-breaking work. Such care was based upon the Christian teaching of the seven ‘comfortable works’ which included feeding, clothing and housing the poor, visiting them when in prison or sick, drink for the thirsty, and burial, plus ‘spiritual works’ which included counsel and comfort for those in need. Once such religious houses were dissolved it was left to those who had bought up church properties to take responsibility for their inherited poor and sick. Offered in the form of charitable legacies, this was usually dispensed in wills as sums of money set aside for the building or furbishing of almshouses or the education of a number of ‘poore boys’ but hinged more on securing a place in heaven for the deceased immortal soul than any real recognition of social welfare. It also prompted the first steps towards the idea of State-led relief especially as the poor, now become robbed of vital centres of charity, had become in effect a dispossessed army of beggars and vagrants who were roaming the countryside threatening law and order. Early measures were primarily to curb this problem but in the last decade of Elizabeth I’s reign the Poor Law Act of 1601 made each parish responsible for its own dependents, a system which would last over 200 years and establish the parish as the principle unit of administration.

Early Poor Laws
For the first time, High and County Sheriffs were appointed each year to collect a compulsory levy on local occupiers of land and property with parish officers charged with the appropriate distribution of the proceeds. The objectives of the act were simple and effective inasmuch as they suppressed begging, encouraged the able bodied to find work, provided apprenticeships for poor children and established Houses of Correction for those who refused to work. At the same time it catered for the ‘impotent’, ie the sick and elderly plus orphans.

Parish settlements
The 17th and 18th centuries continued to endorse parish officers to keep the levels of poor rate low enough to avoid being a burden but high enough to be effective in dispensing adequate relief. Thus the Act of Settlement was introduced in 1662 which curtailed free movement between parishes and was designed to prevent illegal claims on the parish purse. Conditions applied in qualifying for a settlement certificate, the most obvious being that it was a person’s place of birth. Having lived in the parish for 40 days, been in service for a year, been bound to an apprenticeship or having a rental of £10 per year or being a parish officer was also recognised. A married woman automatically took on her husband’s place of settlement. Those who moved from parish to parish were required to produce certificates before relief of any kind was given, with failure to do resulting in lengthy interviews or ‘examinations’ which often proved costly.

Unmarried mothers and pregnant women were an ongoing problem as many would leave their home parish in such circumstances to seek relief elsewhere. With pregnancy the sole responsibility of the woman for much of history, unwed mothers were an unwanted and ‘unholy’ burden on strained parish finances. Such was the fear that the maintenance of a base-born child might fall on their parish, some officials resorted to drastic measures – see the case study (right).

War veterans
Care of the sick and poor was relatively manageable in peacetime, excluding failed harvests and natural disasters, but war, both domestic and foreign, often tipped the balance. If a man had been pressed into service as a sailor, he was not allowed to leave his ship even if it were docked close to his home for fear he would desert, and as pay in the Navy was sporadic as well as low there was no choice for his family other than apply for parish relief. Even if a man had fought at Trafalgar, Waterloo or in the Crimea, the pensions they received, which may have been enough while they were still young and strong enough to supplement them, were found meagre when in later years it was all they had to depend on. Newspapers carried many tributes and obituaries of such men (see case studies, below).

These were by no means isolated cases, as wives of veterans were usually exempt from their husband’s pension and so faced straitened circumstances. One distressing case prompted the chaplain of the Aldershot Barracks to write to the press in order to highlight the plight of the widow of Sergeant John Flemming, who as a veteran of the Crimea had been recently buried after an illness of seven years, aged 70. As a soldier who served with the 11th Hussars for 25 years, he was present at all the actions in the Crimea in which the Light Cavalry Brigade took part and was one of the last remaining veterans who rode in the charge at Balaclava. In 1867 he had left the service with a pension of one shilling and 11 pence per day and as “…a fine specimen of a Christian and a soldier he maintained until his death the high character with which he left the regiment”. The appeal stated that although an application to the Patriotic Fund had been made for his 66-year-old widow, she was not eligible under their rules. It concluded that, “…at present therefore through lack of surviving relatives she has only the workhouse before her”.

As late as 1920 the Dundee Evening Telegraph reported on another such incident, this time the widow of John Shephard of Harlsden. He too had fought in Russia, was awarded both British and Turkish medals and as a first-class petty officer he had assisted in bringing Cleopatra’s Needle to England. After 29 years his retiring pension had been £22 10s a year. Immediately after his death, aged 88, the authorities wrote to his widow for all his papers, and in due course she received a postal order for 1 shilling, together with an official notification that “the pension has now ceased”. Mrs Shepherd herself was 75 years of age.

Late Victorian reforms
Towards the end of the 19th century, Victorian attitudes towards poverty slowly began to change with unemployment no longer ‘blamed’ on idleness plus the recognition that it was not enough to leave the responsibility of welfare to charitable and philanthropic organisations alone. A report by Edwin Chadwick had long shown the need for reform in public health and the Boer War (1890) had showed that the need for fit and healthy recruits could not be met by men who were undernourished.

Thus the Welfare State in its modern form began with the introduction of reforms between 1906 and 1914 including an extension of the right to vote, resulting in a growing need to cater for the working classes; hence the introduction of National Insurance (1911) and old age pensions (1908). On 1 December 1942 a report by the highly regarded economist Sir William Beveridge was published by the wartime coalition government. Entitled ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’, it became the blueprint for the modern British Welfare State.

In 1965 a British sociologist wrote these worthy and enlightened words: “it is generally agreed that… the overall responsibility for the welfare of the citizens must remain with the State”. It could not have been further in attitude or time from when being ‘sicke’ or ‘poore’ meant relying totally on goodwill and charity.

Research notes

• Pre-1600 records: few records of relevance exist, but manorial records (often in county record offices or in estate archives) can give a snapshot of daily life on a manorial estate.

• Old Poor Law (1600-1834): records include settlement certificates, removal orders, workhouse records, minutes of meetings, accounts, rate books, appointment books (of overseers). Most such ‘parish chest’ records are now in county record offices.

• New Poor Law (1834-1948): records of the Union Workhouse and Union Board of Guardians are often extensive; again, many are in county archives.

• Many Poor Law holdings around the country are indexed by The National Archives search engine: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk