Scotland in the nineteenth century

14. Poverty and relief measures

Section 14.4: Poor law

"appointed to consider of the Poor Laws, and to report their observations thereupon from time to time to the House." The Committee reported on the history of the Poor Law, the mode of assessment, the number of paupers, institutions and societies, employment and the labour supply and the law of settlement.

George Moncrief, a merchant, submitted evidence on the relief of the poor in Edinburgh and the aid given by friendly societies.

The third report (1818) included a report from the Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and also reports from 692 parishes. The poor were found to he supported by collections taken at churches, voluntary contributions by heritors or landowners in the form of money, fuel or food, and by legal assessments. The funds for poor relief being managed by the heritors and the kirk sessions. It was thought that legal and compulsory assessments for the support of the poor were unwise, "a very great proportion of the beneficial influence of our law and practice has been owing to a powerful co-operation in the moral character and the habits of the lower classes of the people, who have so universally and so long been distinguished by a proud and virtuous aversion from dependence on parish charity, while they could earn by their own labour a subsistence for themselves. "If assessments were introduced it was thought that relief tended to be regarded as a right."

Begging was also discussed and regarded as a violation of the poor law "encouraging the vices of those who are professionally pilfering vagrants, and as habituating generally the pauper to duplicity, falsehood, improvidence and dissipation."

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In giving evidence to the Committee of 1819, Reverend Henry Duncan from Dumfriesshire said that, when other methods of relief failed, certificates might be issued to allow paupers to beg. He was against poor-rates, believing they helped increase the number of paupers; this was most noticeable in districts bordering on England. He preferred to see the poor supporting themselves with savings banks and friendly societies. A parish bank had been established in his parish Ruthwell in 1810. He believe that "as the lower classes learn to provide for their future independence by their own exertions, the restraints thus imposed in their conduct, improves their moral habits, and gives them juster modes of thinking."

Appendix A 1: (Sessional no.; 462, 1817): Report of the Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (pp. 145-147).

Appendix A 2: Accounts related to money collected for the poor in Scotland (pp. 148-153).

Appendix: (Sessional no. 358, 1818): List of queries sent to ministers of parishes (pp. 42-43). Abridged reports from parishes (pp. 44-51).

"appointed to consider of the Poor Laws, and report to the House."

In Scotland, a joint meeting of the minister, heritors and elders of the parish had the power to impose compulsory assessments for the relief of the poor, but this was seldom done. Money was usually raised by regular collections at churches and by voluntary contributions by landowners or heritors. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland submitted a report on the management of the poor in over 100 parishes in Scotland (Appendix no. 30, pp. 54-55). The amount of relief given by relatives and neighbours accounted for the small number of paupers in some populous districts and the small sums given to paupers in country districts. It was thought that legal assessments caused an influx of paupers from other parishes and that the continuance of weekly collections at churches should be encouraged.

Kirkman Finlay, M.P. (pp. 123-126) submitted details of the mode of assessment of poor-rates in Glasgow, appeals to the sheriff, employment, apprentices, wages and provident banks. He also discussed the law of settlement, by which a person could claim settlement in the place of his birth or where he had lived for three years successively, and the power of removal of paupers to their places of settlement.

Sir John Buchanan Riddell, M.P. (pp. 134-141) considered whether voluntary contributions and church collections decreased in proportion as compulsory assessments increased. He gave details of the relief of the poor in Roxburgh, where agricultural labourers who could not find employment at certain times of the year were employed by the surveyor of roads to repair the parish roads. This considerably reduced the poor-rates. He also discussed early marriages among agricultural labourers, drinking, emigration, and the education of pauper children. He thought the fact that labourers refrained from going to public houses too frequently "arises from good and respectable habits, and from an inclination to save, for the benefit of their families, as large a proportion of their weekly earnings as they can do."

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Returns from counties in Scotland of the numbers of paupers, and the revenue raised by the collections at churches, voluntary contributions and regular assessment were given (pp. 56-64). An account of the income and expenditure of the West Kirk Charity Workhouse, or St. Cuthbert's Parish, from 1806 to 1816 (pp. 65-68), and a statement concerning the Orphan Hospital, Edinburgh (p. 68) were also included.

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland obtained returns from almost every parish in Scotland concerning the management of the poor. They submitted the returns which they had received since the publication of their last report. These provided details of the population of each parish according to the Census of 1811, the number of paupers, the amounts raised by collections at church doors, Session funds, voluntary contributions and legal assessments, the expense of litigation and levying assessments, and the highest and lowest rate paid per annum to paupers.

A general abstract of the population, poor and the means of maintaining the poor in Scotland was included (pp. 128-129).

Scotland was used as a comparison for the situation in England and Wales. In Scotland not all the parishes were assessed for a poor-rate; in the unassessed parishes relief of the poor relied on contributions collected at the church door. The Commissioners for Scotland believed the unassessed system was better, as it encouraged the poor to fend for themselves. This, he believed, meant a more independent labouring population and reduced the cost to the parish.

The Scottish evidence was only taken from a small area of the country (pp. 193-217) but included Glasgow (pp. 203-208), where the poor were supported by church collections and assessment of all those inhabitants worth more than £300, according to their means. The Commissioners considered that Scotland, despite its people being poorer, was in better condition than the rest of the country because of the superior morality of the people, the better relations between clergy and landlords, with no arguments over tithes, and the better education of the poor through the parish school system.

While giving evidence on migration J.P. Kay, the Commissioner for Norfolk and Suffolk, referred at length to Scotland (pp. 5-27), and a report by G.C. Lewis respecting the migration which had occurred in Scotland as a result of the free circulation of labour.

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In England, migration had been restricted by the Poor Laws but in Scotland surplus labour had flooded into the towns to find employment. A large part of the population of Glasgow consisted of Scots from the lowlands, mainly from a 60-mile radius. The trend from the country cottages was into the villages and then into the large towns, especially from the Lothians into Glasgow.

The Irish influx into Scotland was considered to have been in most places to fill gaps in the labour market, and in others such as Wigtonshire and Kirkcudbright to take up labour for lower wages than the native Scots, and thus force them out. South west Scotland was considered significant as being the only part of Great Britain where the Irish had spread beyond the towns and become agricultural labourers.

A questionnaire was sent out to the church ministers and the chief justices of the burghs and the information received is displayed in Table 1 of the Appendix (pp. 25-133).

From the results of this questionnaire, the Committee concluded that until the mid-eighteenth century funds from church collections and other voluntary contributions had been sufficient for the maintenance of the poor in the whole of Scotland. After 1820 it was difficult to make this sum provide for all the poor as greater economic hardship was experienced by an increased population. The lack of increase in the money collected was partly attributed to the slow growth in church congregations, from whom the money was collected.

The Committee also considered the history of the Scottish Poor Law Act, 1579 and how the Scottish Poor Laws varied from the English system (pp. 6-7). It was noted that there were no poor houses or houses of correction as in England, though such institutions were being formed in one or two principal cities. Details of the system of Scottish poor-relief were given (pp. 7-10).

The returns identify those places which made an assessment of landowners for poor-relief, the amount this yielded, how much was collected at the church door and other sources of relief, also the number of impotent persons on the books of the kirk session legally entitled to relief, and the annual amount available for the kirk to distribute.

In 1841 in the Gorbals parish of Glasgow, with a population of 10,000, £160 4s 6d was obtained from an assessment of the landowners, £67 1s 11d was collected from the church door, and £130 2s 6d was obtained from other sources. The kirk divided £396 4s among 149 impotent persons of the parish and £41 19s 1d was distributed among other needy people.

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A letter containing questions was circulated to all the parish ministers in Scotland, the replies being annexed in the appendix.

The Commissioners found that in Scotland the people entitled to parochial relief were those either wholly or partially disabled by age or infirmity and unable to maintain themselves, this included children. Exceptions to this were illegitimate children, who the parish often refused to assist, leaving the mother to fend for herself as a warning to others of the consequences of immorality. Besides these cases, relief was occasionally given to a family of able-bodied people during sickness, but not as a matter of right, and usually only as a result of fevers or epidemics.

In Edinburgh, Glasgow and some of the large towns these rigid principles were not so strongly observed and able-bodied persons unable to work through illness or accident were often given assistance, but it was still rare for the unemployed able-bodied to he given aid. For the unemployed there was relief offered from money provided from subscription lists, or relief work.

In Scotland the three different classes of parish, burgh, rural and landward, affected the way in which relief was administered. In the first the duty of providing funds and administering relief fell upon the magistrates. The ordinary management of the poor was arranged by a committee of managers chosen according to the rules of the different burghs.

In the rural parishes the body administering relief was composed of members of the kirk-session and the landowners of the parish. This body had complete control over an matters relating to the management of the poor.

In the landward parishes the magistrates and kirk-sessions all formed part of the administering body.

The funds for these bodies came from such sources as the collection at the church door and the kirk fees and fines. In some parishes the landowners were assessed either voluntarily or by law for money towards the poor. Most of the cities and large towns had a legal assessment based on property.

A number of parishes had been subdivided into wards for elections and in other cases, parishes had been combined for poor administration. The three parishes on the Isle of Islay had combined so that the island's population of 15,000 could be managed as one. Problems were experienced in Edinburgh where the parish of Canongate desired to be combined with the City of Edinburgh and St. Cuthberts. Canongate was mainly the residence of the working class and it was possible that the situation could arise where it would be unable to support its poor. The City of Edinburgh was favourable to a combination, but St. Cuthberts rejected it.

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The Board reported how in Falkirk, an assistant inspector had been found guilty of culpable homicide over his handling of a case, when a pauper died as a result of negligence. This decision had far reaching effects, establishing the ability of inspectors to be indicted criminally.

In many parishes the means for dealing with the poor were judged to be defective. Arrangements were made for any combination of parishes with more than 5,000 inhabitants to be allowed to build their own poor house.

In Edinburgh industrial schools were to be provided for children of poor parents, to educate the child and provide it with a trade (p. xv).

The return gives details of the complaints heard by the Board of Supervision against the parish relieving officers. The tables list what relief the parish had given, what decision the Board reached, and what additional relief, if any, was granted. The majority of appeals were refused.

In Glasgow by 1848, 59,465 people were in receipt of relief, with the average amount being granted £1. This figure represented just under half the 1841 population of the city.

The superintendents were to be appointed to supervise districts of the Highlands by the Board of Supervision of the Poor in Scotland. They were firstly to tour the area including the Isles of Skye and Mull and then to complete a report on the administration of the poor law in the Highland parishes and give a comparison of the condition of the paupers with that of the labouring population. They were also to inform the Board immediately if they found any grave irregularities.

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The papers were concerned with the treatment of pauper lunatics and their management in Scotland by the Board of Supervision for the Relief of the Poor. Edward Ellice, M.P. for St. Andrews, claimed there to be a discrepancy between the findings of the Lunacy Commission and the reports of the Board which Ellice claimed were calculated to allay government suspicion of abuses (p. 2). The Commissioners had found pauper lunatics, in authorised places of confinement, to he exposed to starvation, manacled and ill treated to the extent of suffering a high death rate.

A report from Mr. Briscoe, Poor Law Superintendent, on the management of poor relief in Wick, with copies of the minutes of the Parochial Board.

The return gives the amount paid annually between 1853 and 1857 for paupers' medical care by Scottish parishes, indicating where grants in aid have been given.

"to inquire into the operation of the Poor Law in Scotland, and whether any and what amendments should be made therein."

Evidence was taken before the Committee on the constitution and power of the Board of Supervision, and the parochial boards, the systems of assessment and collection of the poor rate and exemptions from it, the Law of Settlement, poor-houses, pauper lunatics, medical relief and vagrancy.

Various witnesses suggested that the Board of Supervision, which controlled all the local boards, should include at least one doctor, one lawyer, and one Roman Catholic. They also considered whether disputed cases of settlement should be referred to the Board. The parochial boards were criticised by some for being too large. The question arose whether clergymen and elders should sit on these boards as ex officio members. The able-bodied poor in Scotland were not relieved out of the poor rates in times of distress. Many witnesses considered it expedient to vest the parochial boards with discretionary power to relieve the able-bodied in times of emergency.

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The Lunatics (Scotland) Act, 1858 had resulted in an increased number of ascertained cases of lunacy throughout the country. Conflicting opinions arose over the question whether the control of pauper lunatics should he transferred from the Lunacy Board to the Board of Supervision or whether these two boards should be amalgamated.

The boarding out of children by parishes had worked very satisfactorily. Complaints were made, however, that Roman Catholic pauper children were not always brought up as Catholics. It was suggested that these children should only be boarded out in Catholic families. It was also claimed that the provision for religious instruction of Catholic inmates of poor-houses was inadequate.

"to inquire into the operation of the Poor Law in Scotland, and whether any and what amendments should be made therein."

The Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845 did not affect the basic principle on which the claim to poor relief had been based in Scotland since 1579, i.e. only those disabled on account of age or sickness were entitled to parochial relief. The 1845 Act stated that appeals could be made to the sheriff if relief was refused and to the Board of Supervision if the amount of relief offered was inadequate. Parochial boards were established to administer the number of registered poor. By analysing these numbers, the Committee found that this increase was due to the great number of dependents rather than claimants themselves. Out-door relief was given to able-bodied women with more than one illegitimate child.

Most of the witnesses acknowledged the need for a central authority, such as the Board of Supervision, to ensure uniformity. The Commissioners recommended that appeals against refusal of relief should be made to the Board rather than to the sheriff. They did not think, however, that the Board of Supervision should be made the final arbiter in cases of settlement. They recommended that no one should lose a residential settlement once it had been acquired in any parish, until a new settlement was acquired. As the law stood, five years' settlement could be lost after an absence of four years and a day from the parish, and any pauper claiming relief could be removed if he did not have a settlement. The Commissioners also recommended that all towns consisting of more than one parish should be counted as one parish for the purposes of settlement.

Until the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1861 was passed, everyone contributed to the relief of the poor according to his "means and substance". After 1861 one-half of the assessment was imposed on the owners and half on tenants of all lands and heritages within each parish.

The Commissioners recommended that section 37 of the Poor Law Act, defining the mode of ascertaining the annual value of property in order to calculate the assessment, should be repealed.

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The Commissioners thought that local boards should be required to appoint medical officers and establish dispensaries in each parish. The Exchequer should contribute half their salaries, as was already the practice in England and Ireland.

They thought the Board of Supervision should have some control over the dismissal of governors and matrons of poor-houses. These governors and matrons, together with the inspectors of the poor, should be granted superannuation on retirement.

"to consider whether any alterations in the system of poor law relief are desirable, in the case of persons whose destitution is occasioned by incapacity for work, resulting from old age, or whether assistance could otherwise be afforded in those cases."

Although the scope of the inquiry was restricted to the systems of poor law relief in force in England and Wales, evidence was submitted on the Scottish poor law for purposes of comparison.

The Commissioners considered the amount of out-door relief and indoor relief given to the aged. They also discussed the obligations on relations to look after the old and the law of settlement, by which paupers, including the old, could be forcibly removed to their place of settlement. Secondly, they considered the provision for old age which was independent of the poor law, for example private and endowed charity in the form of pensions, almshouses, and "dole" charities, friendly societies, co-operative societies, the superannuation schemes run by trades unions and savings and annuity provision through the Post Office.

Considerable evidence was taken on various schemes for State assistance of the aged poor. The principal schemes among these were those proposed by Joseph Chamberlain, Charles Booth and Canon Blackley. Mr. Booth advocated a non-contributory scheme whereby everyone over the age of 65 should be given five shillings a week for the rest of his life out of public funds. Canon Blackley's scheme was for universal compulsory insurance against sickness, accident and old age. The scheme laid before the Commission by Joseph Chamberlain was that of state insurance. He regarded the fact that many old people, having led respectable lives, were forced to go upon the poor rates in old age as "a scandal upon our civilisation".

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Malcolm McNeill, Secretary to the Board of Supervision in Edinburgh (pp. 484-499), submitted evidence on the composition and duties of the Board of Supervision and the parochial boards.

Parishes usually combined to provide poor-house accommodation. Many local authorities were reluctant to send old people to poor-houses as there was a very strong prejudice in Scotland against entering them.

He reported on the applications received for out-door relief in Scotland. The administration of relief in Scotland was left to a greater extent in the hands of paid officers, i.e. inspectors of the poor, than in England. There was a very detailed system of inspection and appeals. The administration of out-door relief was more restricted in Scotland than in England. The able-bodied poor had no legal claim to relief. Mr. McNeill thought the amount of out-door relief was fair, except in the case of widows with children, who were only allowed 1 shilling a week for each child.

He was not in favour of State-aided pensions. He argued that many paupers came mainly from the lower labouring class and a large proportion of old people in need of relief in Scotland were what he described as "ne-er-do-weels".

One of the inspectors of the poor had expressed his opinion of state pensions to him saying, "it will he taken by the people to be a gigantic system of public out-door relief, and will pauperise everybody".