Agricultural History Review, Volume 68 Part 1 (2020), p. 127

This large volume reproduces seven quarterly minute books of the Loes and Wilford Poor Law Incorporation from July 1765 until its disincorporation in 1826, interspersed with many other documents. Shaw provides around fifty pages of introduction to and analysis of the documents. The Incorporation comprised 17 of the 19 parishes in Loes Hundred and the 16 parishes of Wilford. Incorporations were a particularly favoured model by which relief of the poor was administered in East Anglia (61 per cent of parishes in Suffolk and 26 per cent in Norfolk), due to, it is suggested, the pressure of the poor rate upon only moderately wealthy ratepayers and the active involvement of the resident gentry and clergy. The Incorporation was run by a body of directors and acting guardians.

Poor relief was similar in many respects to those parishes operating under the Elizabethan statutes. The Incorporation’s newly built House of Industry in Melton opened in July 1768 with children (68 per cent) and the elderly (13 per cent) dominating admissions, as in most workhouses. Quarterly parish assessments, plus the inmates’ earnings from spinning wool, were expected to meet the house’s day-to-day operating costs, repay the investments, and cover outdoor relief. Like workhouses, the provision of work in this house of industry underperformed. Although inmates in the house of industry were required to wear a uniform and daily life was punctuated by a bell, their diet was superior to that of the labouring poor. Outdoor relief was still given in a largely similar fashion to parochial poor relief, with elderly widows, younger widows with children, and the disabled faring well, as did women in childbirth and those suffering from short-term injury or illness. Medical provision was provided by contracted surgeons. But the operation of the Incorporation was also different in other respects. Relief in kind was rarely given and families were either taken into the house of industry or outdoor relief was dependent upon at least one child being admitted to the house. Relief might be refused on pain of admittance.

By 1791 it was found that the Incorporation had been mismanaged and expenditure generally exceeded income. An amending act was passed and governance overhauled. Despite increased poor rates, wartime price inflation left the Incorporations’ finances in a critical state, with a further amendment in 1810. The issue of rating and assessments caused dissent from twelve parishes. By 1824 a committee found an upward trend in costs such that ‘the existence of the said House does … materially and unnecessarily increase the expense of maintaining the poor’. The Incorporation concluded that the ‘experience [of incorporating] has proved it to be in every respect radically bad’ and it would be ‘expedient to return to the old English system of parochial economy with regard to the poor as enacted by the 43 of Eliz’. The Incorporation petitioned for disincorporation. Inmates of the Melton House of Industry were returned to their parishes of settlement and the house was converted into the Suffolk County Lunatic Asylum.

The introduction provides some useful maps, tables summarizing the documents and amendments of 1791 and 1810, and graphs of expenditure. The latter only commences in 1796 and so spending between 1765 and the start of wartime inflation in 1795 is not given for comparison. Much of the discussion concerns finance and rating, rather than the provision of poor relief. A useful glossary is provided. The real value of this volume is, of course, the transcription of the quarterly minute books, running to 425 pages and these reproduced documents provide the opportunity for amateur and academic historians to explore the process of incorporation – and disincorporation – and how this compared with parochial poor relief and unions under the New Poor Law. The provision of poor relief was highly variable at the local and regional level and the Loes and Wilford Incorporation provide an example of this disparity by place and system of governance. There are two indexes: one of people and places and one of subjects. The former will be helpful to local historians and genealogists, while the latter reveals that the minutes contain information on a wide range of topics, including children and apprenticeship, allowances, contracts to supply the house and conditions inside it, Incorporation finance, the variety of outdoor relief, disease and medical care, and pauper work. The transcription and presentation of these books and accompanying documents is an achievement for Shaw and provides a valuable resource for other historians of welfare to share.