An Answer to Poverty in Sussex, 1830-45

An Answer to Poverty in Sussex I83o-45 By A. C. TODD HOUGH the founding of the Royal bourne, the wife of Davies Gilbert, last Presi- Agricultural Society in I838 arose out dent of the Board of Agriculture. Her private T of the acute and prolonged depression papers, kindly loaned by Major and Mrs in farming, it might have occurred some years Davies Gilbert of Herstmonceux, reveal the earlier on the disappearance in ~8z2 of the old extent to which a private landowner was pre- Board of Agriculture. Faced with a refusal by pared to go to restore to the landless and work- the government of Lord Liverpool to provide less labourer something of the independence any further funds for its maintenance, the which he had once enjoyed. Her work is an President, Davies Gilbert, suggested that a interesting pioneer effort to cope with the new lease of life might be gained if the Board twin problems of poverty and unemployment became a voluntary society, and membership by means of allotments. was opened to the public through the pay- Regarding compulsory relief as a degrading ment of subscriptions and donations. The substitute for the spirit of "independent sup- project failed, and the Board was dissolved, port," she had few illusions about the prob- but the idea was not abandoned, and finally lem of poverty. On the one hand, the law of flowered as one of the many and varied efforts God and Nature said: "He that will not work, to break the deadlock of poverty and unem- neither shall he eat" ; on the other hand, the ployment in agriculture. law of England said: "The industrious must The heavy burden of the poor rate, di- maintain the families at the least of the most minishing rents, uncultivated land, idle la- profligate and worthless." Parish relief she bour, and empty stomachs, leading to the did not believe was any solution to this para- violent and wanton destruction of property, dox. "I would rather see the Poor Rate sunk were the outward symptoms of a malaise for in the sea than employed as now to the misery which no one seemed to know the cure. Wil- and moral deterioration of my fellow crea- liam Gausden, coachman to Lord Charles tures," she roundly declared. Like many Fitzroy, giving evidence about the reasons for other landowners of her time who saw good rick-burning in Sussex in i83o, wrote down: land going out of cultivation while labourers "my Beliefe is this that the tiers were not were required to be supported by an ever- spite to eny indiviead but to open the eyes of increasing poor rate, she saw the answer to the NO Bileity in reagard of lost of the land the problem of poverty in economic and for the want of imploy of the Labor in moral terms, of land being made to produce tilling it." The nobility were not blind to the its fruits, and of men being allowed to do blight which had settled on English agricul- honest work. She herself was prepared to ture, nor unaware of the real hardships of demonstrate on her own land near Eastbourne hunger and poverty, and the humiliations of that if the unemployed were provided with poor law relief. Some of them, for instance, ground on which to grow their own food, the sensibly reacted to the suggestions advanced worst features of pauperism would disappear. in r8ox and I8I 9 that one way of relieving To break down a fixed conviction that the distress among landless labourers'would be to pauper was work-shy, she began a pilot provide them with allotments. Imaginative scheme to cultivate waste land to the east of landowners were prepared to experiment Beachy Head, which she calls "the beach." locally and on a limited scale on these lines. Dr Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, told her One of them was Mary Ann Gilbert of East- how he had tried to develop land in Ireland 45 46 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW as barren as a beach by transferring to it soil "in fine corn country" was going out of culti- iJ; from meadowland. Describing his method to vation. Of these I74 , I 17 had punctually paid her he said: "I pared •off the turf from part their second year's rent for twelve rods each of a rich meadow, dug up a spit deep of the and no one had forfeited his land for trespass. mould and laid it in a heap, then dug out the One man Mrs Gilbert had provided with a !i/ ' subsoil for about four feet more, which I cart and horse, the cost of which he had paid carried to a barren hill, bringing from thence off through the sale of his produce. Because back carriage, the sand from the hill (as you of his good husbandry he had now been per- would the shingle), with which I filled up the mitred to rent a further three acres on condi- hole, then laid the top soil over, and replaced tion that he also maintained a brother. One the turf. The meadow was of course rather old man of sixty-seven had done so well with better for the draining and the hill greatly crops of potatoes, turnips, and mangel- enriched." 3/its Gilbert believed she could wurzel that he had quadrupled the quarter i/ do the same by the double process of remov- of an acre he had originally rented and was ing soil and clay from marskland, depositing now building "shelters" for himself, his cow, ii: ~ them on "the beach" to the east of Beaehy and his pigs. But in spite of these results, the Head, and replacing them by flint pebbles vestries were scepticai and uncooperative, ii I taken from "the beach." If paupers were em- maintaining that the physical gain would be ployed to do this work at fixed rates of pay, offset by a moral loss, for the labourers would several objectives would be reached at the actually learn to become independent. same time. Marshland would be drained, new Whately suggested that more trials should land brought under cultivation, the Poor be made and then the results submitted to Rate of Eastboume reduced, and proof found the Poor Law Commissioners as a possible that paupers wanted to work. local solution to pauperism. Before this could By the beginning of November x83z Mrs be done, some definite answers would have Gilbert was in a position to present to Whate- to be found to questions which the Commis- ly an interim report on the progress of her sioners would be sure to ask. For instance, did scheme. Marshland had been purchased and the day's labour of one man per rod mean part of "the beach" covered with its clay to spreading the soil over "the beach," or did it a depth of three inches by twenty-seven include the digging of that soil from the paupers, who had worked at the rate of one marsh and filling up the hole again? Howmany rod per day. In spite of the dry summer of average men and boys could, in a week, pre- I832 , these paupers had produced a reason- pare an acre of untouched "beach" and bring able crop of potatoes, and seeing the possibi- it into a state fit for planting? Had seaweed lities of the scheme they were now anxious to been tried as manure, as in Cornwall? Could hire at 3 d. a rod or 4os. an acre as much of the it be brought in boats from Beachy Head? beach as the parish were willing to fence off Could beta maritima be grown as cattle food? to keep away stray cattle, "who much relish What was the best kind of hedge? Whately the produce." In anticipation of this, a wall recommended sea buckthorn, or better still was built parallel to the coast road, and a gate- furze ditches made by digging two ditches ! way made fitted with the first iron gates seen with a mound between, on which was planted in Sussex. As the labourer opened the gate the furze, reinforced with tamarisk, as in ii his eye caught the warning: "Here waste not Cornwall. Time and you'll want not Food." It was 1V~rs Gilbert reckoned that the cost of FI claimed that I74 paupers, mostly married, bringing one acre of beach into a state fit for were managing to support their families on cultivation was £I6, but an Assistant Poor this land, indignant that some of the local Law Commissioner who inspected the site il landowners seemed to prefer that they should put it at not less than £I3o. An independent receive zd. a day as dole, while good land assessor, one Pitman, reckoned it at £3 o, but AN ANSWER TO POVERTY IN SUSSEX 47 Whately advised her to proceed even if it land going out of cultivation, while they cost £5 o, because it would be "a profitable watched foreign corn being imported from speculation if the land be let at £z since that Newhaven by land carriage to Lewes "with would be 4 per cent oo the outlay which is heavy tolls." more than one can get in the Funds." It is not surprising therefore that Mrs Whately was anxious that she should begin Gilbert early became a member of the La- a long-term experiment, not with a view to bourers' Friend Society, for its aims coincided the immediate benefit of neighbouring with her own. Having proved that labourers labourers, but by taking labourers from any- would work even on land which they had to where, to ascertain how much work a man reclaim themselves, she was convinced that could do per day.

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