An Answer to Poverty in 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 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 ? 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. But this did not appeal to the amelioration of their condition was bound her. What she felt was needed was immediate up with allotting them land at a fair rent which relief to the labourer and a reduction of the they could cultivate by spade husbandry. The poor rate. Through persistent pressure on the allotment system and educating the labourer Eastbourne vestry, by bringing before them in good husbandry were the key to restoring her own evidence and that of Whately's independence to the peasantry of Sussex, brother, the vicar of Cookham in Berkshire, especially if supported by sound moral teach- who claimed that he had saved £I5,ooo in ing. When she let land to be turned into poor rates in eight years by setting paupers to allotments, each tenant received a printed cultivate "gravelled" soil, she succeeded in card bearing these words of pointed advice: making them accept her views. They agreed "Two glasses of gin every day at three half that more "beach" land should be developed pence a glass cost four pounds eleven shillings with pauper labour, each pauper to be paid and threepence a year, which would pay for: by the parish for actual work done, and to be s. d. allowed to keep his crops after he had repaid A Man's shirt 6 0 A pair of men's stockings 1 9 the parish for the clay and soil. A pair of women's stockings 1 6 Lord Liverpool, to whom she sent some Shift and Muslin Cap 3 8 specimen potatoes grown "on the beach," Printed Cotton Gown 5 6 A man's Cotton Shirt 4 0 generally approved of the plan, though he A man's fustian Coat 16 0 admitted that he had a poor opinion of the A pair of Blankets 12 0 Sussex labourer who drew on the poor rate A neck Handkerchief 1 4 A pair of men's shoes 8 6 "by habit" more heavily than the labourers A pair of women's shoes 4 0 in any other part of the country. This Mrs A Flannel Petticoat 2 6 A Coarse Cloth Cloak 7 0 Gilbert strongly denied; she told him that A quilted waistcoat 4 0 when she had asked labourers whether they Fustian Trousers lined 7 6 wished to emigrate they had invariably re- A pair of Cotton Sheets 6 0," plied: "There is America in England." Edwin Chadwick thought this excellent, "There is," she said, "far more intelligence but wondered if much could be done in a amongst labourers than those suppose who locality by a group of individuals without the have not questioned them, they eagerly read support of the Government. In a letter of 9 'i the papers in hopes of the promised amend- December x833 to Mrs Gilbert he urged that ment of the Poor Laws, and say they believe "the landowners should unite with the la- the Government has forgotten them." In a bourers and get up petitions praying the par- public letter of November x833 to the over- liament to put an end to all local discretion seers of the parish of Eastbourne, she pointed and abuse and appoint a special agency for out how in i83z between four and five thou- dispauperising the country." Research of the sand pounds had been spent on the relief of kind that Mrs Gilbert was doing was neces- those "not infirm" who were indignant at sary if the New Poor Law Bill of x833 was to being kept useless on the roads in sight of provide this special agency which Chadwick i:! iiI U 48 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW ;i!i had in mind. Its provisions she found pro- more familiar barrel-shaped butt resting on ~,!il ~j~ foundly disappointing--nothing about bring- the ground and covered, and a more elaborate ,j~:, ing more land under the plough, growing kind which was dug out of the ground. One

!i< ', more wheat, making bread cheaper, encourag- built by the Eastboume Vestry was zo feet ing more investment in land, solving the prob- deep, ~o ft in diameter, cased with a flint wall lem of the unemployed. "We make bread 9 inches thick, the whole covered in with grey dear by paying a double set of labourers," she lime mortar and domed over by brickwork "in said, "our own for standing still against their the Egyptian manner." It was claimed that wills, and foreigners for growing the food soft water, thus stored, was good enough for we buy." This she believed was the core of drinking, and especially if the water was fil- j the trouble, and not, as the Lord Chancellor tered by placing inside the tanks a board stated, that "able-bodied men prefer a small covered with pebbles, sand, or powdered ,t sum in idleness to a large sum in wages." charcoal. Using all her powers of persuasion she called From Cornwall, through a Mr William upon men of influence in Sussex to devise :i Gill of Chacewater, she collected evidence to ,i some method of determining whether a show that broadcasting wheat was wasteful, labourer would work or not before he and his and that dibbling it produced a higher yield, family were forced into the workhouse. No- as well as being more economical. Gill thing is more remarkable than the courage and achieved this by placing three grains of wheat persistency with which this woman advocated into a hole measuring 4 inches in depth and measures to see that the labourer had a fair 7 inches across. But as she was not satisfied iv deal, and she did not lack support. On io that dibbling was more satisfactory than April I835 the Guardians of the Poor of drilling, she gave £Io to the Labourers' fourteen parishes from Seaford to Pevensey, Friend Society to ascertain "the comparative on the invitation of the Poor Law Commis- produce and cost of broadcasting, dibbling, sion, met at Eastbourne, and not only pro- and drilling of wheat." She investigated the tested against the forced separation of man best method of stacking wheat in the open to and wife, but issued the following statement. protect it from rain and advocated the Cornish "Nine paupers, for ten weeks up to January "Arish Mow." In Cornwall, which she often last, on the bleak downs near Beachy Head, visited with her Cornish husband, she had drew in their Hand Carts and for £6 an acre, noticed the practice of threshing the grain the same quantity of Chalk for which Sur- and storing it on the floor above the cattle veyors allow a quarter part more, that is £8 shed, where it remained free from damp and for this labour when performed by cattle, for vermin, a method also practised in Switzer- which hard work the poor fellows expressed land. To her labourers in Sussex she there- themselves thankful, stating that they liked it fore passed on the advice of stacking tile wheat far better than being on the roads useless." like haystacks on stone piles, rather than in In spite of the new Poor Law, she proceed- barns. She was tireless in circulating informa- ed to develop her allotment system and to tion about the advantages of forking the soil, think out methods of improving the whole of the stall-feeding of cows, and of the value business of husbandry. She advocated supply- of conserving liquid manure. Whenever she ing workmen's cottages with tanks to catch let land, the terms always included the im- rain-water, and experimented on her own provements which she was trying to intro- farms to show that a tank Iz ft by 7 ft was duce. A tenancy could be forfeited if it was sufficient for a large family and six horses. proved that any hay, straw, and manure had One tank z3 ft by Ix ft was built for the been left to waste on the roadside. The printed Eastboume Union and was more than suffi- terms of a lease always included the advice, cient for all the uses of its xso inmates. The "It is recommended to fork the land as soon i i tanks she had in mind were of two kinds, the as convenient after Michaelmas, laying it up

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'i . ii':i : AN ANSWER TO POVERTY IN SUSSEX 49 in ridges for the benefit of sun and frost." found the man and his family, together with Competition was also encouraged, as the fol- an aged mother, living in a cottage to which lowing notice shows. "One penny, three half was attached a small shed for the stall-feeding pence, and twopence per ear will be given in of cows, and adjoining that a tank for the i843 by Mrs Gilbert for the greatest number drainage of liquid manure. He worked three of ears of wheat from one grain, the plant acres of land, two and a half of which were being produced complete at the next Battel arable. The best crop at the time of inspection Horticultural Show." was the mangel-wurzel because it was fer- The success of the allotment scheme may tilized by the liquid manure. It would seem be gathered from the fact that while in I83o that Mrs Gilbert had insisted that the tenant Mrs Gilbert had some fifty allotment tenants, should experiment with the stall-feeding of this number in i835 had increased to zx3, all cows, in return for which she had advanced of whom (with the exception of two), it was him £5 to buy a cow. This he had repaid at claimed, had, through their products, paid the rate of i s. 6d. per week, and was convinced their rents. A reason advanced for this success that as a result of his trials cows gave more was that she gave to each tenant a card, on one butter when stall-fed than in the open air "as side of which were printed hints about the 7 lb. to 5 lb." An examination of the tenant's use of manure and how to make a compost accounts showed a flourishing state of affairs. heap, while on the other side were printed From 16 January to 26 July 1840, injunctions about Thrift and the value of 278 lb. of butter made, sold at ls. Ready Money. The latter are worth reprint- a pound £13 18 0 2 calves sold for 5 18 0 ing. Milk for the year, sold and given to "It makes all the difference to comforts and the pigs 10 0 0 character whether a man takes up all his things Probable produce of 88 rods of wheat at 8s. a bushel, say 19 at the shop as he wants them and then pays bushels 7 12 0 for them on the Saturday night, or whether Ditto of 40 rods of oats, at 4s. a bushel, say 14 bushels 2 16 0 he carries the money in his hand when he Probable amount of butter for rest takes up the goods. In one case, he will always of year 6 8 0 have the feeling of being in easy circum- 4612 0 stances; in the other, he feels that he is a Deduct rent and rates £12 12 0 poor man; yet in both cases he has the same Deduct seeds 2 0 0 income and spends the same, except that Deduct Hired Labour 2 0 0 16 12 0 when he has the ready money he can go to what shop he pleases and so makes his money £30 0 0 go much further; and the shopkeeper too, is much more glad to see him and thinks better Burns's final comment to the secretary of of him. And all this difference is made by just the Society reveals no doubt in his mind contriving to have one week's pay forward about the success of the allotment scheme. instead of backward; to live, not one week "Contrast this with the probable result of the under another, but one week over another." poor man's fortune if he had not thus been The Sussex Advertiser of 9 April 1844 de- rescued from destitution.., he gives to his scribed this allotment system as one of suc- country, by thus giving to his family, a con- cessful "home colonization," implying per- siderable income; he saves to his country, by haps that if it were generally adopted it would not becoming burdensome, another consider- do much to reduce the desire for overseas able increase." emigration. One observer, Mr J. I. Burns of Sydney Smith was almost equally enthusi- the Labourers' Friend Society, wrote to the astic. Writing to Mrs Gilbert in February secretary describing a visit he had made to an i84i he agreed that it was sound in principle allotment tenant at Javington. Here he had to let the poor have small allotments of land. 50 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW ii ~: But he was not quite sure about the stall- allotment holders the rudiments of education, :i!i~ feeding of cows, still less about the general employing a master to do this who would if' application of the principle of advancing otherwise have been in the workhouse, and !!~:i money to buy cows. "I am not so sure about paying him by the labour of the scholars. the cows, and as long as they live, it is very George Cruttenden, the first master of Will- well, but who is to ensure this? And to replace ingdon School, has described how his school the loss? In half an hour a poor wretch is functioned. To his twenty scholars he taught hurled from the beatitude of his milky way reading, writing, accounts, the church cate- upon the bare earth and if he has not the good chism, the collects and psalmody, "on the fortune to live near Eastbourue he cannot get National plan with the approval of the vicar." up again." Gently but firmly and in a tone of For this he received no salary, but took a fee good-natured banter, he suggested that the of one penny per week from each scholar, and stall-feeding of cows might be modified. "I taught them from nine o'clock in the morning have always considered the pasturing of until midday. After a two-hour break, the cattle to be a perfect barbarism in agriculture children again assembled, and from two to --suppose Guillemard's 1 servants were to five in the afternoon they were engaged in walk over their Bread and Butter and lay helping him to cultivate the land. Of this down upon it?" he questioned, and added voluntary activity, Cruttenden recorded: "I that perhaps the cows ought to be let out for have not lost one from dissatisfaction and I two or three hours a day in the open air, for am glad to say that they willingly assist me." "without this their health is apt to give way." For the School House he paid an annual rent Seymour Tremenheere added his own of £Io, and £i 5 for the five acres of land testimony. "Re your mode of cultivation I which he farmed. This .he claimed he easily have no doubt. There is a mine of wealth of paid through the sale of his produce, although moral and social good in the undeveloped he had no salary and had to maintain a wife resources of the land of England, the value and four children. The school institutional- of which it would be difficult to over-estimate. ized all the ideas which had become identified It is but beginning to be opened. Your ex- with Mrs Gilbert. The building had attached ample, however, must have greatly contri- to it the usual shed for the stall-feeding of bUted to draw attention to it." (Letter to Mrs cows, the tank in the rear to draw off the liquid Gilbert, September i842. ) Tremenheere was manure, the tanks to collect roof water, a pig- speaking as one of the first inspectors of the sty, beehives, and storage above ground for Council of Education, and he had a special grain. The same pattern was to be seen at the reason for writing to her, because he had been second school, opened in I842 at East Dean, instructed by his Council to visit and inspect whose master, J. Harris, had once been a what was perhaps Mrs Gilbert's greatest pauper with his wife and five children in East- achievement. This was the founding of two bourne Union. It was claimed that their keep agricultural schools, one at Willingdon and in the Union at 3 s. a head cost the rates £54 a the other at East Dean. year, "equal to the rent of 273 acres let as a Tremenheere had been called upon to sheep walk at Eastbourue at 4 s. an acre--but furnish a report on the industrial schools of he now maintains himself on five acres," said the country, as provided for by the Poor Law Mrs Gilbert. The link between labour and Amendment Act, but these "self-supporting learning, which these schools fostered, was agricultural schools" of Mrs Gilbert's were strengthened by moral and social values, part of the tradition of the older craft schools. which Burns was quick to point out in his The main idea was to teach the children of report to the Labourers' Friend Society.

1 John Guillemard was the brother-in-law of Mrs Gilbert's husband, Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society. He had been a member of the Land Commission set up to enquire into disputes after the American War of Independence.

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AN ANSWER TO P OVERTY IN SUSSEX 51 "Now the education received here is such as When she died on the 26th April I845 , it is exactly needed for the probable destination was already generally realized that she was one of the children hereafter and calculated to of the pioneers who sought to abolish poverty improve their moral and physical condition in by encouraging labourers to grow their own this world and to lay the basis of their eternal food on land let at economical rates. This is welfare hereafter; it cannot fail and there are her greatest title to regard, that with vision thousands who may read this able to do the and humanity she rescued the "forgotten like, with the like probable and most im- men" from their position of dependence on portant results." the landowners, and through spade husbandry Mrs Gilbert was less interested in the re- taught them self-respect. This was part ofa sults of her work in a future life than in their wider plan to prove that land was capable of a immediate effects on the economic welfare of much higher rate of productivity, a lesson not the labourer here and now. There is no doubt completely learnt until the submarine menace that her experiments attracted wide attention. of the 1914-18 War. Her self-supporting agri- She wrote a paper on "The Allotment Sys- cultural schools were a vital part of this wider tem" which was read on 7 February I844 to plan and re-introduced the old principle of a the Highland Agricultural Society at Edin- relationship between labour and learning, burgh, with the Earl of Rosebery in the chair. again not entirely appreciated until the days A report on the Self-supporting Agricultural of the University Extension Movement. As Schools was published in Chambers'Edinburgh the Sussex Advertiser remarked in its obituary ffournal, 6 July 1844. in notice, "In carrying out this plan, her object October 1844 asked her for a paper embracing was a double one, for it was a part and a all her experiments and this Lord FitzWil- valuable part of her system to show that, as liam presented to the Statistical Section of Cobbett said of the gallows, idleness and the the British Association. On the evidence of workhouse was the worst use to which a man Henry Coleman, her allotment system arous- could be put. Mrs Gilbert by her industrial ed wide interest in the United States of schools and by locating a family on a given America, the Americans being astonished small area of land also managed to prove the that "so much produce could be obtained by error of supporting the pauper population of manual labour." Lord Erne in Ireland, and this kingdom in idleness and of their con- the earls of Essex and Devon were frequently tinuing as mere consumers when they might asking her for information, while Viscountess be much better employed as producers of Tamworth wanted to found similar schools wealth." at Shirley in Staffordshire.

Notes and Comments

THE BRITISH AGRICULTURAL ferences, which had been devoted to regional HISTORY SOCIETY studies. The chair was taken by the President, A one-day conference was again held jointly Sir James Scott Watson, and about fifty with the Association of Agriculture at the people attended the conference, which was University of London Institute of Education extremely successful. on the loth of December 1955. Three papers The Annual General Meeting and Confer- were given all of which related to some ence will be held this year at Florence scientific aspect of agricultural history. This Nightingale Hall, University of Nottingham, marked a change from the previous two con- (continued on page 57)