The Poor in and District th Notes by Ann for her U3A Local History talk on 28 February 2018

The Bath’ (HK): cartoon in Ripon Workhouse. Here the vagrants were washed and de-loused before being given a night’s stay and food in return for hard labour

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How do we define the poor? This has changed through the years as standards of living have changed. Today I am taking ‘poor’ to broadly mean people who would not have sufficient food, clothing or shelter without help. We’ll look at who offered help, what was available, and who received help. Throughout the ages family was the first port of call for anyone who was sick or without means of support. The wealthy, depending on their feelings of obligation or fear of retribution after death, would look after servants, tenants and others in the area who fell on hard times. th 12 century Gifts of land came from kings and individuals to the Knights Hospitallers, an international network of lay monks who took vows of chastity, obedience and poverty, and whose aim was to care for the sick and the poor, especially pilgrims who would visit St John’s tomb and possibly go on to Spain and the Holy Land on crusades. Knights Hospitallers and Knights Templar held considerable estates in the East Riding. ‘Hospital’ origins: place to be looked after, health, education, housing (hotel) th Guilds were starting to be set up in Beverley in the 12 Century to protect their trade, prevent strangers from setting up within the town, and support their members in time of need. Guilds were an important lifeline to the poor in Beverley. The aim of many poor families was to enable their son to get a seven-year apprenticeship. He would then become a craftsman and if he or his family fell on hard times they would be supported by the guild. When a craftsman died his widow may be allowed to carry on his trade, especially if she had worked alongside him. Perhaps that is how Agnes the Tiler came to supply materials for the building of North Bar, one of the few business women mentioned in medieval records. A sick man, or a widow, would ask Guild members to accept a child as an apprentice, usually at age 14 but sometimes as young as seven. One Beverley man left his best cloak to the friars in his will, on condition that they looked after his young son.

‘Spinners’ (AS). This sculpture is part of the Beverley ‘Town Trail’ and is in Swaby’s Yard, just off Dyer Lane. The inscription on the sculpture is an extract from James Coates’s poem of 1813, entitled ‘Labourer’ and reads: ‘Their wardrobe by themselves supplied They spun and knit and bleached and dyed’.

Spinners were traditionally women working from home, hence the word ‘spinsters’. Spinning was a means by which poor women, and often children, added to the family income or supported themselves. They would knit, spin and mend lace, working in houses throughout the town. Spinners were not in a trade guild but were associated with the wool merchants who supplied the raw material, and the weavers who bought and wove their thread. The Guild System survived in Beverley for over 500 years and through the efforts of its members the town developed and thrived.

th 13 Century In 1201, Lady Sybil de Valines, widow of William, third Lord Percy, gave the Manor of Holy Trinity in Beverley, two and a half acres, in an area near the railway station, to the Order of Knights Hospitaller. th The Franciscan and Dominican friars came from France in the mid13 century. They preached, begged and administered to the needy. Stephen the Goldsmith, who worked at the Minster, gave a four-and-a-half-acre site nearby to the Dominicans or Black Friars. Then Thomas Holme gave them a piece of ground to build a house. Henry 111 gave 15 oaks from the Forest of Galtres, north of York, and by the end of the century the Friary consisted of a church, a chapter house, a cloister, a dormitory, a refectory and large hall, with land stretching to Woodmansey, on which they grew plants for medicine and food for themselves and the needy.

Medicinal plants (this is coltsfoot) still growing outside Beverley Friary (HK)

The Franciscans, or Greyfriars, built first outside Newbegin Bar, then on a site near Keldgate Bar. Friars were very popular with the people of Beverley and areas such as , , and Malton where they gave lively and entertaining sermons. Their hospitals were not only for pilgrims but for sick people living in the area. They cultivated plants to help the sick and feed the hungry. St Giles Hospital is the oldest recorded hospital in Beverley, said to have been started before the Norman Conquest and is thought to have been between Lairgate and the town ditch (now the Leases). In 1279 Archbishop Wickwane ordered that there should be four priest brethren at the hospital to care for 6 sick priests and to have 15 beds for other people. Medieval hospitals provided accommodation for the elderly, as well as caring for the sick. Wealthy residents provided the money to set up a hospital in the belief that it would ensure their eternal salvation.

th 14 Century Between 1314 and 1325 atrocious weather caused harvests to be ruined and starvation followed. Not only were people short of food but pilgrims stopped coming, resulting in a decline of trade. Service guilds such as butchers, spinners and tanners found their trade reduced. People everywhere were weakened by malnutrition and in 1349 the Black Death swept the country. In Beverley it was estimated that 50% of the population died. One effect of this was a shortage of labour. A law fixing the maximum a labourer could charge was brought in to try to prevent workers from going to a master who would pay more. This led to labourers roaming around the country looking for an area where wages were high and the labour laws not too strictly enforced. Some took to begging under the pretence of being ill or crippled. In 1349, the ‘Ordinance of Labourers’ prohibited private individuals from giving relief to able-bodied beggars. A Poll Tax was introduced to help pay for ’s campaigns against the Welsh, the Scots and the French. From these records we can estimate the th population of Beverley at around 5,000, making it the 10 largest town after . Even the poorest had to pay just over a shilling, which must have caused extreme hardship. The reaction resulted in the Peasants’ Revolt with unrest especially in York, Scarborough and Beverley. A 1388 Act made each county ‘Hundred’ responsible for relieving its own ’impotent poor’ – those who could not work because of age or infirmity. A Hundred was a sub-division of a county having its own court. Servants wishing to move out of their own Hundred needed a letter of authority from the local Justice of the Peace. One result of this act was that when a man died who had moved away from his own area, his wife and children, had to make their way to his original parish, even if they had never before been there. They would be escorted to the edge of town and sent on their way. Each place they arrived at would provide some food if they were lucky and send them on. You may wonder how many eventually reached their destination and what kind of a welcome they would get.

th th 14 and 15 Century Not everyone was unkind to the poor. Many wealthy people remembered the poor in their wills, some no doubt out of genuine concern, others in the hope their name would be remembered or that good deeds would help them in the afterlife. Giles of , Vicar Choral at the Minster, left 15s to be given to the poor who attended his funeral in 1342. In 1402 John Kelk, merchant, appeared before 12 governors of the town and sought permission to build a Leper House for men and women just outside North Bar. In his will five years later, he left £100 to poor farmers and husbandmen in and around Beverley. John Holme left £10 for linen and woollen clothing for the poor. In 1428 John Torre left a tenement in Flemingate to be used for the free habitation of poor people. John Brompton paid for 13 poor men to carry candles at his funeral to be clothed at his expense in russet and 60 more poor of both sexes clothed in cheaper cloth, also £18 to be distributed among the poor and a meal to be provided for them. Further legislation followed, though Poor Relief was still provided in the local parish mainly on a voluntary basis. In 1494 the ‘Vagabonds and Beggars Act’ determined that: ‘Vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the stocks for three days and nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of town. Every beggar suitable to work shall resort to the Hundred where he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and there remain upon the pain aforesaid.’ th 16 Century th There was a big downturn in Beverley’s fortunes in the 16 Century. For hundreds of years its prosperity centred around the pilgrims who flocked to visit the shrine of St John of Beverley, spending on accommodation, food and souvenirs then often continuing their journey north or along the river to Hull and across to the continent to visit Santiago de Compostela. Between 1536 and 1541 the Dissolution of the Monasteries saw the Minster and St Mary’s stripped of statues, stained glass windows, everything of value taken and St John’s shrine smashed. Much of the Friary was pulled down, the stones used to build or renovate the homes of the new class of gentry. Monks and friars who obeyed the new rules were given pensions, but many were reduced to begging in the streets. Townspeople whose own livelihood had been drastically reduced were often reluctant to help. Hardest hit were the many servants who had served the churches and friary and who received no recompense. Alms boxes have existed for centuries, usually in churches. Most religions encourage the giving of alms to the poor. It was considered especially virtuous to give anonymously and by putting coins in an alms box neither the congregation nor the receiving poor would know how much or little the giver had donated. In spite of pleas for charitable giving it is estimated that up to a third of the population lived in poverty throughout the Tudor period. As charitable giving contracted the population doubled in the middle years of the century. Treatment of the able bodied remained unforgiving, irrespective of economic conditions. An Act stated they should be publicly whipped and risk the loss of an ear for a second offence. A further act of 1547 stated that a ‘sturdy beggar’ could be branded with the letter ‘V’ and made a slave for two years for the first offence, and death for the second. An act of 1564 aimed to suppress the ‘roaming beggar’ by requiring parish officers to provide ‘convenient places for the habitations’ of such people – one of the first references to what would evolve into workhouses. Parishes became legally responsible for looking after their own poor. This was funded by a poor-rate tax from local property owners, evolving eventually into the present- day council tax. A later 1572 ‘Act for the Setting the Poor on Work’ stated that stocks of materials such as wool, hemp, and flax should be provided, and premises hired in which to employ the able-bodied poor. These buildings were usually just ordinary local houses, rented for the purpose. At the same time the death penalty for vagrancy was abolished. Sometimes a private contractor looked after the parish’s poor for a fixed annual sum, a useful way of boosting his income. The buildings were not regarded as places of punishment and could even be pleasant enough to earn the nickname of “Pauper Palaces” – though that could have been ironic! th 17 Century. Parishes became obliged, through a local ‘poor tax’, to relieve the aged and the helpless, to bring up unprotected children in habits of industry and to provide work for those capable but lacking their usual trade. Materials could be provided for the unemployed able-bodied. Any able-bodied pauper who refused to work was liable to be placed in a ‘House of Correction’ or prison. The ‘impotent’ poor – the old, the blind, the lame and so on, could be provided with alms houses or poorhouses but their relatives – parents, grandparents or adult children- were legally required to support them if they were able to. Otherwise, ‘indoor relief’ of bread, clothing, fuel and rent were supplied out of a local poor rate. The 1662 Settlement Act defined long-established principles – the poor could be sent to the man’s original parish. Illegitimate children were granted settlement in the place where they were born. This often led to parish overseers trying to get rid of an unmarried pregnant woman by transporting her to another parish or paying a man from another parish to marry her. The 1697 Act required those in receipt of poor relief to wear, in red or blue cloth on their right shoulder, the initial of their parish and the letter ‘P’. th 18 Century. th In the mid18 century the law on illegitimate children was made clear. In the language of the time:  A woman pregnant with a bastard was required to declare the fact and to name the father.  The putative father became responsible for maintaining his child; failure to do so could result in jail. The parish would then support the mother and child until the father agreed to do so, whereupon he would reimburse the parish – although this rarely happened.  A bastard born to a woman convicted of vagrancy was to have the settlement of its mother, regardless of where the child was actually born. The mother was to be publicly whipped.

On a kinder note, wealthy people continued to leave money and property for the relief of the poor. 1682 William Coates left £100 to be invested, the income from which to provide £6 for a poor scholar to be sent from the Grammar School to Cambridge. 1779 Ann Wride left £800 to give £20 to eight poor men and eight poor women plus £5 to the poor generally. 1775 John Bradley left £100 to buy coal or bread for the poor. 1807 James Graves, curate at the Minster, left £1000 in stock to provide for teaching poor boys and girls. Two schools were established in his name, Graves Schools. When they eventually closed down, the funding was transferred to National Schools in the area.

The Bede Houses of 1862 on Lairgate (HK)

th It was in the 18 century that many alms houses were established where elderly men and women could live comfortably and independently. Many wealthy Beverley residents left large sums of money and property to be turned into alms houses. Over the years it became increasingly difficult to maintain them with the drop in value of original donations, and since 1912 management of the 125 town centre alms houses is now in the hands of the Beverley Consolidated Charity. Ann Routh, a wealthy widow with no family was one of Beverley’s biggest benefactors. She left money to build the substantial property in Keldgate which still bears her name, as well as income from her house in Toll Gavel (now Kavanagh’s) which funded a charity school. The Ann Routh Hospital was for 32 poor widows who were each to be given 5s per week, a purple gown with her family badge on it, as well as coal. There was to be a matron, two nurses and a surgeon to be paid £16 per annum to attend when necessary. Others who left substantial amounts included the very rich Warton family who had been MPs for Beverley for many years and left funds for alms houses and for setting up several schools. Other ways of helping the disadvantaged included a Lying-in Charity founded in 1812 to provide ‘linen and food for poor, reputable married women’.

Around this time a Dispensary (AS) was set up to provide free health care to the poor. The building it was housed in is opposite the Post Office in Register Square. Funding for the dispensary was provided by wealthy patrons who would often agree to donate a set amount on a regular basis.

Just as an aside, a later fairly unusual charity was gifted by William Spencer, headteacher all his adult life at the school eventually named after him, Spencer County Primary School (where the fire station now is in Walkergate). He died in 1910 and left £100 to provide oranges for all the pupils on his birthday. When the school closed and pupils transferred to Swinemoor School the tradition went with them. The money is long gone but the tradition lives on. Knatchbull’s Act of 1722-3 ‘For Amending the Laws relating to the Settlement, Employment and Relief of the Poor’ enabled workhouses to be set up either singly or with neighbouring parishes (hence the term ‘Union Workhouse’). The idea was to reduce the cost of ‘out-relief’ by offering only ‘indoor relief’ i.e. entering the workhouse where, as the name implies, inmates would have to work for their board and lodging. The first workhouse in Beverley opened in the summer of 1727 on the south side of Minster Moorgate, using an existing building. Notice was given to all the Poor that the Weekly Allowance was to stop. Such as were not able to maintain themselves and their families must apply to the Governors of the Workhouse. Before the opening of the House, 116 people received the Parish Allowance but only eight came into the Workhouse at first, rising to 26 that winter. Most who came in were either very old or children so ‘we have not much benefit from their Labour’. The workhouse was meant to be a last resort, worse than living elsewhere. Inmates were free to leave, though if they entered with their children they were not allowed to leave without them. They wore badges on their sleeves both to prevent people coming in who were not entitled to (perhaps in the hope of a meal) and so that they may find relatives to support them rather than wear the badge. Everyone who was capable of work was obliged to do so. If they had skills such as spinning, knitting, sewing, lace working they were given such work to do. The rest worked in the house or garden, where their own produce was grown, or let out for hire as labourers or in their own trades, or picking oakum. This was the most unpopular job as their hands became raw. Oakum was tarred rope used to waterproof the wood on ships. The old rope had to be untwisted into strands then the strands separated. {Hence the phrase ‘money for old rope’). To encourage them in their work they were allowed to keep 2d out of every shilling they earned, the remainder going towards their food, clothing and upkeep of the workhouse. Conditions in a workhouse depended greatly on what the governors decided and on how the master and matron (usually his wife) treated the inmates. According to the Beverley Workhouse report they were given ‘Flesh Meat twice a week, on other days Rice-Milk, Hasty-Puddings, Pease-Pudding, Baked Cakes, Puddings or Dumplings: for Breakfast and Supper, Bread and Milk in Summer, Milk-Porridge in Winter, and sometimes Bread and Cheese’. A report of 1777 recorded local workhouses at Beverley (for up to 100), (four), Lund (four), North (four) and South Newbald (six). These smaller places were often a converted house. In the Minster Moorgate workhouse, men and boys were accommodated at the west of the building, women and girls at the east, with the master’s quarters at the centre. Narrow yards at the rear led to a utility block containing bath-house, wash-house and sheds. When the new workhouse at Westwood was built in 1864 this building was sold then demolished. It is now a housing estate, St Matthews and St Martins, winding from Minster Moorgate to Lairgate, close to the Tiger Inn. There were strict regulations regarding segregation of men, women, girls and boys. They were not allowed to mix with each other or talk to each other. Families were allowed to meet up only at certain times and for short periods and high windows prevented them from even seeing and waving to each other.

Segregation notices at the Ripon Workhouse (HK)

th 19 Century th By the start of the 19 Century the cost of out-relief was beginning to spiral. Many also believed that parish relief had become seen as an easy option by those who did not want to work. In 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act intended to end all out-relief for the able-bodied. Parishes were to form into Poor Law Unions, each group of parishes with its own workhouse. It was to be managed by a locally elected Board of Guardians who would interview potential inmates and regulate all aspects of running the workhouse. Union Workhouse: 1864 Purpose built workhouse for 189 inmates at a cost of £5,500. In theory paupers were free to leave at any time and indeed a number got work in the town, returning for food and lodging. However, they were not allowed to leave behind any dependants, particularly their children whose cost would be left solely on the parish. Vagrants had the right to one night’s lodging but conditions do not seem to have been very welcoming. A Cambridgeshire tramp told Beverley magistrates in 1865 that he had run away from the workhouse because it was cold and infested with vermin. However, numbers of vagrants increased and averaged 15 a night. Those who wanted supper had to break stones the following morning, but many were leaving without completing the task, so the Guardians decided to withhold breakfast until the work was done. In other unions no supper was provided and vagrants were coming to Beverley in preference. Tramps or vagrants were considered to be the undeserving poor, a drain on local resources. If they had any money at all with them they would hide it before entering the workhouse because otherwise it would be taken for their board and lodging.

From a survey on the ‘character of vagrants’ in the Ripon Workhouse, perhaps demonstrating how the characters of the masters must have affected their treatment. I think I’d have preferred Knaresborough to Hull. (HK) Twenty years later, substantial new houses had been built in the road leading up to the workhouse. There was outrage when a new entrance plus improved wards for vagrants were built. The Beverley Guardian reported: ‘One wing of the new range of buildings has been planted right across the top of Union Road, where a lofty archway surmounted by a sort of truncated pyramidal superstructure, of no apparent use and ugly to look at, gives admission to the precincts of the Workhouse. Such a hideous monstrosity speaks little for the aesthetic sense of those who are or were responsible for its erection.’

The original ‘ugly’ archway for the Beverley Workhouse, with the wings on either side for vagrants. (HK) The new wings, for male and female vagrants, kept them separate from more permanent inmates. The cell block was spartanly furnished and at night the vagrants, known as ‘roadsters’ in , were locked in to ensure some work was performed in return for food and accommodation. Many cells had a grill in the wall through which wood could be passed, to be chopped into kindling. When completed the door would be unlocked to encourage the roadster to move on. Owners of the smart houses in Union Road lobbied for a change of name and in 1904 Union Road, Alexander Terrace and Love Lane were re-named Woodlands. At the same time, for the purpose of registering births in the Workhouse, it became officially known as number 41 Woodlands. In earlier days unmarried pregnant women were not treated with such compassion. One of the grounds for compulsory admission of pregnant women, under the Mental Deficiency Act, was to give birth without the ability to maintain the child -classed as Feeble Mindedness- and the woman could be put in a house of correction for many years or even life. The Beverley House of Correction was in Norfolk Street, behind the New Walk Sessions House. The House of Correction closed in 1878.

The octagonal governor’s house of the Beverley House of Correction still on Norfolk Street (HK)

If inmates were violent or aggressive they could be tied in a restraining chair, both at the House of Correction and at the Workhouse.

The restraining chair on show at Ripon Workhouse with information board showing a chair in use at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum (HK)

The East Riding Lunatic Asylum (later Broadgate Mental Hospital, then Broadgate Hospital) was located just outside Beverley on the road to Walkington. It provided care for the mentally ill from 1871 to 1989. Early inmates included women who had given birth to illegitimate children and women suffering from post-natal depression. Both men and women with mental illnesses and dementia came here and during WW1 there were many men with shell shock. th 20 century th In the early 20 century it was felt there was still a need for the workhouse for those without support. As always, conditions depended very much on the way it was run by those in charge. In the early 1920s, the Beverley Union had decided that it was better for children to be housed separately and it was operating a children’s Receiving Home on Norwood, housing up to 18 children, with Miss A. Ward as Superintendent. th Admission to workhouses was declining in the 20 century as National Insurance was introduced to aid payment of benefits. However, with the coming of the Depression many people lost their jobs or had their work hours reduced. 50% of income went on food compared with 10% now. People could not claim benefit until they had sold everything possible, including their best suit and excess chairs and other furniture, though they would hide as many valuables as possible. Nationally, there was over 20% unemployment and in parts of the north it was 40%. The name of the Beverley Union Workhouse was eventually changed to the Beverley Public Assistance Institution. In 1929 only long-term inmates remained aging in the institution and it was taken over as a hospital in 1939. It became the base hospital of the Emergency Medical Scheme, eight timber- built ward blocks being added and was used for the injured airmen returning from raids over Germany. After the war the site became known as Westwood Hospital. The Westwood Hospital closed in 1995 and the site has been re-developed with luxury housing.

The original Beverley Workhouse, now known as ‘The Mansion House’! (HK)