Stogumber's Poor:1601-1834

This is reflected in the action of the parish Overseers who in 1722 used money from various bequests to the poor to purchase land in Bishops’ Lydeard as an investment which would pay an income to the benefit of the poor of the Parish. But not just the poor – they specifically detailed that the income was to be used only for ‘the respectable poor who attempted to live independently of the parish’ – so as we might say nowadays these funds were intended as a hand up not a hand out.

There was also at this time a big move to making poor people work to earn their benefit. Parishes bought raw materials, typically wool, which poor people were required to spin to ‘earn’ their relief. There was also a movement nationally to provide accommodation for the poor in which they were required to do this work – called workhouses. An Act of Parliament was passed to this end in 1722 and Stogumber probably set up its first workhouse in 1725, although the document which is supposed to show this is so damaged that it is not entirely clear if that is the case.

The workhouse was rented and it is not known where exactly it was – and indeed there came to be more than one eventually. In 1834 there was one on the site of what is now the pub skittle alley, but this was not owned by the parish but rented from Sir John Sydenham; the parish also rented 5 other houses for the poor as well as the of course having the alms houses

None of these houses were ever called the workhouse in Stogumber but rather they were called the poorhouse. We should not think of them as Dickensian institutions where the poor were incarcerated and made to work, but they were more perhaps like sheltered accommodation or social housing. Certainly the majority of the poor in the parish never went lived in them and continued to receive relief outside of the workhouse system.

There were never a huge number of people in the poorhouse – it opened with eight and in 1765 there were thirteen people in the workhouse: four men, seven women and two children. In 1834 shortly before it closed there were eleven old and disabled men and four old and disabled women living in it.

One of the great things about the workhouse from the point of view of the historical documents is that they began to keep itemised accounts of all the expenses incurred in the workhouse and so we get a peep into their lives – and it paints quite a surprising picture – it seems to have been far from the bleak place we might imagine.

One of the things that stands out is that they ate an extraordinary amount of beef: in November1754 for instance they got through 236 lbs– 1lb each per day. They also consumed 60 lbs of cheese in that month - 1/4lb each per day. And large quantities of wheat, occasionally had a change from beef with mutton or bacon , along with turnips, peas and potatoes. Perhaps the poorhouses was providing meals for poor people who did not actually live there ?

To swill it all down they must evidently also have been brewing their own beer as their are regular sums spent on hops and malt.

Through to the 1760s life just seems to have got better and better in the workhouse We start to see money being used to buy tobacco for John Eames, one of the inmates; a twine string for pair of spectacles was purchased; by 1762 sugar and treacle were appearing in the accounts; a hogshead of cider was purchased in October – over 50 gallons or 400 pints ! - and the following month wine appears as an item of expenditure. An annual dinner makes an appearance which must have been sumptuous affair as it was listed costing two pounds for dinner and drink

But then the pendulum swung back the other way and there was what seems to modern sensibilities to be a darker side to the parishes provision of this relief .

 The requirement for the poor to wear badges was not new at this stage – it had first become a requirement in 1697 by act of parliament and Stogumber had purchased 200 badges at that time and there were a few ordered subsequently. But the wearing of them had evidently lapsed in the meantime hence the stern instructions in 1768 which is reproduced in the column opposite. Below is a picture of a tin badge from another parish, but these were unusual and normally they were made of cloth – usually purple with a red P for poor, although Stogumber’s evidently had an S.

Historians can’t make their mind up about these badges. One camp maintains that this was degrading and was intended to shame the poor and so force them to out to work. The other camp maintains that it was a mark of honour to the poor who wore them because it marked them out as deserving poor and not scroungers. The one camp thinks of it as being like the yellow star that the Nazis made the Jews wear, but the other camp thinks of it as being more like the blue badge that disabled people have in their cars to park.

When Stogumber's workhouse opened the poor in it were paid piecework for spinning wool

The spinning idea did not last long and by 1759 had virtually stopped – probably because the local cloth industry had collapsed. However the Overseers seemed to have been an enterprising lot and they branched out into selling the poor’s labour and produce in other ways.

There are quite frequent references to receipts for labour of poor people going to work at Vellow wood; a bill was raised ‘for ye old mens labour’ at one point; also for work done on the lime kiln; and by the time the parish workhouse closed the overseers were employing a man to labour permanently on the parish roads. There are regular entries which show that once the demand for spinning wool had dropped off they turned to mending shoes – setting up as a cobblers in effect, and one entry suggests that they also were acting as a barbers with receipts for shaving people.

They also listed receipts for selling apples, and grain presumably grown by the poor. They definitely kept a kitchen garden and bought leek seed for instance and kitchen plants.

It has to be said though that none of these activities bought in anything other than what must have amounted to a bit of pocket money for the poor involved, and it certainly didn’t make a significant contribution towards the costs of running the poorhouse.