Bartley, G. C. T. “Training and Education of Pauper Children.” Journal of the Society of the Arts 17 (1868-1869): 188-194.

 

The Training and Education of Pauper Children.

By G. C. T. Bartley, Esq. [Ed. N. 1]

 

 

On the 1st of July, 1867, in England and Wales, 331,235 pauper children, under the age of 16 years, exclusive of lunatics, received parish aid. This is nearly one in every 60 of the population. Of these about a seventh, or 48,002, were receiving indoor relief, and the remainder, 283,233, outdoor relief; some 13,700 were attending schools of a satisfactory character, and 22,500 more were attending schools of an unsatisfactory character; but, as regards the remainder, about 300,000 in number, it may be stated without much exaggeration, that nearly all, if not quite all, were receiving no sort of instruction whatever, but are growing up without the least notion of the rudiments of those subjects and habits which are becoming daily more essential in enabling the poorer classes to obtain an honest livelihood.

 

The period of the year from which the number of pauper children just referred to is taken being about the most favourable season for obtaining employment, as shown by there being 50,000 more children on the pauper books on the 1st January 1868, it is clear that those who are then dependent on the parish remain so pretty well all the year round. Nor is it likely that a part of their parish allowance is spent voluntarily, either by their parents or themselves, in education; the whole of the 300,000 must consequently form a large portion of that formidable regiment which, according to the statistics of the census of 1861, receives no education whatever. [Ed. N. 2]

 

There can be little doubt as to what becomes of these poor children—the boys and, in fact, many of the girls, are the pickpockets and street-thieves of the large towns; many of the girls, even at this tender age, are already hopelessly immersed in vice; and, practically, all prey on society in some shape or other as long as they are able, and end their days either in the gaol or the workhouse. This being the present state of the evil, which is yearly increasing, in spite of all the enactments on the subject, it may, perhaps, be interesting to investigate the working and history of the poor-law regulations for pauper children, ascertaining how they have arisen, and what steps may be taken to meet the increasing evil of neglected juvenile pauperism. [Ed. N. 3]

 

These children cannot be looked upon exactly in the same way as paupers proper, inasmuch as their unfortunate position is entirely due to circumstances over which they could have no control. They are either the offspring of felons, cripples, and idiots, or orphans, bastards, and deserted children, and claim the protection of the law, frequently from their tenderest years, from having been deprived of the care of their natural guardians without fault or crime of their own. [Ed. N. 4] Such being their condition, they must either steal or starve in the streets, or the State must take charge of them. It may further be affirmed that in a strictly commercial point of view it is more economical to devote a certain amount in education and systematic training, than by allowing them to grow up in the example of their parents and workhouse companions, to render their permanent support, either in a prison or a workhouse, a burden on the industrious classes. The State, in fact, acknowledges this; and, accordingly, provision is theoretically supplied for all pauper children, not only for their bodily wants, but, to a certain extent, for their mental improvement. [Ed. N. 5] At the same time it is also necessary that the other extreme should not be run into, viz., that of treating them so liberally as to hold out a premium to pauperism. In no case should their comfort be better than, or in fact so good as, an industrious labourer has within his reach. Nothing can be more unfair or more discouraging to honest labour than to see a great advantage given to what is in most cases the offspring of improvidence, crime, and often of vice; and the injustice becomes greater when by a forced imposition of law the industrious workman is compelled to subscribe heavily to give those advantages to his inferiors which in most cases he must deny his own children.

 

The subject will naturally divide itself into two heads, viz.:--1st, the plans which have already been tried and their success; and, 2nd, the work that remains to be done.

 

 

I.—The Plans which have already been tried, and their Success.

 

 

To Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth belongs the credit of reorganizing the system of pauper children’s instruction, and in a most able report to the Poor-law Commissioners, in 1838, he pointed out fully the great waste and inefficiency of the then existing system, and sketched out a plan which, if it had then been adopted almost to the letter, would have produced all that could have been desired, and at a reasonable charge to the ratepayer.[Ed. N. 6 & 7]

 

At that period even it would appear that most workhouses had a certain sort of provision for the education of the children permanently lodged in them. There was usually a paid master of very low qualification, but the remuneration was so trifling, and the duties so distasteful, as to preclude any teacher of experience from accepting the appointment. [Ed. N. 8]

 

 

As might be imagined, this education amounted to little or nothing, and the per-centage of children who could neither read nor write was very great. The teachers had a further disadvantage in the fact that the number of children who remained permanently in each union was so small as to render it impossible to have regular classes and the daily intercourse of the young with the depraved and hopeless paupers most effectually eradicated any good which a few hours’ daily teaching might tend to produce. Again, the union was the child’s home, and remained so; it knew no other; its earliest remembrances were of its walls, and thus the idea which of all others it was desired to eradicate from the child’s mind was more carefully instilled into it, making it, in fact, a young pauper.

 

These and many other weighty reasons, as Sir James reports, clearly convinced him that the whole system was bad, and he pointed out that, by a mutual arrangement of unions in counties or districts, efficient schools might be formed, with better teachers and much less cost, more careful management and vastly superior moral benefit to the children. Sir James in this report proposed that schools of about 400 to 500 children should be formed, and suggested that some unused union house or other available building should be adapted and used as the district school. one master or mistress, at £100, and maintenance 10s. a week, a second master or mistress at £60 and 10s. maintenance, a chaplain at £100, a tailor and shoemaker at 15s. a week, and a laundress at £15 per annum and 5s. maintenance per week. These latter to work for, and, to a certain extent, educate some of the children in their respective trades. This produces a total of £470 per annum, or, as nearly as possible, £1 per head for the total cost of a very superior educational staff, both religious and secular. [Ed. N. 9]

 

This was found to be less than half the aggregate cost of supplying the same number of children with most inferior instruction under the system of a schoolmaster to each union, a system which still exists in very nearly all parts of the country, though in the larger unions a separate building is appropriated for the children. The cost of the building, if an unused union house were to be had, would be trifling; and, even when premises had to be hired or built, the cost would be little, if any more, than the regular rental of the extra space in the union if the children were kept there; whilst the other items of cost, viz., food and clothing, would be much the same, or rather less, by keeping together so large a number.

 

Such was, broadly, the excellent system of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, and had it been carried out strictly in every district in England, the effect would have been most salutary both to the paupers and the ratepayers. Unfortunately, however, the farming system, which was then growing up, afforded greater attractions to the guardians, as being undoubtedly a more easy and less expensive method of getting rid of their troublesome charges. Theoretically, this plan consisted of very large district schools, where the children were sent, at a fixed charge, varying from 3s. to 4s. 6d. a-week, to be fed, clothed, and educated, but with this essential difference, that the schools were private commercial speculations, in the hands, usually, of one person. As a consequence, the sole aim of the proprietor was to make profit. At the sum charged he could only do this by stinting the children in every possible manner. The system grew to great proportions until the year 1848, when it culminated in the awful disclosures at the trial at the Old Baily of Mr. Druet, for the murder of 150 children at Tooting. [Ed. N. 10] The horrible treatment the children received, the over-crowding, and almost starvation on bad food, caused a sudden outbreak of cholera, and the effect was so startling that, although Druet was acquitted of murder, his ill-treatment was but too apparent, and the farming system became doomed. This was forcibly stated in the conclusion of a leading article in the Times on the subject, on the 16th of April, 1849—“There is but one favourable point in the terrible tragedy, which is that the deaths of these 150- Tooting children must effectually break up the child-farming system—and for ever.” [Ed. N. 11]

 

Since this period the education and maintenance of these children have depended much on the size and wealth of the unions to which they belonged; the different plans adopted for their improvement may be divided into four classes, viz.:--

 

1st. That in the district school.

 

2nd. That in a separate school building belonging to one union.

 

3rd. That in a national or other school in the neighbourhood of the union house.

 

4th. That in a school in the union house itself.

 

As regards that in the district school.—The distinctive feature of the district school is that it belongs to several unions, and is, therefore, managed by gentlemen with no other functions than the charge of the school; these are selected by each set of guardians from the unions or parishes which have amalgamated to form the district, expressly to look after the school; on the contrary, when a school belongs to one union, it is managed by the guardians of that parish, and is only a part of their general duty. Of the two systems, the district school has, undoubtedly, the advantage as a scholastic institution, but, in a financial point of view, it may be doubted whether it is, as at present managed, altogether so advantageous or economical as the union school. The obvious intention and limit of the school, viz., to enable the children to get their living honestly, and in the lowest station of life, are often forgotten, and the curriculum becomes immensely superior to that which the industrious labourer can hope by honesty to give his child. The board of guardians, it is true, often err in the opposite direction, and reduce their school to uselessness by false economy; but the district school managers, not being, as it were, actually responsible for the whole cost, are apt to be tempted, by the glory of a magnificent institution, into unnecessary expenses, all of which advantages are really an injustice to the rate-payers, and individually a premium to pauperism. For the buildings of these schools, palaces have been erected at a fabulous cost. Nothing seems too good or spacious for them; like many amateurs they have rushed into bricks and mortar, and one district seems to wish only to eclipse its neighbour in the spendour of its pauper children’s mansion. For instance, the one at Leavesden, near Watford, under the St. Pancras guardians, now being constructed at a cost of £50,000, will contain 700 children; at 5 per cent. This is a rental of £2,500, or just £3 11s. 8½ d. per head per annum of interest on building, to say nothing of repairs. It is true that this only amounts to about three farthings in the pound on the rateable value of the district, as is urged in justification of the expenditure, but, if it were but the fiftieth part of a farthing, it would still be excessive.

 

It appears that, as a temporary arrangement while the Watford school is building, 175 children are accommodated at Plaistow, under the same board of guardians, in three old houses, at a rental of £230. The houses do not seem to be full, but, even if they were, this is only a cost of £1 6s. per head per annum; and if the 700 children above mentioned were thus housed, no less than £1,600 per annum would be saved by this parish alone for rental. Many middle-class schools, with 50 pupils paying from £80 to £100 a-year each, are located in houses, the rentals of which do not exceed £100 per annum, being £2 per pupil, or a little over half the cost of the Marylebone pauper children’s home. This case further exemplifies the wisdom of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth’s report in 1838, where he advocates the use of some disused union house, or other large bulding, which can generally be obtained in the least fashionable part of a town.

 

There appear to have been several legislative reasons which have prevented the rapid increase of the pauper district schools, and at present only six are in operation. [Ed. N. 12] They are in the following places:-- The Central London at Hanwell, Farnham and Hartley-Wintney, North Surrey, Reading and Wokingham, South East Shropshire, South Metropolitan; and their costs and other points of interest may be gathered from the following table:--

 

 

 

 

In examining this table it must be remembered that the sum stated as paid from public money for teachers does not represent their whole cost. [Ed. N. 13] The government grants only supplement the payments to industrial teachers, the other part of their salaries being paid from the rates. What addition this would make is not discoverable from the reports, as the proportion of industrial or trade teachers to ordinary teachers is not stated, but doubtless the addition would be considerable. 

 

Leaving out the Reading and South-East Shropshire Unions, which are evidently converted buildings, the cost of the other four was £195,295 10s. 6d., and last last year they accommodated 3,054 children, or each child’s rental, at five per cent. On the outlay of the building, amounted to £ 3.; the South Metropolitan being the lowest at £2 4s., and that at Farnham the highest, at £4 12s.

 

The cost of the teachers’ payment for the instruction of these children also varies considerably, amounting at Reading to £2 5s. per head from the Government grant alone, whilst the average cost of the children of the artisan class., under the Educational Department of the Committee of Council, in 1867-68, was 14 s. 8 ¾ d., including cost of administration and inspection, which does not enter the above sum of the district school. The working expenses of the schools are paid out of the rates, and consequently not published and presented to Parliament in the Poor-law Reports; they are therefore difficult to ascertain, except for those connected with the management. From a report recently published, it appears that last year each child at the Central London School cost the enormous amount of £40 10s. 7d., and this year it is stated in several newspapers that it will even reach £50. However this sum may be made up, and whether it includes the great cost of rental and tuition, with Government inspection and supervision, it is difficult to say, but a clear statement of the items in full detail should be published by each board of managers.

 

While asserting most clearly that the cost of these establishments is enormous, so much so as to render their universal adoption impossible, at the same time it must be fairly admitted that their action is beneficial; they undoubtedly do, to a certain extent, reform some of the pauper children, and a proportion of their inmates are converted into respectable citizens. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of such results, and if half these children turn out well, no doubt the ultimate benefit to the State is worth the cost, yet in arranging a system for universal adoption, it is clearly necessary to make it practicable as much in cost as in anything else. Were all the pauper children treated as the favoured few in these district schools are, the cost to the country would be intolerable.

 

2. As regards Schools in Separate Buildings in Connection with one Union.—The second description of pauper schools is that which is in a building entirely separate from the parish union. These schools exist in about sixty places, more particularly in the larger unions. The exact cost of the schools it is almost impossible to ascertain with any certainty, though it may probably be considerably lower than that of the district schools. Mr. Tufnell, in his report last year (20th Report Poorlaw Board, 1867-68, page 131), states that on the whole nothing can be more satisfactory than their general condition. [Ed. N. 14] They provide for about 10,500 children. In action they may be said to resemble the district schools on a smaller scale.

 

3. As regards Pauper Children who attend the National or other Schools in their respective Parishes.—This is a system of nominally providing for the education of the pauper. It is adopted in places where the union is too small to provide a teacher or schools, but in most cases the benefit to the children is very small indeed.  Frequently no systematic order is enforced for sending them, and those who do attend are generally looked upon by the school as “merely paupers,” and the amount of instruction they receive is about as much as their own unaided sharpness enables them to pick up. About 24 unions adopt this plan, and some 600 children are neglected by it accordingly.

 

4. As regards Schools in the Workhouses.—This class of schools is unfortunately the largest and, at the same time, necessarily least efficacious. About 480 unions out of 655 either have no school at all or one under the same roof as the workhouse. The amount of training in this case to the children is indeed small, except as far as learning to follow in the steps of their companions in pauperism and often, alas, in vice. Any benefit they derive is soon eradicated by contact, and the good effected to these 21,000 children must be looked upon as very trifling. As a specimen, Mr. Turnell reports (20th Report, 1867, p. 135), that in 1852 out of 23 young men and boys in the able-bodied wards of the workhouse no less than 14 had been in prison, 3 once, 4 twice, the rest from 3 to 20 times, and at the same time there were 19 young women in the able-bodied wards equally depraved; all these were brought up in the schools of the Brighton Workhouse.

 

Such is a brief outline of the existing regulations, but it will be remarked that they extend entirely to the children who belong to the in-door class, and that the large class of out-door pauper children are in no way provided for. Their education and training depend entirely upon accident, and, consequently, usually end in their learning nothing at all.

 

II.—What Remains to be Done.

 

From the preceding it appears (as asserted at the commencement) that of the 331,235 pauper children, which may almost be called the permanent establishment, 3,343 attend the district schools and are educated well, at an enormous cost; 13,500 attend the separate workhouse schools, and are also fairly educated at perhaps rather a less cost; 600 attend national schools with but little profit; and 21,000 attend only the school in the workhouse with almost no good at all. The total, therefore, provided for in some way is about 36,000, leaving the astounding number of nearly 300,000, for whom, as has been shown, hardly the slightest provision is made. By far the greater part of these are out-door paupers, and consequently under little or no control, though dependent on the parishes. What becomes of these? By far the largest part must be habitual and permanent paupers. They are all under 16, the sexes about equally divided. Can there be a doubt as to the history of this army of pauper ignorance? They are all totally ignorant; this is clear from the fact that they attend no sort of school; they therefore cannot hope to earn their living beyond the chance existence of a street life. They live on the parish to a certain extent; they form over a third of the pauper class, and may be said to cost about that same proportion of the £6,959,841 spent on the poor, or little short of 2½ millions. It is evident that these wretched children recruit the armies of crime and villany, and can it be wondered at? They exist, of that there is no doubt, and some of them at times live extravagantly, but it is quite plain that the parish contribution which they receive does not supply the means for such depravity; the remainder must be robbed or forcibly taken from those who have failed to give them a chance of bettering their condition in their early days.

 

It would seem that the whole pauper question might fall into insignificance if by some miracle this class could be wiped out.  Our prisons and workhouses would in a year or two be comparatively desolate if it were not for these poor creatures, who are born paupers, brought up paupers, live paupers, and are fortunate if they die paupers, without a deeper stain upon their foreheads. Their only object in life from their very first appearance seems to be to cause trouble and difficulty to all around them, and yet it honestly is in most cases not their own fault.  The greater the difficulty, and the larger the dimensions of the evil, the more need there must be to make some rapid and radical change in the existing state of affairs, and it must undoubtedly behove the State to take some decided step to remove this curse to the country at large.  For to these hundreds of thousands of children it may be said, without profanity, that it would be better for them that mill-stones were hanged about their necks and they were cast into the sea, than that they should grow up as they are doing, cankering the very core of the society which so neglects them.  [Ed. N. 15]

 

It is quite clear, therefore, and no one will gainsay the assertion, that some means should and must be very soon taken to educate and train these children, and it is equally clear that no system of voluntary education can ever be of any use; whatever is done must be compulsory. Some plan must be invented to get hold of them by force, to restrain them when young from practicing evil as their natural occupation, calling, or profession, and to teach tem something better.

 

No poor law system can hope to be called perfect when the young are neglected. The number of adult paupers will fall to a minimum if its ranks are only recruited by the unsuccessful and unfortunate, but how can it fail to increase when we are always bringing up a permanent staff, of some three hundred thousand strong, in such complete ignorance and depravity?

 

The following scheme is accordingly submitted, after much consideration, not with feeling of over-confidence in its details, but more with a hope that it may lead to an energetic movement for beginning a reform of the Poor Laws, by properly providing for the training and education of the children.

 

The duty of a parent is accepted by law to be that of providing for his child until he or she is of age to work for himself.  In the case of pauper children who have been deserted, or are orphans, of those who are habitually on the parish books for some cause or other, this parental duty has not been fulfilled, whether culpably or not does not affect the question. The state, or parish, or community, it matters not which, has stept in and given the child those necessaries which the parent should have given, and where it can, of course forcing the parent to pay the cost. Thus, whether pleasant or not, the community has, to a certain extent, taken these children on its hands, and it would seem that it has a right to demand some return for this in the same way that a parent habitually does. Would it, then, be unreasonable if every pauper child who regularly receives and lives on parish allowance were bound to enter a certain school? If the State were to say, not as it does not, “every pauper child we will feed,” but “if we feed him he must earn his bread by learning what we think proper to teach, and living at this school for a certain number of years;” this would be interference with the liberty of the subject, it is true, but might not be very beneficial interference, and really be the means of saving thousands?

 

Two objections will no doubt be raised to this obliging all confirmed pauper children to enter the schools, viz., that by so doing a provision is being made for any unscrupulous parent to get rid of their offspring by casting them on the State, and also that the parents would be deprived of whatever earnings those children might hope to make. No doubt the former of these, if encouraged, would be a very serious evil, but it would be no more difficult to prevent that the present desertion of children, and in all cases parents who were able should be made to pay, according to their means, towards their children’s support in the schools, without, of course, the power of taking them out till they had passed the required standard of knowledge. Regarding the other objection, it must be remembered that these are children who in July received parish and they cannot, therefore, earn much, or in any way assist their parents.

 

The schools for this purpose would, of course, have to be made expressly. In some cases old union houses might be used, or other buildings erected, thought not in the style of the pauper palaces in Hanwell. Each might hold about 1,000, and should be placed in a healthy but economical district, with a few acres of land, and, when possible, near the sea. The staff might be much as Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth suggested, and in fact, that gentleman’s plan, as before sketched out, might be copied with advantage, adding any improvements which 30 years’ experience might suggest. In all cases the children must, for the time, board at the schools; the strict unbroken discipline, and removal from the influence of their pauper associated, being equally important with, if not more important than, any branch of the education. This could not be attained by a day-school.

 

The objections with some persons have to this compulsory system are really not insuperable, and as the idea of compulsory education for all classes of society has been seriously mooted, surely in the case of paupers whom the community feed and often clothe, it is not asking too great a return to be allowed to force a further advantage upon them. Again, the idea of educating and training permanent pauper children is acknowledged to be a good thing by the community, as shown by the amount of money already expended for the purpose out of the rates and Parliamentary votes. If this be so, it must be better for all to have some training for less than a tenth to get the benefit. If all willingly joined such schools instead of infesting our streets, no one would doubt as to the advantage to the community; surely, then, the fact of their being so ignorant as not even to know the good to be derived from the school, makes it not less, but very much more necessary to force them to qualify themselves for honest labour, not for their own good only, but for the benefit of the community.

 

The course of instruction at these proposed schools would necessarily vary; expect that all the inmates would have to work, and work hard. They must be schools for work, if not workhouse schools. The boys should be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, a sound idea of religion and morality, gymnastics and drilling. No attempt at teaching any trade would appear advisable. This is particularly stated in the 7th report of the Poor-Law Commissioners, page 47, in speaking of the training of workhouse schools. [Ed. N. 16 & 17] It says, “Some are taught tailoring, some shoemaking, some carpentering, and some are occupied in the garden; but still, the several employments in after life of the boys reared in the workhouse must, it is believed, in the great majority of instances, be of a description that does not admit of previous training or tuition within the workhouse, or at least in no material degree. The kind of skill requisite for such success in such employment must, in fact, be acquired by continued practice; and all that can be done in the way of preparation for the most part, is to send the youth forth imbued with habits of industry, and with his frame braced and strengthened and inured to laborious exertion, and with his temper and mental faculties duly cultivated; and above all, with a sense of religious duty deeply impressed upon his mind,”  For girls, the details of the instruction must be somewhat different.  Needle-work and household servants’ duties should be attended to;  all the washing, mending, sock-making, &c., of the establishment, would give employment, together with a careful and strict course of training, not only as to book-work, but bodily and mental habits of regularity, discipline, and obedience, and even more important than the former.  No abler advice could be had in this respect, both for girls and boys, than from Mr. Tufnell and his colleagues.  

 

It might, probably, be advisable to divide the schools, not so much into districts as into ages and classes of boys and girls, drafting them from one to another as they grown older, and thus changing their associates.  Any unusually bad specimens might be removed to separate establishments for stricter discipline. The necessary number of schools would render it easy thus to classify the children as might be thought best with only the slight extra cost of traveling.

 

The greatest responsibility to the state in thus taking charge of these children is the difficulty of getting rid of them again; and the more so in such numbers. It is probable that the young applicants for parish relief might fall off if they knew they had to enter such a work-school, but it would be safe to take less than 300,000 as the number of children. As a fundamental principal none should be allowed to leave the schools until they had passed satisfactory a certain standard of knowledge and training. It may be said that this might tend to encourage them to be idle to stay, but by judicious treatment and by rendering the discipline severer to those who were thus refractory, not many would remain incorrigible. Besides, if some were so, and would not work in the school, it is certain they would not work honestly outside. They would be prevented by this self-imposed imprisonment from doing mischief, and at a known cost of much less than that unknown and incalculable amount of damage which they would probably cause by robbery and violence during their training as criminals.

 

Taking, then, 300,000 as the number of children of all ages in the schools, about twelve percent, or say 40,000, would be eligible to leave each year, that is 20,000 of each sex.  These divide themselves at once into two classes—the able-bodied and the sickly.

 

1st. The boys. The best of the able-bodied boys might all be allowed to enter the navy, both the Royal and mercantile services. Sailors are much wanted, and if entering the service were made the boys’ ambition, they would look forward to it, and in time even work for it. [Ed. N. 18]  The advantage of recruiting the navy from this source is very strongly urged by Mr. Tufnell in his report on Union Schools, published in the Twentieth Report of the Poor-law Board. P. 132-4. He says—“The opening for boys in the Royal and mercantile service is far greater,” i.e., than in the army bands, which he also recommends as a suitable opening for them. “the deficiency of sailors is well known; many ships go to sea half manned, supplied with Lascars and foreigners, who often do not understand English, and generally fail on an emergency. . . . . Now it is quite possible to train boys to be three-parts sailors by certain arrangements on dry land, as is proved by several instances. All that is necessary is to erect in a yard the deck of a 200 or 300 ton ship with appropriate sails, masts, and rigging; a well qualified seaman should be engaged to instruct the sailor boys daily in the names of the different parts of a ship, to mount aloft without fear, &c., to set and furl the sails, and, in fact, perform all the duties required of boys at first going to sea. Experience decisively proves the success of this method of training. Captains of ships prefer boys so trained to any others; and I have been informed by some they would rather have a boy so trained fourteen years of age, than a finer boy of sixteen untrained; the training advances the boy two years in the profession of a sailor . . . . . Captains eagerly engage these boys without premium.”  One might imagine the feasibility of converting one or two of our old men-of-war without much cost into such schools, and allowing the entyr to be a sort of prize for the best boys at all local establishments.  Mr. Tufnell continues—“Boys engaged in the Army or Navy are at once removed from the evil influences I have alluded to” (viz., pauper influence and idle associates.  “they have a certain occupation from fourteen or fifteen years, are, during that time, kept under proper tutelage, which is especially desrable in the case of these friendless youths, earn good wages, and, as experience shows, almost invariably give the greatest satisfaction to their superiors.  If I had my will, I would bring up every pauper boy either to be a musician for the army, or to be a sailor for the Royal Navy or merchant service.”

 

This would provide for all the cream of the boys, and at an early age. As regards the remainder, they must obtain employment after passing the standard of proficiency in the ordinary duties of agricultural and other labour. Their training at the school would have benefited them, and engrafted certain principles and habits tending at any rate to give them a better chance than as outcasts they would ever have had. If a half—nay, even a quarter—turned out well, how amply the State would be repaid!

 

2nd. As regards the girls. It does not seem so difficult to dispose of them. Mr. Tufnell (20th Poor-law Board Report, page 132):--“There is no difficulty in settling the purpose for which girls are to be trained. They should be made household servants.” From the general complaints of the public, there can be no doubt but that a large number of this class could be employed with great advantage.

 

Some, of course, of both sexes would still remain, viz., those who could not obtain employment, or, having obtained it, were dismissed, and so returned again to the parish relief, the incorrigibly idle, who could not pass the standard, and the very sickly and diseased. Something different would have to be done for these. The permanently sick must be placed in the workhouse or hospital, and remain on the hands of the community, as, in fact, they really do now. The unemployed and the idle, after having had a strict training till a certain age, if they returned again to the parish, would have to be got rid of, and the only plan that seems to suggest itself with the greatest advantage is emigration to the colonies.

 

This emigration should be absolutely imperative at a certain age, and in no way optional to these two classes of papers. All would have been done for them, and either by their own want of appreciation of the advantage offered, or by their misfortune in not obtaining employment, nothing would seem to remain but to give them a final chance, with a free grant, perhaps, of a few acres to the young men in a land where labour can be utilised to any extent, and where their only chance of subsistence would be by labour, and that alone.

 

Could such a system be considered hard, would it not strike the vital parts of pauperism, by draining the spring of its ever-increasing stream? The state would, as it nominally does now, have taken charge of the children, brought them up, acted as their parents, and in return demanded two things:--1st. A sound and strict training. 2nd. A useful and honest means of livelihood, or, failing this emigration.

 

Obtaining suitable buildings for these schools would, doubtless, for some little time, be a difficulty, though not at all an insuperable one. As already stated, possibly a few of our antiquated fleet might be turned to good account. No better plan could be adopted than that suggested by Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, viz., of utilizing all unused workhouses, or renting large buildings in decayed parts of towns. Where necessary, and this would be in many places, schools would have to be erected, though not on such a scale as the one at Hanwell. The cost would undoubtedly be great, and the money could only be raised by the Government in a similar manner to that adopted by the district schools, viz., by a charge on the rates over a certain number of years. The number of children to be placed under one roof would be best known by those familiar with the working of the district schools, probably about 1,000, and all of one sex, as the number of schools would render the division of any one school unnecessary.

 

The greatest difficulty would undoubtedly be that of providing suitable and efficient teachers and rulers in each establishment.  These duties would be arduous, and require patience and firmness in a larger proportion than great learning.  In this, as in other matters probably, the want would produce the persons sought for; but in all cases the greatest care would have to be exercised in the appointments.

 

The great point to be considered in such a scheme is the cost. If a plan be ever so feasible, it must be also reasonable in cost, that is to say, not necessarily economical, for in dealing with so great a subject, which has been so long neglected, a large outlay is imperative. If the indirect saving is taken into account, there can be no doubt that almost any efficient system would be profitable to the State.

 

In the first place, it may be remarked that if such a plan of work schools were in operation, they must necessarily be under the management of the government. Each school could not be managed by a separate union without very much reducing the efficacy of the system as a whole. Classification of the children, weeding out refractory characters to one place, and other detailed arrangements, could only be properly carried out by a central administration. The funds at the disposal of this department would be supplied from the Exchequer or local rates, as might be considered best. The union officers, being acquainted with the persons in their districts, would be the means of feeding the schools, the simple rule to guide them being, that children under a certain age, say 16, who systematically applied for parish relief should, as a matter of course and necessary consequence, be relieved by being sent to the school. This rule might require discretion in its action in some cases; a hard-working boy in temporary distress, who had been fairly educated, might, with advantage, be left at home, though for several years it is not likely that a tolerably strict carrying out of this regulation to the systematic applicants for relief would do much harm.

 

The amount of relief granted, in 1867, to the 931,546 paupers, was £6,959,841. At this rate the 331,000 children cannot cost much less that 2 ½ millions, or at the rate of £7 10s. per head per annum. This sum is spent therefore, without any return beyond the support of so many helpless individuals, and the partial education of the favoured few who attend the district and other schools, as explained above.

 

What addition would some such plan as the proposed schools entail on the community? In the first place, taking Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth’s estimate, in the year 1838, for the cost of a thorough educational staff at about £1 a head, the cost of provision and clothing at 4s. a-week, or £10 10s. a-year (the estimated cost of the children at the North Surrey district school), the cost of rent of each child, interest on building, &c., at £2 10s., and taking the cost of inspection, central administration, and miscellaneous charges as high as £3 10s., which should be an excessive estimate, a total of £17 10s. is made, or £10 more than the amount expended at present. For this extra sum of £10 per head, or three millions per annum, with a slight addition for emigration, a large part of the army of street arabs and idle youths, 300,000 strong, might be swept from the streets, and usefully trained to habits of industry.

 

Supposing, by way of example, they all turned out badly, would the money have been thrown away? Far from it; while at school they would have been kept at as low a charge as possible, free from mischief; had they been loose, by some means or other they must have consumed nearly as much as at school, and the chances are, nay, the certainty is, that many, if not most, of those over five or six years of age would cause ten or twenty times the amount of damage as pickpockets and thieves. Again, suppose that half of them turn out well, and this does not seem an absurd hypothesis, this surely requires no argument to prove the advantage and economy to the State as a return for its large outlay. It might further be hoped that as the system developed the number of such children, and consequently the expense, would sensibly decrease.

 

In concluding these remarks on the subject of the training and education of pauper children, it must be borne in mind that the present regulation and provisions only affect a few of the pauper children for which they are framed; nothing like a tenth receive any benefit at all.  The two extremes of the system tend, first, to a too rigid economy and consequent hurtful neglect; and, second, to a too great extravagance and consequent injustice to the industrious.  As a matter of economy and advantage to the community, it is universally acknowledged to be beneficial to do something for the children, but how much or how little requires great care to determine.  By recognizing the system of district schools, the country has agreed that the children should be fairly educated; but it has been shown that the system is so expensive as to render it impossible, without some risk of producing an insurrection of rate-payers, to adopt it at once all over the kingdom, its comparative smallness only now saving it from radical reform.  Again, the advantages given to the children surpass by many degrees those of the industrious hard-working class; this neither fair nor politic.  On the other hand, the emergency is great; thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands, of children are growing up in vice and ignorance, and by some power they must be arrested in their downward path; little short of a miracle will do this—and it is certain that without some compulsory power they will never enter a school, or of themselves wish to be taught better; and, at the same time, the State does not with, unnecessarily, to force any, or to interfere, without great caution, with the liberty of the subject; it does not want to be saddled with the offspring of all the poorer classes; the schools must not be looked on as provided by the Sate to take children off the hands of those who should provide for them, nor should the children prefer them, like the thief often, does the prison, to his free state, because he is fed well and worked little.  To provide for the want, and yet to guard against these abuses, it is believed that some such scheme as the one proposed might be beneficial.

 

The compulsory entry into the school of all within a certain age, say 16, who receive regular parish aid, would at once reduce the claimants to a minimum, but generally secure the very young and helpless whom it would be most important and promising to get hold of.

 

The habits of the school being systematic, strict, and when necessary even sever, would tend to discipline these rough spirits, and train them as human beings, and keep them away from evil influences at an age when their minds are susceptible of influences for good.

 

As they grew into youths, their nature would make them long to be free and in the world; but their freedom could only be bought by a certain proficiency which they would thus be glad to work for. When they left the schools after passing a certain standard, they would be fitted for employment by habits of honest and industry, the best being allowed to enter the navy, others hired as labourers, servants, &c.; and as nearly all would enter the schools without the stain of crime, their start in life would indeed be different to what it is at present. The power of sending them to the colonies at a certain age, if they could not or would not obtain employment, or if they returned to the parish relief, would give all an opportunity of earning their living if so disposed, and if not disposed, the consequences would fall of themselves.

 

These compulsory powers and consequences, while acting thus beneficially in the schools and to the public in this way, would also prevent the schools from being looked upon by the industrious poor as unfair to themselves. At present these may fairly compare the pauper at the district school to their own boy at the national or village school; but not so when they know the discipline of the work school, and the compulsory power which the community has over the children.

 

Concerning the cost, an attempt has been made to show that though adding a large sum directly to the expenditure of the country, there can be no doubt but that an absolute saving would at once be effected indirectly; the ultimate good could hardly be estimated even in money value, but a change might be produced in the moral aspect of the country greater than the most stringent criminal penalties.

 

If it be the case, and no one will be found to gainsay it, that the present state of matters requires great improvement, surely, even out of selfish motives, it is high time that something was done. By thus beginning at the right end, “prevention being better than cure,” as has been said over and over again, many, if not a majority, of these wretched children, who so often are a curse to the community, might be rescued, and, with the divine blessing, converted into industrious, honourable, and honest, though humble, citizens.

 

 

 

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Glossary of Terms

 

Board of Guardians—These Boards were established by the Poor Law of 1834 to oversee and manage relief for the poor within a parish; these boards were dissolved by the Local Government Act of 1929.

 

Child-farming— children who were residents in workhouses were taken by district schools in exchange for a fee that was meant to house and educate the students.  It was in the interest of the school’s administrator to minimize his expenditure on the students, thereby allowing him to profit from the remaining funds.

 

District—an English sub-division of a parish, which has a clergyman in residence at a church or chapel.  Districts were created under the Church Building Acts.

 

Gaol—English spelling of jail.

 

Indoor Relief—Charity given to a poor person or family while that person or family is a resident of a workhouse or other institution; another term with a similar meaning is indoor pauper.

 

Inmates—Occupants of district schools.

 

Lunatics—Insane persons; literally, those whose insanity changes along with cycles of the moon, which suggests shifting moods and mental states similar to bipolar disorder.

 

Outdoor Relief—Charity given to the poor while living apart from a workhouse, almshouse or other similar institution; other terms with similar meanings include outdoor pauper and outdoor pension.

 

Parish—A division of local government, frequently overlapping with ecclesiastical districts; parishes were established for the administration of Poor Law.

 

Pauper Books--Those people listed in public records as qualifying for public assistance.

 

Public Schools—In a 19th century context, public schools refer to secondary schools that charged fees and offered upward mobility for upper-middle class students.

 

Remuneration—Payment or recompense.

 

Times—Daily newspaper published in England since 1785.

 

Union-- A number of parishes united or incorporated together under one Board of Guardians for the administration of the poor laws; an area or sub-district so formed and administered.

 

Union House—Workhouses within a particular union.

 

Workhouse—A charitable institution intended to provide work for the unemployed poor; workhouses were administered by Guardians of the Poor.

 

 

 

[Editor's Notes]

 

Editor's Note 1--G. C. T. Bartley

George Christopher Trout Bartley (1842-1910).  Much of this article was included in Barlety’s book The Schools for the People: Containing the History, Development and Present Working of Each Description of English School for the Industrial and Poorer Classes, published in 1871 by Bell & Dadly.  The book addresses 300 years of educational history in Britain, but unlike "The Training and Education of Pauper Children," which is a scholarly work that in 2008 might be called “wonk-ish,” Bartley’s book includes such writerly touches as the portrait of Diddlego, a sympathetic description of an impoverished 12-year-old living in the heart of London in 1870. 

 

Editor's Note 2--Census of 1861

The Census of 1861 lists a total population of 28.7 million in Britain, with 20 million residents in England and Wales, 3 million in Scotland, and 5.7 million residents in Ireland.  With the exception of the Irish population, which decreased by 0.9 million in the decade separating the two censuses, these population numbers reveal steady growth in Britain.  The decline in the population of the Irish may be attributed to population correction following the Irish famine of 1845-49.  According to the Victorian web, at least 1 million Irish died, but many more millions sought refuge in Britain and North America.  These immigrants were often poor children, but they would have been adults by the publication of this article in 1868.

 

Editor's Note 3--Poor-law

When writing of poor-law regulations, Bartley is referring to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, however the Poor Law system in Britain has its roots in medieval times.  Statutes concerning the punishment of vagrants occur as early as 1495, and the Tudor monarchs, including Queen Elizabeth, were particularly creative in the punishments devised for the poor.  For example, an act passed in 1572 called for beggars to have their ears bored through for a first offense ("Origins of the Poor Law System").  However, Elizabeth’s reign also saw the formal introduction of relief through the passage of the Poor Law Act of 1601 ("Elizabethan Poor Law 1601"). 

 

The Poor Law Amendment Act, or New Poor Law, was passed, at least in part, as a response to the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws.  Though the Royal Commission’s report suggested improving the efficiency of the British relief system by banning outdoor relief and discouraging people from seeking relief in workhouses, the New Poor Law did not fully implement the Commission’s suggestions.  Outdoor relief continued, in no small part due to organized opposition and public outrage at such scandals as the Andover workhouse scandal.

 

Editor's Note 4--Of natural guardians

Although, Bartley admits that the pauper children of whom he speaks are poor through no fault of their own, this is the first of many authorial asides within the article that reveal contempt for the very people he purports to champion.  Bartley explicitly states that the pauper children have been conceived by "felons, cripples, and idiots"; he cannot imagine that any of these children might have had caring parents.  This one of many statements revealing Barley's unspoken bias toward the poor.  See Editor's Note 13.

 

Editor's Note 5--Legal provisions for pauper children as of 1867

Bartley is accurate in his suggestion that the State has an obligation to educate poor children.  The New Poor Law specifically charged the Poor Law Commission with the education of children lodged in workhouses and the “management of Parish Poor Children.” (Bloy, "The Poor Law Amendment Act").

 

Editor's Note 6--Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth

Sir James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth was a medical doctor, politician, and educator whose attitude toward the working-class poor was in large part shaped by his research on workers in cotton manufacturing plants in Manchester, which he published in 1832.  Shuttleworth is cited more than any other individual in Bartley's work.  A close friend of the social reformer, Edwin Chadwick, in 1835 Shuttleworth was appointed a poor law commissioner in Norfolk and Suffolk.  In 1839, he established the first teacher training school in England.  He was deeply invested in the politics and policies of the Liberal Party, and his son, Sir Ughtred James Kay-Shuttleworth would become a prominent Liberal politician toward the end of the 19th century.  For further discussion, sea “Kay-Shuttleworth and the Training of Teachers for the Pauper Schools” by Alexander M. Ross.

 

Editor's Note 7--Report to the poor-law commissioners of 1838

Ross suggests that this report marked a shift in Shuttleworth’s attention from the working-poor to the children of the working poor.  This shift manifested itself in Shuttleworth’s attempts to establish better schools for poor children.  See Editor’s note 8.

 

Editor's Note 8--Remuneration of school masters

Barltley’s discussion of teacher wages is based on Shuttleworth’s report of 1838.  When comparing these wage estimates to James Skipper’s “Wages and Cost of Living in the Victorian Era,” published on the Victorian Web, the accuracy of Bartley and Shuttleworth’s estimates are apparent.  Bartley suggests that a head school master or mistress could do with £100 and 10 s. in expenses per week, which would add up to approximately £126 per year in combined wages and expenses.  Skipper’s cost of living estimate for a senior clerk in 1844 arrives at a total of £150 per year in living expenses.

 

Editor's Note 9--Teacher training, circa 1838

According to Alexander M. Ross’s article “Kay-Shuttleworth and the Training of Teachers for the Pauper Schools,” Shuttleworth’s interest in teacher training derived from his witness to the practice of compulsory apprenticeship, i.e., the practice of a teacher bribing a tradesman to take a pauper child on as an apprentice, thereby unburdening the teacher of the responsibility of educating the child.  Shuttleworth was also appalled by the corporal punishment that teachers routinely used on students.  He looked to Scottish schools in Glasgow and Edinburgh as models and attempted to persuade Scottish teachers to migrate to England to replace the teachers who so appalled Shuttleworth.  When he could not find enough teachers, he turned his attention to creating a model training school in England, which was established at his home in Battersea.  Shuttleworth’s involvement in public education ended prematurely due to a physical breakdown he suffered in 1849.

 

Editor's Note 10--The trial of Mr. Druet

According to Bartley's The Schools for the People, Druet managed a district school which participated in the practice of “farming children out,” i.e., children who were residents in workhouses were taken by district schools in exchange for a fee that was meant to house and educate the students.  It was in the interest of the school’s administrator to minimize his expenditure on the students, thereby allowing him to profit from the remaining funds.  In 1849 in Tooting, a cholera outbreak, which was blamed on the poor conditions, occurred killing 150 students.   Druet’s subsequent trial was scandalous enough to mark the end of the practice of “farming children out.”  A similar incident occurs in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, which, incidentally was published in 1847, two years before Druet’s trial.

 

Editor's Note 11--Times editorial attitude toward pauper childre, circa 1849

John Walter was editor of The Times in 1849.  Besides working as the editor of the paper his grandfather founded, Walter also served numerous terms in Parliament.  Walter was a Liberal, albeit more conservative than either Shuttleworth or Bartley, but the paper’s editorial board seems to have been influended by his conscientiousness and religiousity.

 

Editor's Note 12--Legislative impediments to pauper district schools

Taken as a general statement of legislative ineptitude, the irony is that by his own account in The Schools for the People, Bartley reveals that the period between the New Poor Law and the publication of his article on February 12, 1869 saw radical changes in British schools in large part because of legislation.  For example, in 1834, the “Select Committee of House of Commons to inquire into means for establishing a National System of Education,” in 1838, “Select Committee of Education of Poorer Classes in England and Wales,” in 1846, “Committee of Council Minutes” is passed to make Annual Grants to Schools, in 1857, “Industrial Schools Act” is passed, and in 1866, the “Report of Select Committee of Education” is made (Bartley 25).  Though not all of these acts led directly to the establishment of district schools, Bartley’s own evidence (listed in the article's table) suggests that the expense rather than any specific legislative or political issues was the real cause for the glacial pace of establishing district schools.

 

Editor's Note 13--Table

The table is transcribed from Bartley's article.  Only formatting differences separate the original from the table herein.

 

Editor's Note 14--The Tufnel report

E. C. Tufnel helped to establish Battersea teacher training school with Shuttleworth.  At the time of Bartley’s writing, he  was an assistant poor law commissioner.

 

Editor's Note 15--Of similarities between Bartley's "Training" and Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal"

More than any other, this sentiment suggests that of Jonathon Swift’s pamphleteer in “A Modest Proposal,” published in 1729.  However, Bartley’s article is filled with eerie reflections of Swift.  Like Swift, Bartley uses figures obsessively, which creates a certain distance between the lives the children that are being discussed and the economic issues—the costs to Britain, the census numbers, the wages of school masters, etc.—that their lives entail.  Furthermore, Swift’s subtitle—“A modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick.”—could fit neatly at the front of Bartley’s article, so long as Ireland was replaced with Britain.

 

Editor's Note 16--Poor-law commissioners and reports

The Poor-law commission, which was comprised of three commissioners and nine assistants, was charged with making reports regarding the administration of poor law in various districts throughout Britain.  The commission was independent of Parliament, yet its reports did not carry the weight of law; however, to read them merely as observations is to underestimate the political influence of the poor-law.  Chief among these influences was the commission’s ability to veto appointments to local Boards of Guardians (Bloy, "The Poor Law Amendment Act").

 

Editor's Note 17--Of curricular trends in mid-19th century

“Virtually all secondary and tertiary (university) educational institutions in Great Britain were originally founded to train clergy for the established church, the Church of England (or the Anglican Church, as it was also known). Since members of the comparatively tiny nobility and wealthy classes had private tutors, many, if not all, the public schools were intended for the deserving poor. By the nineteenth century many of these schools had become means of upward mobility, not for the poor, but for the upper-middle classes, who wished to move their children into the aristocracy. By the time Thomas Arnold, the poet's father, assumed the headmastership of Rugby, Public Schools had become characterized by dreadful teaching, archaic curricula, bullying, sexual abuse, and dreadful living conditions. Rugby led the way in raising the general moral tone of Public Schools and for a time even pioneered modern practices of art education for children and other innovations. Nonetheless, even at their best, Public Schools concerned themselves more with producing gentlemen than with preparing their graduates for the economic, political, and technological challenges facing contemporary England” (Landow).

 

It is worth noting that, based on his descriptions of the skills learned therein, Bartley’s references to union and district schools better match contemporary notions of trade schools than of public schools, at least in the United States.

 

Editor's Note 18--On the usefulness of seamen in 1868

By comparing various censuses, figures that detail the occupations of residents in Britain in 1861 reveal that the occupations that employed the highest number of Britons were in agriculture and domestic service (fully 1.2 million worked in agriculture and 1.1 million worked as domestic servants).  Bartley specifically suggests that many of the male pauper children might find work as sailors, and it is of note that in the period discussed here, merchant service was growing faster than almost any other field in Britain.  According to the Victorian web, between 1851 and 1861, the number of merchant seaman increased by 80%.  See Census of 1861.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commentary on the Text

 

 

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M.V. 4/2/08

This article is fascinating to a person like me, who does not know much about the laws and legal system of the mid-Victorian period.  Based on the little information I know, and the ideas I have put together in my head from the literature I have been introduced to this semester, I was under the impression that social class/status determined who a person was.  People born into poverty or even lower class society stayed there and they had no opportunity to move up the social ladder.  Many of the novels I've read that had characters who were the servants were thought of as nothing but servants.  My thought was that there was little to no help from the government to aid in these people's higher achievement.  It was great to read this article and find out more about how the government did in fact consider the pauper children as important beings in society, and that they were able to understand that helping the homeless orphans would really, in the end, create for a more prosperous society.  The financial aspect of the facts this article presents was interesting, as well.  The consideration of financial investment in putting these children through school, paying for teachers, etc., is quite interesting.  It is very obvious that they determined that in the end, if after all of their investment in bettering these childrens' lives, the children turned out no better with help than if they had been left on their own, overall it would be still less of a financial burden to society, versus accepting their status and the situations they will get into as paupers (ie: pick-pocketing, prostitution, etc.)  I was very interested to read that they had stipulations and expectations of these childrens' success in school after offering the help to them and really emphasized the fact that they wanted these children to come away with an advantange and would do everything they could to help but that they wouldn't give "hand-outs", because that's the life they are attempting to prevent them from having to live. 

 

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Works Cited

Please be sure to cite reference works, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, scholarly articles, other 19th century sources, and other websites that you used in preparing this page. In particular, it is extremely important to use quotation marks when copying material directly from another source, to provide a parenthetical citation to the source and relevant page number, and to include that source here. If you do not know how/when to decide what to cite or how to format citations in MLA Style, please consult your instructor. [Please retain these directions.]

 

Bartley, G. C. T. The Schools for the People: Containing the History, Development and Present Working of Each Description of English School for the Industrial and Poorer Classes.  London: Bell and Dadly, 1871.

 

 

Bloy, Marjie. “The Irish Famine: 1845-49.” 11 October 2002. Victorian Web. 24 February 2008.

<http://www.victorianweb.org/history/famine>

 

 

Bloy, Marjie. “Occupations: census returns for 1851, 1861 and 1871.” 2 July 2002. Victorian Web. 24 February 2008.

<http://www.victorianweb.org/history/census.html>

 

 

Bloy, Marjie. “The Poor Law Amendment Act: 14 August 1834.” 23 September 2002. Victorian Web. 24 February 2008.

< http://www.victorianweb.org/history/poorlaw/plaatext.html>

 

 

“Elizabethan Poor Law 1601.” 12 February 2008. Wikipedia. 25 February 2008 <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethan_Poor_Law_1601>

 

 

Landow, George P. “A Critical View of British Public Schools.”  26 March 2002. Victorian Web. 24 February 2008.

<http://www.victorianweb.org/history/education/eh4.html>

 

 

“Origins of the Poor Law System.” 13 February 2008. Wikipedia. 25 February 2008 <http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Poor_Law_system>

 

 

 

 

 

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