A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Aldeburgh — a description of an old warehouse let out as a shelter to beggars 

 and vagabonds : "* 



Where'er the floor allows an even space, 

 Chalking and marks of various games have place ; 

 Boys, without foresight, pleased in halters swing — 

 On a fix'd hook men cast a flying ring ; 

 While gin and snuff their female neighbours share, 

 And the black beverage in the fractured ware. 



But some few of the Suffolk landlords, intent on improvement, turned 

 their attention to the condition of their tenants' dwellings ; '" and the i8th 

 century saw the introduction of a new system of Poor Law, which endeavoured 

 to deal more effectually than the old with the vagabond population, and to 

 control the education of pauper children. 



Suffolk, as an industrial county, had from an early date experience of 

 the problem of poor relief. Between 15 14 and 1569 the town councils 

 throughout England were active in forwarding measures for the relief of the 

 poor. The lead which London had given was closely followed by Ipswich. 

 In 1551 two persons were nominated by the bailiffs ' to inquire into the poor 

 of every parish and thereof to make certificate.' '^^ In 1556 eight burgesses 

 were appointed to frame measures for the ordering and maintenance of poor 

 and impotent people, for providing them with work, and for suppressing 

 vagrants and idle persons : licensed beggars were supplied with badges. 

 Compulsory taxation for the benefit of the poor was adopted, and the rate 

 levied according to the value of house-property — punishments being inflicted 

 for non-payment. In 1569 Christ's Hospital, the counterpart of Bridewell — 

 a house of correction, an asylum for the aged, and a training-school for the 

 young — was erected. Bury also possessed a house of correction ; the regu- 

 lations for food compare favourably with the workhouse dietary of a later 

 date : the inmates were supplied with two principal meals a day, dinner and 

 supper, and on days when meat was eaten everyone was to have eight ounces 

 of rye bread, a pint of porridge, a quarter of a pound of meat, and a pint of 

 beer : on fast days one-third of a pound of cheese, and one or two herrings 

 instead of meat. All were to rise at four in the summer, and five in winter, 

 and to work till seven with intervals for morning and evening prayer. 



The Bury Articles of 157 1-5"' reflect the prevalent opinion that idle 

 persons were a menace to the prosperity of town life. ' Item that every 

 artificer and labourer suspected of loitering do weekly declare to one of the 

 constables of the ward every Sunday in the morning where he wrought every 

 day in the said week, and the said constable to inquire immediately the truth 

 thereof. 



' If any labourer shall not be provided of work on the Sunday for the 

 week following, then the curate or constable to move the parish for work.' 



No poor persons were allowed to keep their children at home when they 

 were of an age for service. 



The history of the Poor Law in Suffolk during the i6th and 17th 

 centuries is closely bound up with the history of the cloth industry. 



'" Borough (ed. 1834), 296. '" Young, loc. cit. 



^^ Cf. Bacon, Ann. oflpsmch, 126—235, quoted E. M. Leonard, Early Hist, of Engl. Poor Reftef, 42. 



'" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. viii, 139. 



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