A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



reported a decrease in the total expenditure of the county since the appoint- 

 ment of ninety-seven assistant overseers and sixty select vestries in accord- 

 ance with an Act of 1819. 



The population during that time had risen steadily, but the rates, which 

 amounted in that year to 155,309, fel1 to f l 33>7 1 m l8a2 > and to 

 107,634 in 1825, though they again rose in 1829 to 119,977, and 

 amounted to 133,971 in i832. 143 



The workhouses showed no trace of anything like a plan to prevent 

 residence being an object of desire, and an entire absence of uniformity in 

 management led the discriminating pauper to choose that which provided 

 him with the best bill of fare, the kindliest governor, and the largest amount 

 of freedom, added to the smallest modicum of work exacted. 144 Most of 

 the workhouses suffered from inadequate classification of inmates, so that one 

 might find able-bodied men, women and children, invalids and idiots, all 

 herded together in a horrible community, in a sort of frowsy comfort of 

 the most repulsive kind. 145 



At Tamworth the master of the workhouse was also the assistant over- 

 seer, vestry clerk, and police constable of the borough, and as there was no 

 select vestry the parishioners of Tamworth seem to have troubled themselves 

 very little as to the examination or audit of the accounts, one of them com- 

 placently remarking that ' they had always given satisfaction.' 146 



But some of the establishments were very well conducted, as at Walsall, 

 where there were in 1833 fifty-three old men and women, and twenty 

 children under ten who went to the national school under the charge of one 

 of the aged paupers. 147 



In Lichfield there were three parishes besides the cathedral close, and a 

 workhouse in each. 148 The governor of the workhouse in the ' Foreign ' of 

 Walsall was also the assistant overseer and farmed the poor under his charge 

 at 3-r. 6d. per head. He admitted with engaging frankness that the contract 

 found him in wine and spirits for his table, and perhaps 20 or 30 besides. 

 His salary as assistant overseer and collector of rates amounted to 120. 

 ' Incidental expenses ' came to 33 14.1. g\d., and overseers' journeys on parish 

 business, such as removing paupers and litigation, amounted to about 40. 

 In this workhouse idiots were allowed to wander freely among the rest of the 

 inmates with dreadful results. 149 



The case of Lichfield Close was interesting and is quoted by the assistant 

 commissioners as an illustration of the evils of the current system under the 

 most unexceptionable management. 



The close was extra-parochial, had its own authorities, maintained its 

 own poor, was exempt from the county rates, and possessed its own work- 

 house. The rates were levied on the occupiers, two hundred inhabitants 

 living in sixty houses. The poor-rate, which in 1816 amounted to 92, had 

 risen in 1832 to 265. 



In 1833 there were in receipt of weekly pay nine women and five men, 

 formerly domestic servants, and ten children. One was an able-bodied man 



141 Rep. on the State of the Poor Laws in Engl. and Waki (1834/1, App. A, pt. i ; Rep. on the Counties of 

 S 'afford and Chester, vol. x, A. 265. 



144 Ibid. 265. ' Ibid. 266. ' Ibid. 271. 



" Ibid. 266. " Ibid. 149 Ibid. 



298 



