SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



payers could not bear the idea of being restrained in their relief. They 

 thought, with some show of reason, that they were themselves the best judges 

 of people in distress in their own neighbourhood. If the Act of 1834 were 

 enforced, help would have to come through the relieving officer or the board 

 of guardians, or the Poor Law Commissioners. 314 



Moreover, it is certain that the Act of 1834 had, in some instances, been 

 carried out in a way eminently calculated to create prejudice even had it not 

 already existed. In the case, for instance, of the new poor law union of 

 West Hampnett, Lord Egremont, one of the most benevolent of Sussex 

 landowners, was naturally excessively annoyed to find that Up Waltham, where 

 he was sole landowner, and which should naturally have been grouped with his 

 other parishes of Duncton and Petworth, had been added to West Hampnett. 

 The commissioner had in that case, as the witness expressed it, ' made the 

 union with a pair of compasses,' arbitrarily taking Chichester as his centre, 

 with no regard to local interests or prejudices. s16 



Moreover, the county had for many years previously not been at all blind 

 to the need of reform, or negligent in its efforts to effect improvements ; 

 and the methods adopted, if not always successful, were both valuable and 

 interesting as experiments. Lord Abergavenny, for instance, very early 

 attempted to establish allotments at Rotherfield, but here the holdings proved 

 too large and only tended to further pauperization. The ground had been leased 

 at a quit-rent of 5-r. an acre, and the tenant undertook to require no relief 

 from the parish after the expiry of two years from his entering upon 

 occupation. Should this condition not be fulfilled he was to surrender his 

 land again. The tenements, however, were of such a size that the men could 

 not cultivate them in addition to their ordinary labour, and consequently relied 

 upon them for their whole support, and became petty farmers without 

 sufficient capital to succeed. They fell further and further into poverty, and 

 were finally obliged to sell their land to a man from some neighbouring 

 parish, who in his turn became impoverished and came upon the rates. s16 

 The situation became so alarming that on 22 February, 1827, the vestry 

 resolved to object to all grants and admittances, and by 1834 the parish was 

 glad to buy up the allotments as they fell vacant in order to prevent a 

 succession of families becoming pauperized. 



About 1825 William Allen started a yet more elaborate scheme upon 

 the Gravely estate at Lindfield. In the first instance he had established a 

 school of agriculture and industries for boys and girls, where the children 

 were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, gardening, straw-plaiting, tailoring, 

 shoe-making, printing, needlework, spinning, knitting, and other useful trades ; 

 and he had also been the chief promoter of the Lindfield Benevolent Society, 

 whose members undertook to visit the poor in their cottages, and apparently 

 to give help upon a more scientific method than that usually employed by the 

 vestries. Shortly after the starting of this scheme Mr. John Smith, the 

 , member for Chichester City, purchased Gravely an estate of about i oo acres 

 and with the co-operation of Mr. Allen built fourteen cottages, each with 

 not less than i J acres of land attached, and six small farms of 5 or 6 acres apiece. 

 The cottagers were supposed to be able to cultivate their land in addition to 



114 Accts. and Papers, \ 844, x ; Mr. Oliver's evidence. 



815 Ibid. 1844, x ; Rev. T. Sockett's evidence. "' Ibid. 1884-5, 



207 



