SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Sussex Association for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes. 3 " 

 Their object, as stated in their first quarterly report, was to obtain correct 

 information as to the condition of the labourer in different parts of Sussex, 

 and details of experiments tried in other parts of the kingdom, and through 

 their secretary to give advice and to promote allotments and other improve- 

 ments. They were of opinion that the prevalent distress was not so much 

 due to the superfluity of the population as to the misapplication of methods of 

 agriculture. They were opposed to the system of giving out-door relief to 

 able-bodied labourers, and cited the instance of Hellingly, where 360 was 

 spent in 1830 on setting the unemployed to work upon labour which was 

 almost entirely unproductive, and which tended to lower the rate of wages 

 and to transfer part of the farmer's capital from its natural course the 

 employment of free labour to the payment of compulsory and unproduc- 

 tive work. 



The absolute necessity of taking some measures must have been clear to 

 anyone who perused the Poor Law returns of 1834. In the parish of Battle 

 the expenditure on relief in 1803 was 1,708, in 1813 it was 3,280, and in 

 1821 4,001, and although by 1831 it had fallen to 2,325, it was still said that 

 all the labouring population was out of work for four months in the year, and 

 from thirty to eighty persons for the other eight months. Of these, some 

 were billeted upon the tradespeople, and others employed by the parish in 

 spade-husbandry or stone-breaking. In Rottingdean, on the other hand, 

 there was no unemployment, and the expenses of relief had fallen by 1831 as 

 low as 5^. 6d. per head of the population (the total expense being 245), but 

 this was an exceptional case, and though in practically every instance the pro- 

 portion of the rates to the population was considerably less in 1831 than it 

 had been in 1813, and in most cases less than in 1821, yet in many parishes 

 the expenses still exceeded i per head of the inhabitants, and the total 

 figures ran into thousands. 322 The prevalent wage of the agricultural labourer 

 throughout the county at this time was I2s. a week. In Eastbourne the 

 single man only received 8j. a week, while the married man earned 1 2s. and 

 is. Afd. for each child in addition ; in Hamsey, Weston, and Lewes an efficient 

 worker might earn as much as 1 5-f. a week in summer, and in Meeching 

 the usual rate of wages was 14^. In the hop districts of East Sussex women 

 were extensively employed in the hop-fields, but elsewhere their labour was 

 not in great demand except for occasional harvesting or weeding. S2S 



In spite of the Act of 1834, and of all efforts to improve matters locally, 

 very little was accomplished before the middle of the nineteenth century. All 

 but three of the Gilbert incorporations were indeed dissolved before 1844, 

 and into those that continued their existence some of the new ideas filtered ; 

 thus the guardians of the Sutton incorporation made an effort after the passing 

 of the Act to do away with the system of giving the able-bodied relief in 

 bread according to the number of their children ; but ' the poor men came 

 and represented their cases as very distressing,' and the guardian was directed 

 to continue as before, though a stipulation was made that no one who had 



321 Quarterly Rep. of Suss. ASM. for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes, i. Amongst the first 

 members were H.R.H. the duke of Suffolk, the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Chichester, the earl of Sheffield, 

 Viscount Gage, and the earl of Surrey. 



3 " Accts. and Papers, 1834, xxx. 3JI Ibid. 



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