SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



hand teaching the poor to spin jersey and ' other suchlike labours.' Alderman Dickenson was 

 allowed to take over the whole business, to pay to the mayor and commonalty forty marks, the city 

 undertaking the loss of the ^^105. As the court were very desirous ' to show furtherance ' to 

 Alderman Dickenson, he was allowed half St. George's House, where the looms were, to carry on 

 his trade until the following May Day, the other half being used as a house of correction and 

 workhouse.^' 



It was considered that the doles given at funerals drew the poor from the neighbouring 

 villages into the city, and often away from their labour. The lord mayor and justices very wisely 

 decided that the custom should be abolished, but that the benevolent should be moved to send 

 contributions to the hospitals, churchwardens, and overseers.^" Apparently the relations of the 

 deceased did not respond generously to this request ; they reaped the advantage of quieter and more 

 decorous burials, but showed no inclination to express their gratitude in a practical form. In 1630 

 the court devised a plan for relieving the poor without the riotous scenes that used to disturb 

 the fimerals : 



And now it is ordered that my Lord Maior forthwith after the death of any within this citty 

 shall send the overseers for the poore within the same parish to demand of the frends of the dead 

 person some money to be distributed to the poor, which if they refuse to doo, then the poore to be 

 sett at liberty to go to the funerall to begg relief." 



In 1629 the two chamberlains of the city also had taken a very sensible step. It had been an 

 immemorial custom for them to make a feast three times a year, at Easter, Whitsuntide, and 

 Christmas, to the lord mayor and aldermen. They proposed in the future to pay an offering of 

 20J. each to the poor in lieu of the feasting. The olFer was accepted.'^ The example of the 

 chamberlains was followed in 1 65 1 by the sheri£Fs of the city, who offered to pay ^^50 each for the 

 use of the poor ; in return, the mayor, aldermen, four-and-twenty, and commons, were to forgo 

 all invitations and feasts from them.'' 



In 1632 another attempt was made to introduce a new manufacture into the city, in order 

 that the York poor should have an additional outlet for their energies. Mr. Alderman Hemsworth and 

 Mr. Sheriff Brooke offered, ' of their owne accord,' to ride to Kendal to see if they could induce a 

 fit man to come to the city to make Kendal cloth, so that the poor ' may be sett on wprk.' A 

 new method of providing material for the poor to work up was adopted ; in each ward a man was 

 appointed to whom ;^io was entrusted with which he was to buy material.'* But the year 1632 

 was one of peculiar prosperity, and the poor relief was abated by one-fourth part. A clause, 

 however, was annexed to this enactment, by which anyone found harbouring foreigners or under- 

 setters should forfeit his abatement. 



New spinning-wheels and cards were bought for all the hospitals, as also an additional loom 

 for the weaving of such broad hangings as were already made there.'' In 1634 Wentworth, as 

 Lord President, wrote to exhort the lord mayor and aldermen to do their duty in taking care of the 

 poor of the city. The civic officials replied in a somewhat self-righteous manner, and gave a risumi 

 of the satisfactory work they had accomplished in the last few years." 



The widows in St. Thomas's Hospital complained to the court that Isabel Denis and Marie 

 Bainbridge ' were lewd women given to drunkenesse and have abused those widdowes and breed 

 mutch disquietnesse in the said hospitall by their scowlding and other wicked corses.' The court 

 sentenced the delinquents to have ' their neck set severally in the Iron in the thew,' before the door 

 of the hospital.'^ 



By 1655 a more humane treatment of the refractory pauper had become established. In the 

 instructions drawn up for a committee of twelve appointed to superintend the employment of the 

 poor, the most serious punishment even suggested for those that refused to work was that they 

 should receive ' noe warde money or allowance from the citty until they conforme and work ' ; '* the 

 lash, which half a century earlier was constantly resorted to, had passed out of the category of 

 possible punishments for idleness." 



Little was done after the Restoration to provide work for the unemployed, but a step in the 

 direction of providing for the orphans of the city was taken in 1669. The free school at Sherburn 

 had figured frequently in the city records. Many York youths had been sent there, and the 

 corporation decided it would be better to erect a house at Sherburn with ' a kitching and a chamber 

 for the poor orphants of this cittye that learnes at Sherburn.' *° 



" York Munic. Rec. fol. 295a, 10 Nov. 1620. '" Ibid. fol. 64c, 7 July 161 5. 



" Ibid. XXXV, fol. <)%a, 17 Feb. 1630. " Ibid. fol. Soa, 22 Mar. 1629. 



'' Ibid, xxxvii, fol. 23^, 15 Oct. 1651. " Ibid, xxxv, fol. 168a, 8 May 1632. 



'* Ibid. fol. 183, 29 Oct. 1632. '^ Ibid. fol. 247^2, 15 Sept. 1634. 



" Ibid, xxxvi, fol. 158^, 11 Oct. 1645. ^ Ibid. fol. 8l/5, 5 Mar. 1655. 



'' Ibid, xxxii, fol. 97tf, 13 June 1600. *" Ibid, xxxviii, fol. 50^, 16 May 1669. 



