A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



The rent or a house at Middleham was conferred on Isaac Primrose, ' a poore scholler at the 

 University of Cambridge, for his education there.'" Mr. Ayckroyd was given ;^io to take him to 

 the University and buy him some clothes. Mr. Wright, scrivener, was to have an increase of salary 

 for teaching the city's poor children.** But the young were not neglected. The three children of 

 Samuel Brown were boarded out, and he was ordered to pay td. weekly for their support, and in 

 case he refused he was to be sent to the house of correction and kept at hard work. 



A pamphlet written by Henry Arth of Wakefield in 1597 gives an interesting glimpse of the 

 poor in his native town." It is improbable that experiments in ' setting the poore on worke ' were 

 conducted in the same lavish manner as they were in York ; still, it is abundantly clear that 

 the town adopted in the main the plans of York, though possibly Wakefield had not initiated the 

 policy, but only followed in the steps of the legislature. At least Henry Arth constantly 

 refers to the action of her Majesty, the Council, and the Government with excessive admiration. He 

 is evidently proud of the system of his own town, 



where there is not onelie a house of correction, accordinge to the Lawe, but withall, certaine 

 stockes of money put forth into honest clothiers handes, who are bounde with good sureties, to set all 

 the able poore to worke, after five pence, or six pence a pound of wool spinning (as they shall deserve) 

 if they will fetch it. 



It does not seem that workhouses had been erected in Wakefield. He strongly advocates a forfeiture 

 of I2d. for every one who absented himself from church. The sum gained by this means, with the 

 amount arising from the Wednesday suppers, would, he maintained, be ' sufficient releefe for the poore 

 in all places.' He is especially hard on the ' breeders of the poor,' as he terms those who commit 

 the sins he enumerates : — 



1. All excessive proude persons in apparell. 



2. The unmeasurable wasters of meate and drinke. 



3. The importable oppression of many landlords. 



4. The unconscionable extortion of all usurers. 



5. The insatiable covetousnesse in come mongers. 



6. The wilfull wrangling in law matters. 



7. The immoderate abuse of gamming in all countreys. 



8. The discharging of servants and apprentices. 



9. The general abuse of all Gods benefites. 



10. The want of execution of good laives and statutes. 



Unfortunately the West Riding Sessions Roll does not bear out the idea that Wakefield was 

 exceptionally good to its poor, for twice in 1597 and 1598 the justices issued warrants against the 

 inhabitants for not paying their poor-rate." 



A graphic illustration of the scandal and horror of the scenes which often took place at the 

 funerals of the great is given in an account of the burial of George, late Earl of Shrewsbury, at 

 Sheffield in 1592 : — 



For these were, by the report of such as served the dole unto them, the number of eight thousand, 

 and they thought that there were almost as many more that could not be served through their unruliness! 

 Yea the press was so great that diverse were slain and many hurt : and further it is reported of credible 

 persons that well estimated the number of all the said beggars that they thought there was about 

 twenty thousand." 



But Sheffield seems to have been exceptionally poverty-stricken, for in 1615, when the population 

 only reached 2,207 people, 725 were paupers.^' 



The West Riding is fortunate in possessing some early Sessions Rolls, 1597-8— 1602 and 

 although at the date of the roll the assessment for the maintenance of the poor had been taken out of 

 the hands of the justices, and placed in those of the parish officials, still cases occur which illustrate 

 the admmistration of the law, because the new method that displaced the system prescribed by the 

 statute 14 El.z. cap. 3 did not at first work smoothly.^ Before 1597 the unit of assessment had 

 been the division, but the new statute made each individual parish answerable for its own poor 

 1 hus the justices, though no longer called upon to assess the poor-rate, had to decide whether the 



H,. "ofEnlttl £4'. aT' "°" " ''°'^"" ^^^''""'^ '^ "• ""■ ' 597' Q-ted in E. M. Leonard, Earl, 

 « West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Arch. Assoc. Rec. Ser. iii) 43 118 



'^^ ? Huitrf^sx!'::^- ^°^^ ^'- ^'' ^°^- '' ■' ^- '''^^^--^'^-' ^--•^. 539. 



" J. Lister, West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Arch. Assoc. Rec. Ser. iii), pp. xxviii-xxxviii. 



472 



