Frank Neal

Black '47: Britain and the Famine Irish

Preface and Acknowledgements - List of Figures and Tables - List of Appendices - Glossary of Abbreviations used in the text - Introduction - The Urban Environment and Pre-famine Irish Settlements - Escape - Arrival - Liverpool and the Irish Fever - Glasgow, South Wales and the Irish Fever - Survival and Dispersal - Removal - The Cost of the Famine Immigration - Postscript - Bibliography - Index

Child-stripping in the Victorian city

During the nineteenth century, police, magistrates, reformers and the press noticed a rising tide of juvenile crime. Child-stripping, the crime of stealing young childrens clothes by force or deception, was an activity of this type which caused alarm among contemporaries. As the century progressed, improved policing, urbanization and Irish migration, allied to growing social concern, caused more cases of child-stripping to be noticed. Accounts by Dickens, Mayhew and others characterized child-stripping as an activity indulged in by old women who were able to make money by victimizing the weakest strata of society. However, research in the British Librarys digitized newspaper collections as well as in parliamentary papers conclusively demonstrates that child-stripping, far from being the domain of Dickensian crones, was actually perpetrated by older children, notably girls, against children even younger than themselves. Despite widespread revulsion, which at times approached a ‘moral panic’ prompted by the nature of the crime, progressive attitudes largely prevailed with most child-stripping children being sent to reformatories or industrial schools in the hope of reforming their behaviour. This article thus conforms with Foucauldian notions of the switch from physical to mental punishments and aligns with the Victorians’ invention of children as a category of humanity that could be saved.

Liverpool, the Irish steamship companies and the famine Irish 1

This article is concerned with the conditions under which Irish immigrants were carried from Irish ports to Liverpool during, and immediately after, the famine years of 1845–49. The scale of the traffic and the exploitation of the immigrants by the steamship companies is analysed while particular attention is paid to the use by the authorities in Liverpool of the law regarding the removal of paupers back to Ireland. Attention is also drawn to the fact that despite public scandal and the existence of legislation to regulate passenger conditions, the political will to enforce it did not exist during the period under review. The suffering and the concern of governments is seen as part of the universal immigrant experience, both then and since.

Survival and Dispersal

For a large proportion of the Irish refugees, life in the ports of arrival was chaotic, bewildering and extremely harsh. The primary objective of many was to move on as soon as possible to those places inland where they hoped to find family, friends and work. By 1847, Liverpool was linked to its industrial hinterland by roads, canals and railways. Cardiff, Swansea and Newport were gateways to the developing industrial towns of South Wales, Merthyr Tydfil being a particular attraction for some Irish. In addition many were en route to the English industrial midlands and London and in such cases, Chepstow and Gloucester became stopping of f places. The industrial and textile towns of the west of Scotland lay behind Glasgow while the route south east would take trampers to the mines, ironworks and docks of Northumberland and Durham. However, more popular ports of entry for those Irish going to the north east of England were Whitehaven and Maryport. London absorbed its own Irish arrivals. The majority of the faniine Irish walked to their destinations and groups of ragged, famished, ill-looking Irish became familiar sights to travellers on the roads radiating out from the western ports.1

A Statistical Profile of the Irish Community in Gateshead – The Evidence of the 1851 Census

By the mid-nineteenth century, the north east of England was home to the fourth largest Irish settlement in England. The 1851 census makes it possible to identify key features of this post-famine community and provides a basis for the exploration of non-quantitative sources. The Gateshead Irish community was the third largest in the north east, behind Newcastle and Sunderland. The census data can establish such key features as the spatial distribution of the Gateshead Irish, their occupational profile, age distribution, household size, marital status and the extent of intermarriage between the Irish and the host community. It will be shown that the concept of the ghetto does not apply to the Irish; that they were overwhelmingly employed in unskilled work; that they were, in general, older than the host community; and that there were a significant number of cases of intermarriage between the Irish and English.

Glasgow, South Wales and the Irish Fever

Turning to other ports of entry, Glasgow has the most obvious parallels with Liverpool with respect to the typhus outbreak of 1847. The main difference was that the Scottish Poor Law provision for medical assistance to the poor was not the same as in England. Indeed, the new Scottish poor law introduced in 1845 did not impose a uniform pattern of provision on Scottish parishes and so generalisations are difficult to make. Specifically, Glasgow city did not have a workhouse with a medical ward as did Liverpool and also did not have a full-time medical of ficer of health. However, like English poor law authorities, Glasgow Parochial Board and the Boards of its suburbs all paid subscriptions to charitable institutions, in return for which poor people could be sent for medical treatment.’ The situation in pre-famine Glasgow with regard to charitable institutions is shown in Table 6.1 below.

The Urban Environment and Pre-famine Irish Settlements

From 1815 onwards, the Irish presence in Britain was increasingly the subject of comment. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Irish in Britain had a bad press. The epithets heaped on their heads usually included ‘dirty’, ‘filthy’, ‘violent’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘ungrateful’. Just as frequently, the character of the Irish, their moral fibre and lifestyle, was subject to critical analysis in column inches of the London and provincial press. The contrast with the comment, or lack of comment, on the Welsh and Scots living in English towns is startling. The modern reader could be forgiven for concluding that between all the Irish poor and the English poor generally there existed a yawning gap in both living conditions and moral fibre. Such a conclusion would be false and the validity or otherwise of the attacks on the Irish character and lifestyle must be judged, in part, on the basis of the urban environment in which a large proportion of the Irish immigrants were forced to live.’ Any immigrants arriving in a new country, devoid of economic resources, are forced into those sectors of the labour market in which there are no barriers to entry and, by definition, these are the lowest paid jobs. However, low pay was not the only factor bearing down on the poor in Victorian Britain; the casual nature of much employment meant that earnings per week were such that millions of people were always on the margin of destitution over the whole of the period under review, and beyond.2

The Cost of the Famine Immigration

Clearly, the term ‘cost’ can have various connotations. Importantly, with regard to the famine immigration, there was the cost to the recipient towns of social disruption, deteriorating housing conditions and, in many instances in the north of England, bad inter-communal relations. Such social costs are difficult, though not impossible, to assess. A relatively easy cost to measure is the financial cost of providing relief and medical aid. The issue to be addressed in this chapter is that of the financial cost of the famine immigration to those British towns receiving the refugees. In particular, how large was that cost? What was the incidence of the taxation or, in other words, who paid? Did the cost have a deleterious effect on business? However, before attempting such analysis, the perceptions regarding such matters on the part of contemporary observers and administrators will first be established in order to see if their fears matched the reality. This is important because the resentment over perceived financial burdens influenced attitudes towards the Irish refugees. Then in section III we examine the levels of expenditure on the relief of the Irish in particular towns and the cost of the famine Irish in particular. The expenditure, as a rate per pound is then estimated in section IV. We conclude with an assessement of the effects of this tax burden.

Liverpool and the Irish Fever

As tragic as the deaths from starvation were, they were eclipsed, both in numbers and scale of suffering, by the consequences of the typhus epidemic of 1847. The problems that typhus posed for the authorities in Britain, particularly in the ports of arrival, far exceeded those arising from the economics and mechanics of paying outdoor poor relief. Whatever fears the ratepayers had concerning the financial consequences of the famine immigration, they soon took second place to the fear of death from what became universally known during 1847 as ‘Irish fever’. Throughout urban Britain, poor law guardians struggled with the problems of finding extra hospital beds, doctors, nurses, coffins and graves.