Samantha Williams

Earnings, Poor Relief and the Economy of Makeshifts: Bedfordshire in the Early Years of the New Poor Law

It is increasingly recognised by those engaged in the debate concerning the standard of living of workers during industrialisation that all forms of household income need to be assessed, not just male waged work. A more holistic approach also considers women and childrens earnings, poor relief, and the wide range of self-provisioning activities and resources available through the ‘economy of makeshifts’. Over one hundred household budgets of agricultural labourers and their families have been analysed from the Ampthill Union, Bedfordshire, just before and during the implementation of the new poor law in order to further explore and quantify all components to the household income of labouring families in this key transition decade. The article finds that poor relief to families was cut in the wake of the Poor Law Amendment Act. It also finds that the low incomes of families necessitated supplementation through making shift. When the makeshift economy is quantified, it becomes clear that such activities could significantly supplement incomes.

The experience of pregnancy and childbirth for unmarried mothers in London, 1760-1866.

This article explores the experience of pregnancy and childbirth for unmarried mothers in the metropolis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It draws upon, in particular, the infanticide cases heard at the Old Bailey between 1760 and 1866. Many of the women in these records found themselves alone and afraid as they coped with the pregnancy and birth of their first child. A great deal is revealed about the birthing body: the ambiguity surrounding the identification of and signs of pregnancy, labour and delivery, the place of birth and the degree of privacy, and the nature of, and dangers associated with, solitary childbirth.

The Maintenance of Bastard Children in London, 1790–1834

This article examines the dynamics of the maintenance of illegitimate children in London during the protracted ‘crisis’ of the old poor law between the 1790s and the 1830s. This was a period of rapidly rising illegitimacy as well as national, and metropolitan, poor law expenditure. The affiliation system offered parish officials a parallel system by which poor rates could be deflated, but analysis of the 1834 Town Queries reveals that metropolitan parishes could be particularly poor at recovering the costs of chargeable bastards from putative fathers. The article interrogates in detail the workings of the affiliation system in Southwark and Lambeth in terms of the proportion of fathers (and mothers) who paid maintenance for their children, either in lump sums or in weekly allowances, plus the associated costs of childbirth and legal fees, the range of weekly sums, which could be higher than previously thought, and the duration for which they were paid, which could be surprisingly long. The article reveals a complex system, variable at the parochial and regional level, as was the wider old poor law.

‘They lived together as man and wife’: Plebeian cohabitation, illegitimacy, and broken relationships in London, 1700–1840

In the early 1740s John Bell, a brewer, rented a house worth £20 a year in the parish of St Ann Blackfriars where he ‘lived and cohabited together with the said Sarah Bell [alias Morgan] as man and wife’.1 They had a child, also called John Bell. William Dyos, a painter, was a relation of Sarah’s. He lodged with them and was given the honour of being the child’s godfather. He told the petty sessions that he ‘cannot say that the said Sarah Bell, alias Morgan, was ever married to the said John Bell, though she went always by his name and was reputed to be his wife.’2 When both John Bell and Sarah Morgan died, their son John, aged two, came to the attention of the parochial authorities, triggering a settlement examination. There is evidence here of what appears to be a successful cohabiting relationship that only came to an end (and the details before the Justices of the Peace) with the untimely death of both parents.

‘I was Forced to Leave my Place to Hide my Shame’: The Living Arrangements of Unmarried Mothers in London in the Early Nineteenth Century

In November 1814, when she was working in a South Lambeth household as a servant of all work, Alice King became acquainted, while walking in the street, with Richard Hains, a sailor on the Trabella of Hull. They decided to meet on their days off, once a month. In March he seduced her in a ‘strange house’ near Westminster Bridge. She saw him two months later but did not mention the pregnancy and she never saw him again, despite writing to him when his ship was in dock. When her employer Mr Tooch discovered she was pregnant, he ‘told his Wife and desided her to turn her away’. Alice was forced to leave both her place of work and her residence. She moved into lodgings in Blackfriars Road and was delivered of a baby boy in Westminster Lying-in Hospital. Alice managed to find herself a new position and put her child out to nurse. By contrast, in January 1816 another woman, Mary Ann Jackson, chose to conceal her pregnancy from her master and mistress for fear of losing her residence. She did so with the help of an old friend, Mrs Gregory, who hearing of her Misfortune contrived the Scheme of her Journey to Ireland to deceive Mr & Mrs Morris — She allowed Petitioner to live in her House for Seven or Eight months and also to be delivered there — Petitioner had saved some money in her Services — with which and the help of a few Compassionate friends she maintained herself while she returned to her services.

Introduction: Illegitimacy in London

This chapter sets out the context of unmarried parenthood in London between 1700 and 1850. Illegitimacy levels rose throughout the period and only started to decline after the mid-nineteenth century. Williams explores the explanations given by historians to explain illegitimacy and to account for this rise, as well as the legal context of illegitimacy and the framework of the bastardy laws from 1576. The chapter describes the specific nature of illegitimacy in London. Finally, the chapter justifies the sources used for the research and the themes explored throughout the book. The study aims to explore the making of metropolitan bastardy and the experience of unmarried motherhood.

Pregnant and Birthing Bodies

Being an unmarried mother was an embodied gendered experience that started with sexual intercourse and continued to pregnancy, childbirth, and lying-in. This chapter starts by exploring courtship and sexual relationships in London, 1700–1850. Unmarried women would have dreaded to have discovered that they were pregnant, although understandings of pregnancy were slippery and flexible. Williams explores the place of delivery—from the streets and fields, to lodgings and the homes of friends and family, to the new lying-in hospitals and workhouses. The chapter considers whether unmarried mothers had access to the ‘ceremony of childbirth’ enjoyed by married women.

The First Century of Welfare: Poverty and Poor Relief in Lancashire, 1620–1730

Chapter 2 explores the tensions that were produced by the attempts of the norwich Corporation to manage and control the public spaces of the city. this engaged its leaders ‘in an unwinnable battle’ (p. 11), with their ideal of a clean, healthy city, with no visible evidence of poverty, being fundamentally at odds with the harsh realities of urban life. But this was not, as Williamson emphasizes, ‘all about the maintenance of political or cultural superiority by one group over another’ (p. 91); it was also a response to a rise in population and increased competition over land and resources. one apparent tension that is not explored, however, is that within the policies of the corporation itself: to what extent, for example, did the badging and public punishment of the poor actually make them a more visible presence within city life? the themes of the remaining chapters are the more standard fare of current urban studies: stranger communities; gender; and popular politics. norwich had one of the largest immigrant populations in England outside of london, accounting for at least one-third of its inhabitants in 1600, the vast majority of them from the low Countries. often living and working in distinct areas of the city and worshipping in their own churches, Williamson nonetheless argues that they were ‘a community within a community’ (p. 124), with integration, discrimination and self-segregation all shaping their identity. the chapter on gender concludes that there was no clear ‘gendered’ map of norwich relating to public and private space, and that the different experiences of men and women could be as much about personal circumstances and social standing as they were about gender. in an interesting examination of gender within alehouses, Williamson provides evidence that the authorities viewed male drunkenness more seriously, on the grounds that it undermined domestic order, but seemingly goes on to contradict this by arguing that ‘female customers may have had to be more aware of their actions’ (p. 159). the final chapter maps the ‘landscape of popular politics’ (p. 14) in norwich, investigating the political meaning associated with specific spaces within the city. this focuses almost entirely on drinking houses and the market, areas where (readers will be unsurprised to learn) people from across the social spectrum gathered together, interacted and exchanged news, and, as a result, the political association with such spaces seems entirely predictable. Williamson makes the valid point that her book offers a counterpoise in a field dominated by studies of london and there are a small number of instances when she emphasizes interesting contrasts between norwich and the capital (pp. 109, 128–9). these could have been explored in greater depth, and comparisons with the experiences in other urban centres might also have been made. indeed, in place of a rather passé comparison of the norwich of yesterday and today, a more forceful conclusion would have assessed what this scholarly and well written study contributes to our overall knowledge of the relationship between early modern cities and their inhabitants.