Interesting post on Dick Eastman’s reliable genealogy blog…
Findmypast.co.uk are one of the main partners in this project. In my post about their digitising and indexing of the Chelsea Pensioner records, I made the point that Findmypast could have provided more data in the index to more easily locate matches.
In the land of so many Thomas, Davies and Jones the new index must be more efficient to search.
This the third and final post assessing the value of surviving Poor Law records for both local and family historians.
Poor Law Correspondence Files
This is an extensive collection of documents held at The National Archives (TNA) recently brought to light by an equally extensive digitisation project. Unfortunately the Narberth Union files were not covered by the project. While the documents do contain rich pickings for family historians, searching them is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack – without knowing if the needle is there in the first place! For local historians with an interest in social conditions, these files are an important source. Going through the entire collection takes up to 3 days and, if you undertake this task, do not wear clean clothes!
There is a good description of the contents of these files on TNA’s web site but in, simple terms, they contain letters and reports sent to the Poor Law Commissioners in London together with notes of their actions and letter out. The commissioners’ role was to oversee the management of the Poor Law by the local unions throughout the country. Several of the local “great and the good”, recognising the importance of this role to influence local actions, frequently wrote to them to lobby on behalf of various local inhabitants where they perceived a wrongdoing by the local guardians. Rev Richard Buckby and James Mark Child, both JPs from Begelly, were frequent correspondents. Their letters, recorded in the TNA’s files, provide rich material about life in the Saundersfoot area from the 1834 to the end of the century.
For example, in 1846, Child wrote a letter on behalf of Jeremiah Phillips, a collier from Begelly, stating that he had had to give Phillips money out of his pocket to ensure he and his wife didn’t starve. Phillips was suffering from asthma and his wife crippled by rheumatism. Child asked why the guardians weren’t doing more for Phillips and his wife. The Narberth Union board’s response, again recorded in the files, rebutted Child’s complaint stating that they currently paid Phillips 4s a week and had received no complaints from Phillips himself that this was insufficient.
A second example comes from a short series of letters investigating the death of Emma Jenkins in 1846 at Kingsmoor, St Issells. One of the letters describes Jenkins’ diet in the last year of her life as salted meat, cabbage and potatoes for lunch and, in the evening, a cup of tea with bread and butter.
Much of the correspondence concerns the administration of the Poor Law in the locality. With so much money going through the system the opportunity for fraud was rife, something the commissioners attempted to keep an eye on by ensuring that effective auditing was carried out. For example, Lewis Nash, assistant overseer in St Issells, was investigated in 1849 for the embezzlement of £59 from the parish fund, a large sum of money for someone of his background. One of the letters described him as “wholly unfit to be appointed to such an office” and stated that the St Issells vestry had not taken out the correct sureties to cover such an eventuality.
Sources
The National Archives, Narberth Union Poor Law Correspondence Files
An interesting source for the study of Welsh history** before 1830 are the Court of Great Sessions records held at the National Library of Wales (NLW). From 1543 until 1830 Wales had its own legal jurisdiction covering criminal, civil and Chancery cases. It’s the criminal side this post concentrates on.
"Hillside", Begelly (early 1990s); scene of inquest into death of William John in 1792
The Court’s criminal jurisdiction was similar to that of the Assize courts in England. Using the surviving records it’s possible to analyse the history of crime in Wales and, to help local and family historians get started, NLW has created an on-line database of cases heard in Wales between 1730 and 1830. One of the classes of documents referenced on the database are coroners’ reports. According to Parry, the coroner was “obliged by statute to go the place where any person was found slain or suddenly dead and was required by to summon a jury of local men to view the body…and to examine witnesses and suspects…”
It appears, from comparing another source, that all coroners’ reports have survived for the local mining parishes around Saundersfoot for the period between 1786 and 1820. Thereafter until the abolition of the Court in 1830, the survival rate is about half.***
What do these reports contain? The various coroners were not consistent in the information they recorded. In the late 1700s the then coroner was particular about recording all the types of data shown in the following table. His successor in the early 1800s was less so.
Types of Data Recorded by Pembrokeshire Coroners, 1786-1830 |
||
| Always Included | Sometimes Included | |
| Deceased’s details |
|
|
| Venue of inquest |
|
|
| Jury |
|
|
| Circumstances of death |
|
|
I have posted a list of coroners’ reports for the local mining parishes (including Amroth, Jeffreyston and Loveston) for the 1786-1830 period. The list includes the circumstances of death, the name of the deceased and the parish where the inquest was held. There is obvious value in this data for family historians. For example, anyone researching the Ollin mining family from around Wooden will find their ancestor, John Ollin, in the list. He died in a mining accident in St Issells in 1828.
For local historians the value is equally obvious. I used this source in a previous post to describe the problem of uncapped pits in the area. Among the many industrial-related accidents, several men fell from wagons moving coal to, and also on, Saundersfoot beach for shipping. With a long shoreline it is no surprise that others drowned in the sea walking along the coast or in boating accidents. These records provide a few snippets of their history.
Notes
** excluding Monmouthshire
*** I will post the records for the period 1732-1785 in due course
Source
A Guide to the Records of the Court of Great Sessions in Wales, Glyn Parry, National Library of Wales, 1995
What I’d originally intended to be a two-part post on Poor Law records will now be in three parts. This is the second and it assesses two further sources.
Records of Narberth Union Board of Guardians
Other than the Abstracts described in the previous post, only a small part of the Union’s records has survived. The minutes of meetings are extant for parts of the period from 1834 to 1900. For local historians they provide an indispensable record of the decisions of this important group of men as the local newspapers’ coverage of these meetings is at best sparse. For example the minutes record the contributions of each parish to the Union to cover the costs of providing relief so it should be possible to track the peaks and troughs of the local economy from these data. It is also possible to assess the response of the guardians to emergencies such as the 1849 cholera outbreak.
For family historians there are some scraps to chew on as, particularly in the early minute books, there are references to cases of individual paupers. For example, in 1838 the Union agreed to cover the cost of the funeral of Philip Walters, aged 54 of St Issells, as his family had no money to bury him if the Union didn’t. In 1870 the minutes record that the Union clerk had to write to Richard Hare of St Issells requesting a contribution of 5s a week towards the maintenance of his son in the Joint Lunatic Asylum.
The most consistent entries in the minutes record the grant by the Union’s medical officers of certificates to people suffering from illness or accident and who needed relief to help them stave off destitution. The case of Zachariah Harries (collier of Begelly and later St Issells) is a good example as he is listed at least 9 times over a 20-year period receiving certificates for typhus, smallpox, typhoid fever and lastly a bad kick to his knee. He did well to survive all those!
Parish Records
Again only a small portion of the parish poor law records have survived and that only for Begelly. These include the following:
The most interesting to me, at least, is the first of these as it lists various inhabitants who were exempted in the 1840s from paying poor rate due to their own poverty, my ggg-gfather, William Nash and his mother being two of them. Another entry covers the agreement of the parish to pay 4s a week to the guardians in Liscard in Cheshire to support Elizabeth Lewis and her 4 children – formerly landlady of the Begelly Arms.
The Poor Rate Assessment also has a specific use. If you have looked in vain on the Begelly tithe award and map for your ancestors in the early 1840s, check the Assessment as it records all inhabitants in the parish, not just landowners and tenants. Because it uses the field numbering system established in the tithe award to locate each individual it is possible to track the habitation of each head of household using the Assessment. Using this I was able to find the places where William Nash and his mother lived.
Notes
If you are unfamiliar with the history of the Poor Law in England and Wales, take a look at Peter Higginbotham’s excellent site, workhouses.org.uk. It is a real treasure trove of information including modern pictures of the former Narberth workhouse buildings.
Sources
Pembrokeshire Record Office, Narberth Union Board of Guardians minutes (cat ref SPU/NA/2-4)
Pembrokeshire Record Office, Begelly Poor Law Records (cat ref HPR/110/15-18)
