Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume XXV. Statistics relating to England and Wales.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume XXV. Statistics relating to England and Wales. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    99/942 (page 69)
    95. Previous to the year 1C03, the general instructions which had been given by the Poor Law Board or Local Government Board with regard to the classification of the paupers in the compilation of the returns, were embodied in the headings to the columns of the forms of return, in footnotes to those forms and in the footnotes to the form of the Outdoor Relief List contained in the General Order for Accounts, 1867, and difficulty must not infrequently have arisen in determining the particular class under which a pauper should be placed. 96. It would appear that widely different views are taken by Poor Law officials in Varying views regard to the use of the terms. In ten unions (including e.g. Bodmin and Wetherby) no °LP.°?r ^aw men were returned in the Census returns as able-bodied and in others (e.g. Shoreditch term aWe^ and Brighton) all indoor paupers over sixty years of age and all but one or two outdoor bodied. paupers over sixty were classed as not able-bodied. The inmates of the Infirmary belonging to the Birmingham Union who were under sixty years of age were all classed as able-bodied and those over sixty years of age as not able-bodied. The inmates of the infirm wards of the workhouse of the same union were all under sixty years of age and described as able-bodied and of the 1,266 inmates of the other wards who were over sixty years of age all but three were classed as not able-bodied. On the other hand, in some unions several persons over seventy-five years of age and a few even over eighty and eighty- five years of age were classed as able-bodied. Of the total number of male indoor paupers over sixty years of age (excluding casuals and lunatics) in England and Wales, it is found that 2 0 per cent, are described as able-bodied, but in some unions the proportion so described is more than 50 per cent. For instance, in the Poole Union out of forty male indoor paupers over sixty years of age, thirty-three are classed as able-bodied, and in the Llanelly Union twenty-one out of thirty-three are so described. In the large urban union of South Shields eighty-three out of 274 male indoor paupers over sixty, or 303 per cent, are classed as able-bodied. 97. It appears from returns collected by Dr. Downes in 1906, that the practice is almost universal in London workhouses of classifying as able-bodied those persons for whom the No. 1 (male) and No. 3 (female) diets have been prescribed by the Medical Officer, though in some workhouses this principle is adopted in a modified form, e.g., by the omission of persons over sixty although certified for tho No. 1 or 3 diets. In a few workhouses the classification for statistical purposes is wholly independent of the dietary classification. The enquiries made by Dr. Downes show that on 1st January, 1906, the number of men in London workhouses classified as able-bodied in the statistical returns was 3,919, whilst the number on No. 1 and la diets was 3,547. Of these numbers 1,457 or 372 per cent, of the number classified as able-bodied and 41 per cent, of the number on No. 1 and la diets were, in the opinion of the master, fit to do a full day's hard work. Similar returns were again obtained by Dr. Downes on 7th March, 1908, when it appears that, out of 3,861 men on No. 1 or la diets 1,426, or 36'9 per cent, were, in the opinion of the master, fit to do a full day's hard work. This return also shows that 1,998 men were, in the opinion of the master, capable of earning their own living. 98. Reference should also be made to another question which will affect the results ob- Able-bodied tained from the classification according to physical condition. It appears that the Indoor PauPe/s dis- Relief Lists of the Poor Law infirmaries separated from the workhouses do not classify i^oor Relief the inmates under the two heads of able-bodied and not able-bodied, and that in Lists of separate filling up the returns all the inmates were, in many parishes and unions, entered as not infirmaries, able-bodied. This was the case, for instance, in the parish of Fulham, although the Clerk states that some of the inmates of the separate infirmary were undoubtedly only temporarily disabled. It was also the case m many other unions having separate infirm- aries*, and in the total it is found that whilst the separate infirmaries were housing 10,441 * Viz., Hammersmith, Fulham, Chelsea, St. George's, Sc. Marylebone, Islington, Shoreditch, St. George-in- the-East, Kingston, Leicester, Stockport, Liverpool, West Derby, and SaHord. In the separate- infirmaries of these unions there were 5,087 inmates all classed as not able-bodied.