| Description | Birmingham Union initially had a Board made up of 108 elected Guardians, which was in turn divided into 12 separate committees. Under the terms of the 1783 Act, each committee was to consist of not less than nine Guardians and was to meet on a specific day each week, every committee taking its turn until 'the whole of the Guardians shall have gone through a regular course of attendance upon such committees.' In practice, this meant that the first committee of Birmingham Guardians met weekly for one month, before handing over to the second committee, which would repeat the process, and so on until all twelve committees had met. From the evidence of the Board minutes, this system continued until April 1786, from which point no distinction is made between the twelve committees. Rather than referring to each meeting as 'the first meeting of the first committee, the second meeting of the first committee' and so forth, they are simply called the weekly or monthly meeting of the Guardians (see GP B/2/1/1).
The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act appears to have had no real effect on the number of Guardians or the way in which they were elected, although the Guardians at the time vigorously opposed it. The city continued to have 108 Guardians, each of them elected by the rate payers within the Union and each serving a term of three years. Following the amalgamation of the Birmingham, Aston and King's Norton Unions in 1912, the number of Guardians for the new single Union was reduced to 52.
The Board's main function was to decide upon all applications for poor relief and to take the necessary measures to carry out such decisions. Along with this role, the Guardians exercised constant supervision over the administration of the relief system, and in doing so were responsible for the appointment of paid officers to carry out the work of the Union.
The volumes contain details on those Guardians present at each meeting, the appointment of paid officials within the Union, the formation of new committees by the Board, with responsibility for the various aspects of poor relief administration and their reports to the Board of Guardians, the discussion of other business relating to the Union, e.g. the income and expenditure of the workhouse and levels of outdoor relief, and occasional references to individual inmates.
From 1912 onwards, following the amalgamation of the Birmingham, Aston and King's Norton Unions, volumes GP B/2/1/81-98 are labelled 'Clerk's Copy'. Rather than hand-written minutes, these volumes are printed and indexed. Volumes GP B/2/1/99-116 are identical to GP B/2/1/81-98, but are instead labelled 'Official Copy'. As well as being printed and indexed, these copies of the minutes are signed by the Chairman of the Board of Guardians. Further duplicate printed copies of these minutes (un-signed) which are identical to GP B/2/1/99-116 were formerly shelved at L41.1 and have been removed from the Local Studies stack and added to this catalogue as GP B/2/1/99a-116a. Volumes GP B/2/1/1-80 are not indexed. |