| Ref No | GP B |
| Title | Birmingham Poor Law Union |
| Level | Collection |
| Date | 18th cent. - 20th cent. |
| Description | Please note this collection contains discriminatory, inaccurate and outdated language which may cause offence.
The only surviving records for Birmingham Union are those of the Guardians themselves, and the administrative structure which was used to run the Union. The collection includes no admission or discharge registers, and few other records relating to the inmates themselves have survived (the best extant sources being) :
GP B/3/5 : Non-resident Poor Ledger, 1824-1848
GP B/3/6 : Non-settled Poor Ledger, 1845-1861
GP B/11/1 : Apprenticeship Indentures, 1869-1889
GP B/11/2 : Papers concerning emigration of pauper children, 1898-1911
GP B/11/3 : Relief (School Children Order), 1905
GP B/12/1: Orders of removal from Birmingham and other parishes, 1823-1827
GP B/12/2 : Public Assistance Department Register of Ordinary Cases Settlement No.7, c.1934-1935
GP B/19/1/1 Highbury Home Inmates Referral Book, 1933-1948
GP B/19/2/1 Quinton Hall, In-mates Referral Book, 1938-1948
GP B/25/1/1 Poor Law Relief Application No.3 District, 1842
GP B/25/2/1 Out-door, receipt and expenditure book, 1899-1903
GP B/29/2 Vaccinator's Register No.10 District St. Martin's, 1924-1928
GP B/29/3 Vaccination registers, Kings Norton, 1912-1922
GP B/29/4 Vaccination registers, Edgbaston, 1912-1922
GP B/29/5 Vaccination registers, Smethwick, 1912-1922
GP B/29/6 Vaccination registers, monthly lists of deaths, 1912
GP B/29/7 Edgbaston, monthly lists of deaths, 1912
GP B/29/8 Smethwick, monthly lists of deaths, 1912-1923
GP B/29/9 Monthly lists of deaths, 1913-1918 (Birmingham, Kings Norton, Smethwick and Edgbaston district)
GP B/29/10 Monthly lists of deaths, Smethwick, Kings Norton and Edgbaston, 1920-1921
See also HC SM/6, baptism registers of Birmingham Workhouse, Birmingham Infirmary and Summerfield Hospital) 1864 - 1962.
According to an article in the 'Midland Ancestor' Vol. 9, No. 8, p. 319 by Dr Robert J. Hetherington, the following records were destroyed when the Western Road buildings were demolished: Admission 'ledgers', 1900-1948; Creed register from c1889; and baptism registers from the Workhouse chapel from 1841.
The majority of the collection is made up of committee minutes which, although they do contain occasional references to individual paupers, are a very wayward source of information regarding life in the workhouse.
The records have been organised in accordance with the classification system set out in the introduction to Somerset County Record Office's Handlist of the Records of the Boards of Guardians in the County of Somerset. The collection is divided between those Union officials responsible for the records' custody or compilation; in Birmingham's case, the majority fall under the remit of the union clerk. This system helps to reflect the administrative structure of the Union, with the collection beginning with the records of the central government authority which relate to the Birmingham Board of Guardians, before moving on to the committee minutes. There is a much larger number of committees in the Birmingham Union collection than in either Aston or Kings Norton, and because of this they have been sub-divided into separate categories which deal with the various functions of the Poor Law Union, including the workhouses, the infirmaries and hospitals, the children's homes, and so on. Within each category, the minutes for each committee and sub-committee are arranged according to their relative importance to that function, with the most important committees coming first, followed by the lesser, and often only temporary sub-committees. The minutes have further been divided according to their date, with those coming before the 1912 amalgamation of the Aston, Birmingham and King's Norton Unions being separated from those dated after that year.
After the minutes, the list details those records that were the responsibility of other members of the Union's staff, namely the workhouse master and the relieving officer, before detailing those records that were concerned with the Guardians' non-poor law duties - in Birmingham's case, the vaccination of children against smallpox, and the assessment of the poor rate. |
| Extent | 11.5 |
| Format | Cubic metres |
| Related Material | For records of Dudley Road Hospital see HC DR.
For records of Summerfield Hospital see HC SM. This collection includes baptism registers, 1864-1962, and creed registers, 1922-1970.
For records of Marston Green Cottage Homes see BCC/10/BCH/1; for records of Shenley Fields Cottage Homes see BCC/10/BCH/2; for records of Erdington Cottage Homes see BCC/10/BCH/3.
For additional records relating to the management of the Public Assistance Institution after 1930 see BCC/1/CD, records of Birmingham City Council Public Assistance Committee.
For additional records relating to the post-1948 management of Summerfield Hospital see MS 702, records of the West Birmingham Hospital Management Committee.
See also HC AS/12/1, Workhouse casebook of Thomas Green (visiting surgeon with responsibility for 'lunatic' branch of work house infirmary' male and female patients, 1854-1850. |
| Access Status | Partially closed (Content) |
| AccessConditions | Records containing sensitive information about individuals are closed for 100 years from the date of the last entry. Please see item level records for details. |
| Arrangement | The records of the Union are arranged as follows:
CLERK TO THE GUARDIANS
GP B/1 The Board and its Officers
GP B/1/1 Local Government Board Orders, 1837-1912
GP B/1/2 Correspondence, 1870-1912
GP B/1/3 Certificates of Appointment, 1895-1910
GP B/1/4 Agendas, 1903-1906
GP B/2 Committee Minutes
GP B/2/1 Board of Guardians, 1783-1930
GP B/2/2 Finance committees
GP B/2/2/1 Auditing Committee, 1817-1881
GP B/2/2/2 Finance Committee, 1847-1930
GP B/2/3 House committees
GP B/2/3/1 House Committee, 1842-1848
GP B/2/3/2 Workhouse Management Committee, 1887-1912
GP B/2/3/3 House Sub-Committee, 1868-1910
GP B/2/3/3 House Yard Committee, 1868
GP B/2/3/5 Labour Relief Committee, 1868-1879
GP B/2/3/6 Branch Workhouse Committee, 1879-1884
GP B/2/3/7 Test House Sub-Committee, 1884-1889
GP B/2/3/8 Test Wards Sub-Committee, 1894-1896
GP B/2/3/9 Able-Bodied Women's Sub-Committee, 1868-1869
GP B/2/3/10 Oakum Room Sub-Committee, 1869-1872
GP B/2/3/11 Workhouse Enquiry Sub-Committee Report, 1877
GP B/2/3/12 Workhouse Building Sub-Committee, 1877-1880
GP B/2/3/13 Appointment of Officers to the Workhouse Sub-Committee, 1880-1881
GP B/2/3/14 House committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/3/15 Western Road House Sub-Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/3/16 Western Road Revision Committee, 1912-1927
GP B/2/3/17 Erdington House Sub-Minutes, 1912-1930
GP B/2/3/18 Erdington House Revision Committee, 1914
GP B/2/3/19 Selly Oak House Sub Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/4 Infirmary/Hospital committees
GP B/2/4/1 Infirmary Sub-Committee, 1882-1888
GP B/2/4/2 Infirmary Building Committee, 1885-1889
GP B/2/4/3 Workhouse Infirmary Minutes re: furniture, 1888-1889
GP B/2/4/4 Workhouse Infirmary Management Committee, 1888-1912
GP B/2/4/5 Infirmary House Sub-Committee, 1898-1906
GP B/2/4/6 Infirmary Works Sub-Committee, 1898-1906
GP B/2/4/7 Infirmary Pathological and Bacteriological X-Ray Sub Committee, 1911
GP B/2/4/8 Hospitals Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/4/9 Dudley Road Infirmary Sub-Committee, 1912-1918
GP B/2/4/10 Erdington Infirmary Sub-Committee, 1912-1914
GP B/2/4/11 Selly Oak Infirmary Sub-Committee, 1912-1929
GP B/2/4/12 Convalescent Home Committee, 1917-1930
GP B/2/4/13 Quinton Hall minutes, 1929-1930
GP B/2/5 Boarding Out committees
GP B/2/5/1 Boarding Out Committee, 1879-1887
GP B/2/5/2 Hints, Canwell etc. Boarding Out Committee, 1910-1918
GP B/2/5/3 Boarding Out (within Unions) Committee, 1910-1912
GP B/2/5/4 Boarding Out Sub-Committee, 1912-1914
GP B/2/5/5 Boarding Out and Infant Welfare Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/5/6 Boarding Out Committee
GP B/2/6 Children's/Cottage Homes committees
GP B/2/6/1 School Sub-Committee, 1871-1874
GP B/2/6/2 Marston Green Homes Management Committee, 1880-1912
GP B/2/6/3 Marston Green Homes Orders Sub-Committee, 1880
GP B/2/6/4 Reconstruction of No.19 Summer Hill Terrace, 1907
GP B/2/6/5 Summer Hill Homes Sub-Committee, 1910-1930
GP B/2/6/6 Children's Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/6/7 Marston Green Homes Sub-Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/6/8 Erdington Homes Sub-Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/6/9 Shenley Fields Sub-Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/6/10 Service Girls Home Sub-Committee, 1912-1914
GP B/2/6/11 Girls Home Sub-Committee, 1925-1928
GP B/2/6/12 Working Boys Homes Sub-Committee, 1912-1928
GP B/2/6/13 Children's Revision Sub-Committee, 1924-1928
GP B/2/6/14 Lordswood Nursery, 1928-1930
GP B/2/7 Relief committees
GP B/2/7/1 Relief Committee, 1841-1844
GP B/2/7/2 Central Relief and Dispensary Committee, 1877-1912
GP B/2/7/3 Removal Committee, 1879-1912
GP B/2/7/4 Revision Sub-Committee, 1880-1912
GP B/2/7/5 Special Committee to investigate indoor and outdoor relief, 1908-1909
GP B/2/7/6 Unemployed able-bodied men Special Committee, 1908-1909
GP B/2/7/7 Central Relief Committee, 1912-1939
GP B/2/7/8 Sectional Relief Committee no.1, 1912-1948
GP B/2/7/9 Sectional Relief Committee no.2, 1912-1946
GP B/2/7/10 Sectional Relief Committee no.3, 1912-1938
GP B/2/7/11 Sectional Relief Committee no.4, 1912-1946
GP B/2/7/12 Sectional Relief Committee no.5, 1912-1946
GP B/2/7/13 Sectional Relief Committee no.6, 1912-1938
GP B/2/7/14 Sectional Relief Committee no.7, 1912-1946
GP B/2/7/15 Sectional Relief Committee no.8, 1912-1946
GP B/2/7/16 Sectional Relief Committee no.9, 1912-1936
GP B/2/7/17 Sectional Relief Committee no.10, 1912-1936
GP B/2/7/18 Sectional Relief Committee no.11, 1926-1936
GP B/2/7/19 Sectional Relief Committee no.12, 1926-1936
GP B/2/7/20 Maintenance and Settlement Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/7/21 Maternity sub-committee (Ladies Rota), 1914-1929
GP B/2/7/22 Central Assistance Sub-Committee, 1940-1945
GP B/2/7/23 Public Assistance Committee Sectional Relief Sub-Committee, 1944-1946
GP B/2/8 General Purposes committees
GP B/2/8/1 General Purposes Committee, 1852-1911
GP B/2/8/2 General Purposes and Advisory Sub-Committee, 1912-1930
GP B/2/9 Estate and Office committees
GP B/2/9/1 Estate Committee, 1837-1840
GP B/2/9/2 Estate and Law Committee, 1841-1848
GP B/2/9/3 Law Estate and Building Committee, 1849-1853
GP B/2/9/4 Office Building Committee, 1884-1885
GP B/2/9/5 Office Maintenance Committee, 1885-1894
GP B/2/9/6 Committee on Parish Offices (committee appointed to sell), 1886-1889
GP B/2/10 Engineering committees
GP B/2/10/1 Industrial Supervision Sub-Committee, 1875-1877
GP B/2/10/2 Engineering Sub-Committee, 1880, 1884-1886, 1900-1912
GP B/2/10/3 Engineering Visitor's Committee, 1893-1897
GP B/2/10/4 Western Road, Engineering Committee, 1912-1914
GP B/2/11 Stores committees
GP B/2/11/1 Stores Committee, 1868-1912
GP B/2/11/2 Orders Committee, 1879-1894
GP B/2/11/3 Stores and Contracts, minutes, 1912-1930
GP B/2/12 Miscellaneous committees
GP B/2/12/1 Minutes index, 1880-1911
GP B/2/12/2 Special Committee on 1894 Local Government Act, 1894
GP B/2/12/3 Special Committee, 1912-1929
GP B/2/12/4 Salaries and Wages Committee, 1921-1928
GP B/2/12/5 Meeting of Guardians held in Committee minutes, 1923-1926
GP B/3 Accounts
GP B/3/1 Cash Books, 1799-1847
GP B/3/2 Ledger, 1841-1871
GP B/3/3 Ledgers Index, 1915
GP B/3/4 Receipts and expenditure (Parish, B'ham), 1822-1839
GP B/3/5 Non-resident Poor Ledger, 1824-1848
GP B/3/6 Non-settled Poor Ledger, 1845-1861
GP B/3/7 Financial Statement, 1890-1894
GP B/3/8 Loan Account, 1896-1912
GP B/5 Statistics
GP B/5/1 Local Government Board Returns, 1879-1911
GP B/11 Children
GP B/11/1 Apprenticeship Indentures, 1869-1889
GP B/11/2 Papers concerning emigration of pauper children, 1898-1911
GP B/11/3 Relief (School Children Order), 1905
GP B/12 Irremovability, Settlement and Removal
GP B/12/1 Orders of removal from Birmingham and other parishes, 1823-1827
GP B/12/2 Public Assistance Department Register of Ordinary Cases Settlement No.7, c.1934-1935
GP B/16 Miscellaneous
GP B/16/1 Terrier of lands belonging to Parish of B'ham acquired, c.1852-1911
GP B/16/2 Return re: Officers in Workhouses, 1856
GP B/16/3 Guidance given to the Union by Governing Bodies, 1867-1904
GP B/16/4 Regulations and Orders of various unions, 1869-1900s
GP B/16/5 General Administration, Agendas, Official Communications of the Birmingham Union and Public Assistance Committee, 1926-1947
GP B/16/6 Official Communications of the Birmingham Union, 1924-1930
GP B/16/7 The Birmingham Extension Order, 1906-1911
GP B/16/8 Finance Committee, Income, Accounts and other financial matters, 1882-1939
GP B/16/9 Statistics, 1834-1948
GP B/16/10 General Purposes Committee, 1882-1883
GP B/16/11 House Committees, Plans, Works and Contracts at various Workhouses, 1908-1937
GP B/16/12 Medical/Infirmary/Hospitals Committees, 1885-1937
GP B/16/13 Convalescent Homes, 1913-1937
GP B/16/14 Mental Institutions, 1905-1930
GP B/16/15 Boarding Out, 1922-1935
GP B/16/16 Children's Homes, Maternity (including Ladies' Rota), "Crippled Children", Apprenticeship and Emigration, 1894-1936
GP B/16/17 Maintenance and Settlement Committee, 1923-1949
GP B/16/18 Relief and Relief Committees, 1923-1944
GP B/16/19 Public Health Committee, 1930-1933
GP B/16/20 Central Assistance Committee, 1939-1948
GP B/16/21 Casual Poor in other Unions, 1913-1919
GP B/16/22 Vagrancy, 1922-1930
GP B/16/23 Engineering Committees and other Properties and Plans of Works, 1909-1936
GP B/16/24 Staff and Working Conditions etc., 1909-1949
GP B/16/25 Sports and Social Activities, 1925-1937
GP B/16/26 Hunger Marches, 1929-1936
GP B/16/27 Effects of War, 1916-1950
GP B/16/28, Files Labelled Miscellaneous, 1919-1930
GP B/16/29 Other 1912-1943
GP B/16/30 Miscellaneous Documents, 1939-1963
WORKHOUSE MASTER
GP B/19 Inmates
GP B/19/1/1 Highbury Home Inmates Referral Book, 1933-1948
GP B/19/2/1 Quinton Hall, In-mates Referral Book, 1938-1948
RELIEVING OFFICER
GP B/25
GP B/25/1/1 Poor Law Relief Application No.3 District, 1842
GP B/25/2/1 Out-door, receipt and expenditure book, 1899-1903
NON-POOR LAW DUTIES
GP B/29 Vaccination
GP B/29/1 Dispensing and Vaccination Committee, 1874-1879
GP B/29/2 Vaccinator's Register No.10 District St. Martin's, 1924-1928
GP B/29/3 Vaccination registers, Kings Norton, 1912-1922
GP B/29/4 Vaccination registers, Edgbaston, 1912-1922
GP B/29/5 Vaccination registers, Smethwick, 1912-1922
GP B/29/6 Vaccination registers, monthly lists of deaths, 1912
GP B/29/7 Edgbaston, monthly lists of deaths, 1912
GP B/29/8 Smethwick, monthly lists of deaths, 1912-1923
GP B/29/9 Monthly lists of deaths, 1913-1918 (Birmingham, Kings Norton, Smethwick and Edgbaston district)
GP B/29/10 Monthly lists of deaths, Smethwick, Kings Norton and Edgbaston, 1920-1921
GP B/30 Assessment
GP B/30/1 Survey and Valuation committee, 1832-1837
GP B/30/2 Workhouse Surveys and Valuations, 1833
GP B/30/3 Surveyor's report on Poor Rate Appeals, 1865-1868 |
| AdminHistory | Under the terms of the 1601 Poor Law Act, parishes were obliged to offer support to three classes of pauper: the able-bodied, the sick and infirm, and the 'sturdy beggar'. The first two classes might be supported as 'outdoor' cases, or accommodated in a workhouse. The third class received overnight accommodation in what was usually called the 'casual ward' or 'tramps' ward'. This parish-based system of relief was overturned in 1834, with the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act, which combined parishes into larger units known as Poor Law Unions.
While the majority of Poor Law Unions were set up in the wake of the 1834 Act, Birmingham was atypical in that local poor relief was enshrined in two Local Acts of 1783 and 1831, giving it a large degree of independence from the provisions of the 1834 Act.
The two parishes of St Martin's and St Philip's administered poor relief jointly as a single body, united under the terms of Knatchbull's Act of 1723, which permitted parishes to combine to build a workhouse. Major decisions were determined by meetings of the ratepayers and members of the two vestries, and recorded in the Town Books, which commence in 1723.
Overseers
Poor Law expenditure was traditionally in the hands of the annually appointed parish overseers. It was they who determined the number of levies needed to cover their costs, collected the money, and then distributed it in both outdoor and indoor relief. In most parishes the number of overseers annually appointed (two) matched the number of churchwardens. In Birmingham, however, once the parishes of St Martin's and St Philip's had been united for the purposes of poor relief, the number of overseers was set at six. By the 19th century, an increasing workload had obliged the parishes to double this number, and it remained at twelve to 1840 and beyond. The overseers themselves were formally nominated by the local magistracy from a short-list drawn up by the parish. Minutes of the weekly meetings of the Birmingham overseers survive from 1803 (CP B 660982 – 660987). Salaried assistant overseers were later added to make street-by-street collections of the rates or levies. Such levies might occur up to 20 times each year, depending on demand.
Guardians
In 1783 a Local Act provided for the election of 108 Guardians of the Poor. Elected every three years by the ratepayers (initially those rated at £10 a year and over), the Birmingham guardians took overall responsibility for the administration of the Poor Law in the town. They appointed the workhouse master and matron and other officers and set their salaries, managed the workhouse and Asylum for the Infant Poor, and determined overall policy. The overseers were ex-officio members of this body. An uninterrupted sequence of guardians' minute books survives from the time of the first election in 1783 (GP/B/2/1/1- ).
Although the full body of guardians met regularly (at least quarterly), much of their work was done in smaller committees, which supervised particular aspects of poor relief - workhouse, asylum, provisions, employment etc. - and reported to the larger body.
The Birmingham Union continued to operate up until 1912, at which point it absorbed the Aston and Kings Norton Unions, taking on their responsibilities for poor relief. At this point the number of Guardians was reduced to 52. The Guardians continued to have authority over poor relief until 1930, when its administration passed into the hands of Birmingham City Council.
Clerk to the Guardians
Under the 1834 legislation all Unions were required to have at least one clerk, and in many of the larger unions the role was shared among several individuals. The clerk's main duties were to take minutes at the meetings of the Board of Guardians; deal with any in-coming correspondence to the Union, particularly from the central governing authority; keep up-to-date financial records and ledgers, showing all income and expenditure within the Union; maintain the Relief Order Book, which detailed the names of applicants for poor relief, and the Order Check Book, containing all orders given by the Guardians re: provisions and stores for the workhouse; and to conduct the elections for the posts of Guardian. The clerk was also responsible for keeping records relating to those children who had been apprenticed by or were under the care of the Union. For Birmingham Union the majority of the records are committee minutes which would have been kept by the clerk and/or his assistants. Also included are some financial records, and some material relating to the paupers and union staff themselves.
The Union Workhouse
An early minute in the Town Books records that the inhabitants '...do think it highly necessary and convenient that a publick work house be erected in or near the said town to employ and set to work the poor of Birmingham...for their better maintenance.'
(Town Book, 16 May 1727, finding no. 286011.)
This workhouse was erected at the lower end of Lichfield Street, now part of Corporation Street, on a site now occupied by the Victoria Law Courts. It was almost certainly open by the end of 1735. William Hutton's claim that two wings were added later in the 18th Century, to serve as an infirmary and a place of labour, is now known to be an error (William Hutton, A History of Birmingham, 6th ed., 1835). This workhouse would have contained separate wards for the able-bodied, the sick, the elderly and for children. Unfortunately very few records relating to this period in the workhouse's history survive. However, one volume of accounts covering the period 1739-1748, and recording both indoor and outdoor relief, is particularly valuable in giving a picture of daily life - staffing, purchase of provisions, medical treatment etc. - in the workhouse (finding no. 380973).
A rapid increase in the number of urban poor led to the workhouse quickly exceeding its intended capacity. Two solutions were implemented in order to counter this. First, an Asylum for the Infant Poor was opened in 1797 on Summer Lane, to which children over the age of four years were transferred. This was followed by the construction of a new workhouse on Birmingham Heath, which opened in 1852. The Lichfield Street and Summer Lane buildings were then closed. Surviving ledgers and cash books (see GP B/3/1-2) give some idea of the costs involved in the workhouse's construction and furnishing, but records directly related to the inmates are lacking. The most useful sources on conditions in the new workhouse are the minutes of the Board of Guardians, the House committee, and the House sub-committee (see GP B/2/1; GP B/2/3/1 and GP B/2/3/3). However, written as they are by the Guardians and their clerk, one should be somewhat sceptical about their ability to portray accurately the daily life in the workhouse.
Although the numbers of inmates rose and fell in accordance with the overall economic climate, as in other institutions elsewhere, the numbers of sick and infirm paupers in the Birmingham workhouse rose as the proportion of able-bodied dropped. By 1837 it was claimed that none of the 337 inmates were able-bodied, other than a few retained as domestic servants and nurses. The Birmingham Guardians found a number of temporary labour schemes to employ the able-bodied outside the workhouse, paying them what amounted to a 'minimum wage'.
Birmingham Union was exceptional in that it also set up its own 'test house' in 1868. This followed on from a similar experiment at the Poplar Union in London, where all inmates except for the able-bodied males were removed from the workhouse and placed in the care of other unions. Those who remained were to be subjected to the harshest regime allowable within the bounds of the Poor Law, with strenuous labour, a meagre diet and harsh conditions constantly being enforced. The experiment saw a fall in the number of able-bodied poor receiving indoor relief and, deemed a success, was taken up by several other unions across the country. Birmingham set up its test house on Lansdowne Road, close to the existing workhouse, in 1880, but the institution was short-lived. By the 1890s the need for indoor relief had lessened and with an increase in the accommodation available in the main workhouse, the inmates of the test-house were moved into it. However, whilst their location may have changed, the Test House sub-committee's minutes make it quite clear that they should still be held 'under Test house rules' (see GP B/2/3/7/1).
Following the amalgamation of the three Unions in 1912, the Birmingham Guardians continued to use the Aston and Kings Norton Union workhouses - in Gravelly Hill and Selly Oak respectively - with separate sub-committees for both (see GP B/2/3/17 and GP B/2/3/19). Information on the Aston and Kings Norton workhouses prior to 1912 can be found in their Unions' respective lists (refs. GP/AS and GP/KN).
Children in the Union
The overseers' and guardians' minutes catalogue a long line of enquiries and medical reports into child health and mortality in the workhouse. The first such was in December 1783, a few months after the first Birmingham Guardians were elected. At this point the number of children in the house was already high, amounting to no less than 173 children, aged between 7 and 15 (65 boys and 108 girls) (ref: GP/B/2/1/1, 8 December 1783). An anonymous pamphlet of 1782 added that they were sleeping six to a bed (The Present Situation of the Town of Birmingham..., Birmingham, 1782).
As referred to above, Birmingham Union provided separate accommodation for its pauper children at a very early stage, with the building of an Asylum for the Infant Poor in 1797. Prior to this date the younger children were sent out 'to nurse' with foster families outside the town. Once they were old enough (from the age of seven years upwards), the children were apprenticed to a manufacturer, or sent into domestic service. Birmingham also made use of so-called 'batch apprenticeships', sending girls and boys to work in the cotton mills, mainly in the East Midlands and Staffordshire.
No distinct records relating to boarding out and apprenticing of children, or to the Asylum for the Infant Poor, are extant before the 1850s, though all are commonly covered in the minutes of both the Overseers and Guardians.
During the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century more and more Unions across the country began to set up a 'boarding out' system of care, whereby orphaned and illegitimate children would be placed in private foster homes. This increase followed on from a Poor Law Board order of 1870 (a copy of which is in the Aston Union collection at GP/AS/1/1/2), which laid down formal guidelines for a practice that had been used unofficially in unions for some time before that date. Birmingham Union set up its own Boarding Out committee in 1879 (see GP B/2/5/1), and this practice continued up until the dissolution of the Union in 1930.
Those children who remained in the workhouse, if only temporarily, had also to be schooled and (where possible) trained for life outside its walls. At the time the Birmingham Statistical Society monitored schooling in the town in 1838 there were 10 boys and 20 girls in the workhouse school, where they were taught 'reading, sewing, knitting and moral and religious duties' (ref: MS1683/1, Supporting Evidence for the Statistical Society for Education, pp. 32-3). This was standard for the majority of the charity schools in the town, including at the Asylum for the Infant Poor. As the workhouse master told the Society's inspector, the expectation was that the children would remain only for a week or two.
The Asylum for the Infant Poor School combined manual labour - pin-heading for the boys, sewing and lace-making for the girls - with schooling. The first schoolmistress was appointed in 1804 (GP/B/2/1/1, 9 October 1804).
Even as late as 1831 only an hour's education a day was being provided - from 5.30 pm until 6.30 pm - in between the working day ending and supper being served (Overseers' Minutes, Vol. 4, CP B 660985, 6 December 1831). This had increased a little to one and a half hours by 1836 (GP/B/2/1/3, 5 October 1836). For the infants considered too young for manual work - that is, under seven years of age - there was schooling for two hours in the morning and two more in the afternoon.
The union initially planned to pay a single female to take charge of the Asylum, and such a person, variously called matron or governess, was still in charge in 1804, assisted by a schoolmaster and schoolmistress (GP/B/2/1/1, 9 October 1804). In 1814, however, the union appointed a married couple, Samuel Brueton and his wife, to run the Asylum, much as its sister institution was managed. In 1828 the Bruetons were paid a joint salary of £80 per annum, plus board and lodging, compared to the joint salary of £200 paid to the governor and governess of the workhouse (GP/B/2/1/3, 20 May 1828).
After the move to Winson Green, School sub-committee minutes survive from 1871 (see GP B/2/6/1). The sub-committee was probably created in response to the 1870 Elementary Education Act, which authorised the founding of local school boards with the ability to raise funds for schools and charge parents for their upkeep. In 1874 the School sub-committee became part of the House sub-committee (see GP B/2/3/3), although whether this reflects the fact that a schoolroom was situated within the main workhouse is unclear.
Perhaps the most revolutionary change to the system of caring for pauper children was with the founding of the Marston Green Cottage Homes in 1880. Following the purchase of 43 acres of land, accommodation for 420 children was built in the form of several separate cottages, each of which was supervised by a house 'mother' and 'father' employed by the Union. The first children were transferred to the site in January 1880, and the homes continued to operate up until 1933. A management committee was set up in 1879 to oversee the administration of the homes, the minutes of which survive (see GP B/2/6/2).
The Marston Green Cottage Homes were not the only institution set up by the Guardians for the care of children. Following a report into the overcrowded state of the Union Girls' School in 1904, the Board of Guardians decided to purchase premises on Summer Hill Terrace to relieve the congestion and, after extensive rebuilding work, the home opened around 1910 (see GP B/2/6/4-5). Also opened by the Guardians were a separate Girls' Home at 'Riversdale' on the Bristol Road (see GP B/2/6/11 for the minutes of the home's supervisory committee), and a Working Boys' Home on Vauxhall Road, designed to accommodate 'those youths placed at trades in which they cannot in the early period after leaving the Children's Homes earn sufficient to entirely maintain themselves' (see GP B/2/6/12/1).
Following the amalgamation of the three Unions in 1912, Birmingham Union took over the administration of the Erdington and Shenley Fields cottage homes, with separate sub-committees for both (see GP B/2/6/8-9). Information on the Aston and King's Norton cottage homes prior to 1912 can be found in those Unions' respective lists (refs. GP AS and GP KN).
Medical Provision
An infirmary was added to the Lichfield Street site soon after its opening. In 1740 a town meeting declared that: 'an infirmary shall be built, not to exceed £140' (Town Book, 286011, 8 April 1740). Bradford's and Hanson's maps (1750 and 1778) show that the infirmary stood to the rear of the site, close to Steelhouse Lane. The infirmary was re-built between July 1793 and July 1794, by which time it could accommodate an average of 150 patients (GP/B/2/1/1, 3 June 1793). Male and female fever wards were later added in 1826 (Overseers' Minutes, Vol. 3, CP B 660984, 3 March 1826).
Medical care both for the infirmary patients and the out-poor was provided by a number of parish surgeons, who visited the sick by rotation and combined Poor Law work with their private practice. In 1795 each of the three surgeons was paid 20 guineas a year, and shared a further £10, set aside for the purchase and prescription of drugs (GP/B/2/1/1, 27 October 1795). In 1803 a fourth surgeon was added (GP/B/2/1/1, 27 September 1803), and by 1832 there were six surgeons (GP/B/2/1/3, 25 September 1832).
The workhouse in Lichfield Street also housed people with disabilities of mind, as well as of body. This would have included inmates with some form of senile dementia. 18th and 19th-century categories of mental illness - idiot, lunatic and imbecile - did not allow for such a group to be separately distinguished or treated. The earliest detailed account of accommodation at the workhouse lists a 'women's insane ward' with 11 beds, containing 11 women and 4 children, and also a room on the top floor - the women's garret - for the deranged. The latter had 7 beds and 12 inmates (Overseers' Minutes, Vol. 2, CP B 660983, 24 December 1816).
The insane wards at the workhouse were reserved for patients who were believed to be 'harmless' and incurable. Those patients deemed to be dangerous or capable of cure were sent to a variety of (more expensive) private and public asylums. These included the private asylums at Bilston, Droitwich, Henley-in-Arden and Duddeston Hall, as well as the Staffordshire Country Asylum.
In 1833 the union purchased adjacent property, with a view to extending the workhouse, and this was to include new insane wards. James Plevins was paid £272 5s 10d for building the new wards in November 1833 (GP/B/3/1/5, Cash Books, 2 November 1833). The extension included new day rooms and bedrooms for men and women, along with a 'spacious' yard for exercise, separate from the other inmates of the house. There was also a ward for 'refractory' cases. In March 1835 there were 28 males and 8 females in the new wards, but still 25 women in the old building in three distinct apartments (Overseers' Minutes, Vol. 5, CP B 660986, 31 March 1835). These patients were taken care of by a keeper and assistant keeper in the men's insane wards, and two nurses in the women's ward and in the women's 'insane attic'.
Separate wards within the Birmingham Union's workhouse were provided for the care of the sick poor, and with an increase in the need for such facilities a separate committee was created in 1882 to administer this work (see GP B/2/4/1). However, it was not until 1885 that a separate infirmary building was constructed, under the supervision of the Infirmary Building committee (see GP B/2/4/2). Completed in 1889, a Workhouse Infirmary Management committee supervised its administration (see GP B/2/4/4) until the amalgamation of the Birmingham, Aston and King's Norton Unions in 1912. At this point the Birmingham Union Infirmary became known as Dudley Road Hospital (now City Hospital), and the Erdington (Highcroft) and Selly Oak infirmaries came under the control of the Birmingham Guardians. A single Infirmaries (later Hospitals) committee was set up (see GP B/2/4/8), and three separate sub-committees responsible for each institution were set up (see GP B/2/4/9-11). The workhouse itself became known as Western Road House from around 1912, to distinguish it from the hospital, but by this time its primary function was caring for elderly and infirm paupers rather than the able-bodied. In 1948 the building became Summerfield Hospital.
Along with running the hospitals and infirmaries, the Guardians also became responsible for the vaccination of children against smallpox. Routine vaccination of the children of the poor was taking place by the early 1800s, for which the parish surgeons were paid an additional premium. Two Vaccination Acts passed in 1840 and 1841 afforded increased facilities for vaccination, the arrangements being the responsibility of the Guardians under the direction of the Poor Law Board. A later Vaccination Amendment Act of 1871 required all Unions to employ a Vaccination Officer, whose job it was to see to the execution of the Vaccination Acts, and ensure that all children within the Union were vaccinated. The employment of this officer was often accompanied by the creation of a separate Vaccination committee - this was certainly the case with the Aston and Kings Norton Unions - and this appears to have happened within the Birmingham Union, although only the minutes covering the period 1874-1879 survive. The Vaccination Officer was also responsible for keeping the vaccination registers (which listed those children who had been successfully vaccinated) and the monthly lists of deaths (which listed those children who had died before a vaccination could be administered). Unusually none of these records for Birmingham Union for the period before 1912 have survived. Furthermore, those registers listed at GP B/29/3-10 were originally part of the Kings Norton Union collection, but have been transferred to Birmingham Union because they date from after the 1912 re-organisation. The original locations for these volumes are described below, alongside the catalogue entries for the records themselves.
Non-Poor Law duties
Along with their vaccination duties, the Guardians became increasingly responsible for areas outside of the Poor Law proper. In 1837, the Guardians were made responsible for the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths, whilst in 1877 they were given the responsibility of ensuring school attendance, if no school board was already in existence. Furthermore, under the Infant Life Protection Act of 1897, a person 'receiving more than one infant under the age of five years for the purpose of nursing or maintaining such infants apart from their parents for a longer period than 48 hours' was required to notify the local authority - in the case of Birmingham, this was the Board of Guardians.
For Birmingham, only documents relating to the assessment of rates within the Union survive. This assessment became the Guardians' responsibility following the 1862 Union Assessment Committee Act. This Act directed the Guardians to appoint 'an Assessment Committee of the Union for the Investigation and Supervision of the Valuations of Assessable Properties.' At first relying on the reports of the Overseers, if the Committee was unsatisfied with this assessment it could order a new valuation, carried out by independent surveyors. This assessment would form the basis of the poor rate, was updated each year, and was open to public inspection and appeal. Following the assessment, the Committee's main task was to deal with these complaints, and, if they were found to be valid, adjust the poor rate accordingly. If the ratepayers were still unsatisfied, a further appeal could be made to the quarter sessions. Whilst the minutes of Birmingham Union's Assessment committee do not survive, several volumes of the valuations and a volume of appeals against the rates set are extant (see GP B/30/1-3).
References: Dr P.F. Ashcrott, The English Poor Law System, Past and Present (London 1902); M.A. Crowther, The Workhouse System, 1834-1929 (London 1981); Chris Upton and Joyce Fellows, 'Birmingham and its Workhouses', The Birmingham Historian No. 4 (Spring/Summer 1989). |