CHAPTER VIII

THE POOR

Harrison says that there are “four kinds of poor: the poor by impotence, as the fatherless child, the blind man, and the incurably sick man; the poor by casualty, as the wounded soldier; the thriftless poor, as the rioter that hath consumed all; the vagabond that will abide nowhere; and, finally, the rogues and strumpet which are not possible to be divided in sunder.”

As regards the last sort. Harrison’s description tells everything that is wanted.

“Such as are idle beggars through their owne default are of two sorts, and continue their estates either by casuall or meere voluntarie meanes: those that are such by casuall means, are in the beginning justlie to be referred either to the first or second sort of poore afore mentioned; but degenerating into the thriftlesse sort, they doo what they can to continue their miserie, and with such impediments as they have to straie and wander about, as creatures abhorring all labour and every honest exercise. Certes I call these casuall meanes, not in respect of the originall of their povertie, but of the continuance of the same, from whence they will not be delivered, such is their owne ungratious lewdnesse and froward disposition. The voluntarie meanes proceed from outward causes, as by making of corosives, and applieng the same to the more fleshie parts of their bodies; and also laieng of ratsbane, sperewort, crowfoot, and such like unto their whole members, thereby to raise pitifull and odious sores and moove the harts of the goers by such places where they lie, to yerne at their miserie and bestow large almesse upon them. How artificiallie they beg, what forcible speech, and how they select and choose out words of vehemencie, whereby they doo in maner conjure or adjure the goer by to pitie their cases, I passe over to remember, as judging the name of God and Christ to be more conversant in the mouths of none; and yet the presence of the heavenlie majestie further off from no men than from this ungracious companie. Which maketh me to think that punishment is farre meeter for them than liberalitie or almesse, and sith Christ willeth us cheeflie to have a regard to Himselfe and His poore members.

Unto this nest is another sort to be referred, more sturdie than the rest, which having sound and perfect limbs, doo yet, notwithstanding, sometime counterfeit the possession of all sorts of diseases. Divers times in their apparell also they will be like serving-men or laborers; oftentimes they can plaie the mariners, and seeke for ships which they never lost. But in fine, they are thieves and caterpillars in the common-wealth, and by the word of God not permitted to eat, sith they doo but lick the sweat from the true labourers’ browes, and beereve the godly poore of that whiche is due unto them, to mainteine their excesse, consuming the charitie of well-disposed people bestowed upon them, after a most wicked and detestable manner.

It is not yet full threescore yeares since this trade began; but how it hath prospered since that time, it is easie to judge, for they are now supposed, of one sex and another, to amount unto about 10,000 persons; as I have heard reported. Moreover, in counterfeiting the Egyptian rogues, they have devised a language among themselves, which they name Canting, but other pedlers French, a speech compact thirtie years since of English, and a great number of od words of their own devising, without all order or reason; and yet such is it as none but themselves are able to understand. The first deviser thereof was hanged by the necke, a just reward no doubt for his deserts, and a common end to all of that profession....

The punishment that is ordeined for this kind of people is verie sharpe and yet it can not restreine them from their gadding; wherefore the end must needs be martiall law, to be exercised upon them, as upon theeves, robbers, despisers of all lawes, and enimies to the common-wealth and welfare of the land. What notable roberies, pilferies, murders, rapes, and stealings of yoong children, burning, breaking and disfiguring their lims to make them pitifull in the sight of the people, I need not to rehearse; but for their idle roging about the countrie, the law ordeineth this manner of correction. The roge being apprehended, committed to prison, and tried in the next assises (whether they be of gaole diliverie or sessions of the peace), if he happen to be convicted for a vagabond either by inquest of office, or the testimonie of two honest and credible witnesses upon their oths, he is then immediately adjudged to be greeviously whipped and burned through the gristle of the right eare, with a hot iron of the compasse of an inch about, as a manifestation of his wicked life, and due punishment received for the same. And this judgment is to be excuted upon him, except some honest person woorth five pounds in the queenes books in goods, or twentie shillings in lands, or some rich housholder to be allowed by the justices will be bound in recognisance to reteine him in his service for one whole yeare. If he be taken the second time, and proved to have forsaken his said service, he shall then be whipped againe, bored likewise through the other eare and set to service; from when if he depart before a yeare be expired, and happen afterwards to be attached againe, he is condemned to suffer paines of death as a fellon (except before excepted), without benefit of clergy or sanctuarie, as by the statute doth appeare. Among roges and idle persons finallie, we find to be comprised all proctors that go up and down with conterfeit licenses, coosiners, and such as gad about the countrie, using unlawfull games, practisers of physiognomie and palmestrie, tellers of fortunes, fensers, plaiers, minstrels, jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, pretensed scholars, shipmen, prisoners gathering for fees, and others so oft as they be taken without sufficient licence. From among which companie our bearewards are not excepted and just cause; for I have read that they have either voluntarilie, or for want of power to master their savege beasts, beene occasion of the death and devoration of manie children in sundrie countries by which they have passed, whose parents never knew what was become of them.” (Holinshed, vol. i.)

The great increase of rogues and vagabonds of all kinds led in the year 1561 to a proposition for a House of Correction. The plan or scheme of which was drawn out at full length, is published in _Archæologia_ (vol. xxi. p. 451).

The House was to be strong and in two divisions: one for the men and the other for the women. It was to be built and furnished by the alms of the people where it was put up—in this case Westminster was proposed. In furnishing, care must be taken that everything should be simple, because “it is to be considered beforehand that ye shall have to do with the most desperatest people of the earth, geven to all spoyle and robbery and soch as will break from you and steale.”

For work, it must be of a kind that they cannot steal or destroy. A Mill, therefore, for the men, or a Lime Kiln; and for the women a Wheel for cotton wool or woollen yarn. Of officers there must be six Masters: a clerk; a porter and keeper; two beadles, and a miller.

The rations for the inmates were to be as follows:—To every four women, at every meal, one pound of beef, potage, bread and drink. To every two men working in the mill, double this allowance. The allowance of bread was to be sixteen ounces a day. The allowance of beer was to every four women one “pottell” of single beer a day, but to the men double that quantity. On fast days an equivalent of butter, cheese, herrings, “pescodes,” and such like.

There were to be two pairs of stocks and shackles for the refractory. The Matron was to be a strong woman—the Elizabethan female of the baser kind did not weaken her muscles and her nerves with tea; and, which is very significant, it is added, “ye must be careful of fyer, for the people are desperate and care not what mischief they do.”

I do not know whether this proposed House of Correction was erected or not.

The present seems the best place and time to speak of systematic attempts at Poor Relief.

The relief of the poor was a duty enjoined on all men. Almsgiving was considered especially a virtue becoming to kings and princes. Alfred gave alms continually. The Monastic Houses never turned away a beggar without a meal to speed him on his way. Rich and noble persons kept open house at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. Already the custom was commenced of leaving lands or money to the church or to the monastery saddled with the condition of alms to be bestowed on the anniversary of the donor. By the laws of Ethelred, which probably only confirmed a custom, the third part of the tithe due to the Church was to be set aside for the use of the poor. In the Canons of Ælfric the same proportion is enjoined to be so reserved. And in all the Monastic Houses a certain part of the revenues was expended on the Almonry or the Infirmary.

The custom of giving indiscriminately to any vagrant who demanded alms, created a class of “masterless” men who would do no work and wandered about the country. It took some centuries of this growing evil before men could be brought to connect vagrancy with indiscriminate almsgiving. At first the efforts made to repress vagrancy were directed towards compulsory work. No one dared to maintain, perhaps no one dared to think, that it was wrong to give alms to a beggar merely because he was a beggar; but every one understood that the labourer must somehow be made to work. Had the Clergy and the Monastic Houses perceived the truth, vagrancy might have been reduced to a few companies of outlaws and marauders. But we cannot blame the clergy of the thirteenth century for failing to understand what the clergy of the present century are still unable to understand. When the law interfered, the situation was wellnigh desperate. The Black Death of 1348–50 had made labour scarce and wages high. The necessity of suppressing able-bodied begging and of sending the able-bodied beggar back to his native place and his proper work was forced upon the Government. The Labour Statutes endeavoured to force men to work and to keep down wages. In the fourteenth century, just as to-day, there was a natural limit imposed upon wages by the price of grain and food. The rustic who understood nothing about this limit, naturally desired higher and still higher wages; if he could not get this increase in his own parish, he went elsewhere: he begged his way; he found food at the monastery; he tasted the joys of food which was got without any work for it; he therefore easily dropped into the condition of the masterless man and the able-bodied beggar.

In 1349 the law stepped in. No one must give alms, money, or food to the able-bodied, so that for lack of bread they might be compelled to work. The rustics, in order to escape the terrors of this law, ran about the country from place to place. They pretended to be lame, blind, dumb, paralysed; in this disguise they wandered about begging with impunity unless they were detected. They pretended (case of impostor—Riley) to go on pilgrimage: they joined companies of pilgrims, begging by the way, and so got along for a time without working. Therefore in 1388 other laws were framed. Nobody was allowed to beg at all without a letter granting him a license; nobody was allowed to go on pilgrimage without a license; nobody was to go anywhere outside his own part of the country without a license. If any were found without such warrant or permission they were clapped into the stocks. The Act endeavoured to put a stop not only to able-bodied vagrancy, but also to beggars who were crippled or afflicted, for they, too, were forbidden to roam.

The citizens of London were especially severe on masterless men.

The law, at the same time, recognised the duty of relieving the impotent, and the deserving poor, and the right of these to demand relief. Wherever they were found they were compelled to go back to the place to which they belonged by birth.

Nothing could be better or more effectual than these laws if they could have been enforced. But how were they to be enforced? Where were the police who might patrol the roads? How were the villagers disposed towards laws which made them accept whatever wages the Lord of the Manor chose to give them? In the City of London what were the opinions of the working class, of the craftsmen? And how could the Alderman in his ward ascertain that every man was following his own craft? No doubt the power of arresting, punishing, and sending to their own villages the wandering rustic, had the effect of keeping down the number of the beggars. In a short time, too, the natural increase of the population relieved the scarcity of labour. Moreover the relief of the poor by each parish was ordered by the setting aside of a portion of the tithe for their benefit (a revival of the Saxon law); and in those cases where the tithes went to a monastic house, the same portion should be payable by the monks or nuns. The jealousy with which the religious Orders were already regarded is shown by the enactment of this provision by Richard II. and its confirmation by Henry IV.

If the laws against grants of the fourteenth century had been enforced there would have been an end of the evil. Unfortunately, they could not be enforced. In the country there was no kind of Police; in London the City had outgrown the old government by Aldermen and Ward, and the people were overflowing the City boundaries and were beyond the jurisdiction of the Mayor. Now the control of the county would not be very effective, say, at Wapping or at Bermondsey, when the people began to settle there. During the whole of the fifteenth century the demand for able-bodied men for the war in France first, and the Civil wars next, was so great that there seem to have been few vagrants in the country. Indications, however, are by no means wanting of a “masterless” element in London.

The cessation of the wars threw a large number of men out of employment; worse than this, it found them unwilling or unable to settle down again to steady work. Other causes also operated to produce the same result. The English nobles had ceased to maintain their large retinues: no longer did an Earl of Warwick ride into London with seven hundred gentlemen and men-at-arms; Sir Thomas More says expressly that the men who formerly had been in this kind of service either starved or became thieves. Again, the changes in the industrial condition of the country threw many people out of work: lands formerly arable were turned into pasture; sheep runs took the place of cornfields; one shepherd was wanted instead of half-a-dozen labourers. There was again a great rise in prices, owing to the influx of silver. In fifty years provisions of all kinds were doubled in price while wages rose only thirty per cent. Add to these causes the continuance of indiscriminate almsgiving.

The evil grew continually during the whole of the sixteenth century.

Early in the sixteenth century the City of London began to pass regulations against vagrants. They forbade able-bodied vagrants to beg and citizens to give money to unlicensed beggars: in other words, they revived and enforced the old laws. Great strictness was ordered. Vagrants had the letter V fastened on their breasts, and were driven through Cheapside to the music of a basin ringing before them. Four surveyors were appointed to carry out these instructions. There was also an officer appointed, called “Master and Chief Avoyder and Keeper out of this City and the liberties of the same all the mighty vagabonds and beggars and all other suspected persons, except such as wear upon them the badge of the City.” The vagrants, when apprehended, were whipped at the cart’s tail; they also had to wear collars of iron about their necks. Those who were allowed to beg had tokens of tin given to them by the Aldermen. As for the relief of the deserving poor, there were the “Companies’ stores,” granaries of wheat provided for emergencies; alms were asked for every Sunday at the church doors; the old hospitals were suppressed at the Reformation until St. Bartholomew’s and St. Mary of Bethlehem were granted to the City by Henry VIII. and reopened as hospitals. The City did not show to advantage in giving money to the poor; we must remember that for many centuries charity had been understood as indiscriminate alms given by the Church and by rich men. What private persons gave was for the advantage of their souls. Latimer and Lever thundered in vain. Latimer says:—

“Now what shall we say of these rich citizens of London? What shall I say of them? Shall I call them proud men of London, malicious men of London, merciless men of London? No, no, I may not say so; they will be offended with me then. Yet must I speak. For is there not reigning in London as much pride, as much covetousness, as much cruelty, as much oppression and as much superstition as was in Nebo? Yes I think, and much more too.... But London was never so ill as it is now. In times past men were full of pity and compassion, but now there is no pity; for in London their brother shall die in the streets for cold, he shall lie sick at the door between stock and stock ... and perish there for hunger: was there ever more unmercifulness in Nebo? I think not. In times past, when any rich man died in London they were wont to help the poor scholars of the Universities with exhibitions. When any man died, they would bequeath great sums of money towards the relief of the poor. When I was a scholar in Cambridge myself I heard very good report of London, and knew many that had relief of the rich men of London; but now I can hear no such good report, and yet I inquire of it, and hearken for it; but now charity is waxen cold, none helpeth the scholar, nor yet the poor.”

Lever said:—

“Nowe speakynge in the behalfe of these vile beggars, ... I wyl tell the(e) that art a noble man, a worshipful man, an honest welthye man, especially if thou be Maire, Sherif, Alderman, baily, constable or any such officer, it is to thy great shame afore the worlde, and to thy utter damnation afore God, to se these begging as thei use to do in the streates. For there is never a one of these but he lacketh eyther thy charitable almes to relieve his neede, or els thy due correction to punysh his faute.... These sely sols have been neglected throughout al England and especially in London and Westminster: But now I trust that a good overseer, a godly Byshop I meane, wyl see that they in these two cyties shall have their neede releeved, and their faultes corrected, to the good ensample of al other tounes and cities.”

Then St. Thomas’s Hospital and Bridewell were obtained from the King. The latter was designed as a House of Instruction and Correction. It was to receive the child “unapt for learning”; the “sore and sick when they be cured”; and persons who have lost their character and either cannot work or cannot find any who will employ them. The children were to be made to work; the others were to be taught certain trades. They were to be such as would not interfere with the crafts carried on in the City.

The treatment of the poor began by being the work of the towns, each town working out its own experimental methods. This was followed by legislation in Parliament.

The Act of 1573, of which we have read Harrison’s account, enjoined boring through the ear and whipping, and at the third offence death. The Middlesex Sessions Rolls show that these sentences were actually carried out. Between 6th October and 14th December 1591, 71 vagrants were sentenced at the Sessions to be branded and whipped.

Who were vagrants? They were defined as proctors or procurators; persons pretending to knowledge in “Phisnomye, Palmestrye, and other abused Scyences,” masterless men; “fencers, bearewardes, players, minstrels,”—not belonging to some noble lord; jugglers, pedlars, tinkers, chapmen; labourers refusing customary wages; counterfeiters of passes; scholars of Oxford and Cambridge who beg without license; sailors not licensed; discharged prisoners without license; impotent poor. But of these, players, bearwards, and pedlars were allowed to carry on their calling subject to license.

In every parish the Justices of the Peace were to make a register of the names of the poor. Every month they were to search for strange poor.

Justices in the country and Mayors in London were to assess and tax the people for the relief of the poor; and those who refused to pay were to be imprisoned. Three years later it was ordered that “stock” of wool, flax, hemp, iron, or other stuff, should be provided for the work of the poor. Between 1575 and 1597 other statutes were passed for the prevention of increased settlement of poor families. No more houses to be built within three miles of London westward except for people assessed at £5 in goods or £3 in land. No tenement houses to be built, and no inmates to be received.

In 1597 there was great discussion in the House of Commons on the whole subject of poor relief. Finally an Act was passed by which the relief of the poor was placed in the hands of church-wardens and four overseers of Poor elected every Easter. They had to teach children and bind them apprentice; they provided work for the adult; they relieved the impotent; they built hospitals; they levied rates; they made Houses of Correction; they resorted to more whipping and to banishment, with death for return.

Next there is the interference of the Privy Council ordering the Justices of the Peace to look after the vagrants and to report. Here is a brief summary.

1573. Mayor has received a second letter from the Privy Council on subject of vagrants.

1579. Common Council considered the work of the poor at Bridewell and referred to Lords of the Council.

1583. Privy Council recommenced prevention of Irish beggars.

1594. City meets Justices of Middlesex on subject.

_London_—1572. Mayor issued precept to Aldermen to inquire about poor of every parish. Another precept to use the church-wardens—thus to assess the whole ward—to make them pay who had given nothing, and to make them pay more who had given too little.

In 1573. Assessments proving too little, collections were made in churches.

1576. Each parish was to elect a surveyor who every night for a week should help the constable, beadle, and church-wardens in visiting the houses and sending away vagrants.

Then followed a double method—relief and repression undertaken by the parish and municipal authorities together. The vagrants were taken to Bridewell, where the sick were picked out and sent to St. Thomas’s and St. Bartholomew’s—thence returned to Bridewell—and made to work for their diet. The parish looked after the rest of the poor. The children were sent to Christ’s Hospital. The impotent were relieved.

It seems as if so strict a system must have been successful. But it was not.

In 1601 the Act of 1579 was reconsidered and slightly altered.

1610. An Act for building one or more Houses of Correction in every county was brought in.

The supply of corn for the markets occupied Parliament a great deal between 1610 and 1630. There were bad harvests, and general distress. The Privy Council tried to prevent scarcity, to find work for the poor, and to regulate trade in the interests of the working classes. Against times of scarcity of fuel, a coalyard was established in London for the poor. Watchmen were provided in time of plague. More almshouses existed then than now for the old and impotent.

It is customary to speak of the time immediately following the Reformation as especially hard-hearted and uncharitable. For instance, here is a certain passage, one of many, in Stubbes’s _Anatomie_, which is certainly strong evidence of a lack of charity. It is as follows:—

“There is a certayne citie in Ailgna (Anglia) called Munidnol (Londinum) where as the poore lye in the streetes, upon pallets of strawe, and wel if they have that too, or els in the mire and dirt, as commonly it is seene, having neither house to put in their heades, covering to keepe them from the colde, nor yet to hyde their shame withall, nor a pennie to by them sustenaunce, nor any thing els, but are suffered to dye in the streetes like dogges or beastes, without any mercy or compassion shewed to them at all. And if any be sicke of the plague (as they call it) or any other mortall disease, their maisters and mistresses are so impudent (having made, it shoulde seeme, a league with Sathan, a covenant with hell, and an obligation with the devil, never to have to doe with the workes of mercie) as straight way they throwe them out of their doores: and so being caried forth, either in cartes or otherwise, or laied downe eyther in the streetes, or els conveiyed to some olde house in the fields or gardens, where for want of due sustentation, they ende their lives most miserably. Truely, brother, if I had not seene it, I would scarsly have thought that the like Turkishe crueltie had bene used in all the world.”[14]

I would again call attention, however, to a point which has already been mentioned in these pages. Before the suppression of the Religious Houses these places had taken over and held in their own hands the whole management of the poor, the sick, and the disabled, save those whom the City Companies took under their own care. For centuries, therefore, the people had been taught to regard the care of the sick and old, and in a great manner the feeding of the poor, as belonging especially to the Religious. It is part of the mediæval mind that the poor do so belong to the monastic orders and not to the laity. When, therefore, the Houses were suppressed, the modern spirit of Charity had to be actually created in the hearts of the people. It was then that the education in philanthropy began which has been going on ever since.

This outburst of Stubbes is a first lesson in brotherly love. Another part of the same lesson is his tirade against hard-hearted creditors, which is quoted here, because it applies especially to the citizens of London, tender and compassionate in some respects, but flinty-hearted as regards the poor prisoners who cannot pay their debts:—

“Believe me, it greeveth me to heare (walking in the streetes) the pitifull cryes and miserable complayntes of poore prisoners in durance for debte, and like so to continue all their life, destitute of libertie, meate, drink (though of the meanest sort), and clothing to their backes, lying in filthie straw and lothsome dung, worse than anie dogge, voyde of all charitable consolation and brotherly comfort in this world, wishing and thirsting after deathe to set them at libertie, and loose them from their shackles, gives, and iron bandes. Notwithstanding, these merciless tygers (the usurers) are grown to such barbarous crueltie that they blush not to say ‘tush, he shall eyther pay me the whole, or else lye there till his heeles rotte from his buttocks; and, before I will release him, I will make dice of his bones.’ But, take heed, thou devil (for I dare not call thee Christian), least the Lord say to thee, as hee sayd to that wicked servant (who, having great summes forgiven him, would not forgive his brother his small debt, but, catching him by the throate, sayd Paie that thou owest), Binde him handes and feete, and cast him into utter darknesse, where shall bee weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The charities of London consisted of Hospitals for the sick, almshouses, schools, and doles for the poor. It was customary for great men, ecclesiastics, and Religious Houses, to give every day large quantities of food to the poor, whereby they were encouraged to remain poor. Stow records many instances of this mischievous and promiscuous charity. Henry II., for instance, to show his repentance for the death of the Archbishop, fed every day 10,000 persons from the first of April till the harvest, a time of year when food is dearest and scarcest.

Let me follow Stow’s list of Foundations in chronological order.

1. In very ancient times the Hospital of St. James for leprous women.

2. In 1197 Domus Dei, or St. Mary Spital, outside Billingsgate.

3. In 1247 the Hospital of St. Mary Bethlehem turned afterwards into a lunatic asylum.

4. 1322 Elsing Spital for 100 poor men.

5. 1337 The College of St. Laurence Poultney.

6. 1358 The Almshouses of Stodies Lane.

7. 1367 John Lofken’s Hospital at Kingston-on-Thames.

8. 1384 John Philpot’s Almshouses for 13 poor people.

9. 1400 Thomas Knoles bequeathed his house as an almshouse.

10. Whittington’s College (1421), an almshouse for 13 poor men.

11. John Carpenter, almshouse for 4 poor men.

12. Robert Chicheley money for a dinner to 2400 poor men and twopence each on his “minde day.”

13. Philip Malpas, numerous benefactions to prisoners, poor folk, girls’ marriage portions, etc.

14. Richard Rawson, girls’ marriage portions.

15. Henry Keble, girls’ marriage portions and seven almshouses.

16. John Colet, St. Paul’s School, 353 poor men’s children.

17. John Tate enlarged and increased St. Anthony’s House and Almshouses.

18. George Monox, almshouses for 13 poor people at Walthamstow.

19. John Milbourne, almshouses for 14 poor people.

20. John Allen left rents for the use of the poor.

21. Andrew Judd, almshouses.

22. Richard Hills, the Merchant Taylors’ School.

23. Sir Thomas Gresham, almshouses.

24. Sir Thomas Rowe, almshouses.

25. Ambrose Nicolas, almshouses.

26. John Fuller, almshouses.

27. Dame Agnes Foster, enlargement of Ludgate Hill Prison.

28. Avice Gibson, almshouses.

29. Margaret Danne, money to be lent to young men beginning as ironmongers.

30. Dame Mary Ramsay, endowment of Christ’s Hospital.

The following are later endowments. Thus Sir Thomas White, citizen and Merchant Taylor, Mayor, purchased Gloucester Hall at Oxford; he founded St. John’s College there; he erected schools at Bristol and Reading; to Bristol he gave £2000 for the purchase of lands. This would produce £120 a year, which was to be administered by the Mayor of Bristol. He gave £800 to be lent to 16 poor Clothiers at £50 apiece as security for ten years, and after that the money to pass to other towns, _i.e._

1579 Reading 1580 The Merchant Taylors’ Company 1581 Gloucester 1582 Worcester 1583 Exeter 1584 Salisbury 1585 Westchester 1586 Norwich 1587 Southampton 1588 Lincoln 1589 Winchester 1590 Oxford 1591 Hereford 1592 Cambridge 1593 Shrewsbury 1594 Lynn 1595 Bath 1596 Derby 1597 Ipswich 1598 Colchester 1599 Newcastle.

He gave to the City of Coventry £1400 with which to purchase lands to the annual value of £70. Twelve poor men to have 40s. each free alms; then four young men were to have loans of £10 for nine years. He did the same thing for Northampton, for Leicester, and for Warwick. A worthy benefactor, indeed!

In 1560 Richard Hills gave £500 towards the purchase of a house called the Manor of the Rose, where the Merchant Taylors founded their school. At the same time William Lambert, Draper, Justice of the Peace in Kent, founded an almshouse for the poor in East Greenwich called Queen Elizabeth’s Almshouses.

In 1568 Sir Thomas Rowe gave the City a new burial-ground by Bethlehem Hospital; he also endowed a sermon every Whit Monday; gave £100 to be lent to eight poor men; and founded an endowment for the support of ten poor men, giving them four pounds a year.

William Lambe was a benefactor to the City in the sixteenth century. He was a cloth worker by trade. In the year 1543, on the suppression of the Religious Houses, he obtained possession by purchase of the smallest of them all, the Chapel or Hermitage standing at the corner of the wall at the end of Monkwell Street. It was called St. James’s in the Wall, and was endowed by Henry the Third. Lambe repaired or rebuilt the Chapel, and placed in the former garden or in the ancient buildings certain almshouses for bedesmen. In 1577 he died, leaving this foundation and other sums of money to the Clothworkers. The Great Fire spared a part of Lambe’s Chapel and Almshouses.

Lambe also drew together several springs of water near the present Foundling Hospital to a head, called after him Lamb’s Conduit, though the name is now spelt without the “e.” He then conveyed the water by leaden pipes to Snow Hill, where he rebuilt a ruinous conduit and laid in the water.

“He also founded a Free Grammar School at _Sutton Valens_, the Place of his Nativity, in _Kent_, with a master at £20, and an Usher at £10 per Ann. and an Alms-house for six poor people, endowed with £10 yearly. He gave £10 per Ann. to the Free School at _Maidstone_ in _Kent_, for the Education of needy Men’s Children; three hundred pounds to the poor Clothiers in _Suffolk_, _Bridgnorth_ and _Ludlow_ in _Shropshire_. He left to the Clothworkers’ Company his Dwelling-House, a little to the South-West of _Cripplegate_, with Lands and Tenements to the value of £30 per Ann. for paying a Minister to read Divine Service on _Sundays_, _Wednesdays_, and _Fridays_, every week, in the Chapel adjoining to his House, called St. _James_, in the Wall by _Cripplegate_; and for Clothing twelve Men with a Frize Gown, one Lockram Shirt, and a good strong pair of Winter Shoes; and twelve Women with a Frize Gown, a Lockram Smock, and a good pair of Winter Shoes, all ready made for wearing; to be given to such as are poor and honest, on the first of October. He also gave £15 towards the Bells and Chimes of St. Giles’s Without _Cripplegate_; £6:13:4 yearly to the Company of Stationers, for the relief of twelve poor People of the Parish of St. _Faith_, under _Paul’s_, at the rate of 12d. in Money, and 12d. in Bread, to each of them, on every Friday through the year; £6 per Ann. and £100 to purchase Land, for the Relief of Children in _Christ’s_ Hospital; £4 to St. _Thomas’s_ Hospital in _Southwark_; besides some other Charities to the Prisons, and for portioning poor Maids.” (Maitland, vol. i. p. 264.)

It will be seen that the building of almshouses was the favourite method of charitable endowment. Schools were occasionally endowed but not so commonly as almshouses. The sight of an old man broken down, unable to earn his bread, is one which appeals to the most hard-hearted. The necessity of educating the young was less understood, for the simple reason that the children of the working class were regarded as simply growing machines for labour, just as their fathers were regarded as machines in active working order whose opinions or wishes were never so much as asked, while any effort on their part to express an opinion was put down at once. This view of the working classes, which lasted till the middle of the nineteenth century, explains a great deal of what we now consider apathy on the part of those who should have known better; it explains among other things the opposition to reform, and the jealousy and dread of the working class; and it explains why so few schools were endowed in comparison with the number of almshouses.