A History of Wales by John Davies

Author:John Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2006-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

Poor Law Unions, registration counties and registration districts

The new system had its virtues –there was, for example, a marked improvement in the medical care received by the poor –but it was almost universally loathed. The gentry considered it to be an attack upon local autonomy, and magistrates were annoyed at having to share their power with elected members. As residents were not permitted to leave the workhouse, they could not attend Nonconformist services, a fact condemned by Nonconformist leaders. To the humane, it appeared appalling that families should be separated and that the poor should be treated as if they were criminals – indeed, in Carmarthen better food was served in the prison than in the workhouse. The decline in the level of poor rate which occurred immediately after the passage of the act was welcomed, but ratepayers were angered when it increased again because of the cost of building workhouses and paying union officials. For the poor themselves, the workhouse was a nightmare, and it was claimed in Carmarthenshire in 1843 that people preferred to die rather than to enter it. The Welsh authorities were slow and reluctant in implementing the act; many unions continued to provide relief in the home, and at Merthyr the guardians delayed building a workhouse until 1853. An Assistant Poor Law Commissioner was attacked by a crowd in Llanfair Caereinion in 1837; the militia had to be called to defend Carmarthen workhouse in 1838, and an attempt was made to burn down the workhouse at Narberth in 1839.

The Poor Law Amendment Act was one of a number of reform measures passed in the 1830s. As parliament had been reformed in 1832, it was difficult to deny the need to reform the borough corporations. Commissioners were appointed to investigate them in 1832; although their report was prejudiced, they recorded a mass of examples of corruption, of interference by powerful landowners and of the subjection of the interests of boroughs to party purposes. The report of the commission provided evidence relating to fifty-six places in Wales which enjoyed some degree of borough status. The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 recognized only twenty of them. The twenty were to have councils elected by all adult male ratepayers, and the councils were given wide powers to provide public services. But they were not obliged to provide them, for almost all legislation relating to local government was permissive rather than mandatory. Most of the Welsh boroughs recognized in 1835 proved dilatory. The situation was worse in boroughs not recognized, some of which –Llanelli, for example, with six thousand inhabitants – were places of considerable size. Furthermore, there were many urban centres which the commissioners did not consider at all. Wrexham succeeded in gaining borough status in 1857, but Merthyr did not do so until 1905. Despite the act of 1835, most of the heavily populated areas of Wales would have to depend, at least until the last years of the nineteenth century, upon a hotchpotch of boards and committees. That would also be the fate of the counties, units bereft of any representative element until 1889.

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