This book presents the fullest picture yet to be achieved of an almost
invisible community: the English rural poor of the two centuries up to 1835.
The poor had their annals; and they are by no means 'short and simple' as
Thomas Gray suggested. They survive in formidable quantity. Their lives have
come down to us through the bureaucracy which controlled and monitored their
movements, apprenticed their children and attempted to arrange the maintenance
of their illegitimate offspring. The record of the parish overseers and the
vestries, and of the courts of Quarter Sessions, combine to preserve their
stories. Although this documentation exists in all English counties and is a
well-known source, its publication is such range and depth has never been
achieved before. In this volume the editors have attempted the coverage of a
cohesive rural area by abstractive the records for a block of 23 parishes based
round the modern area of Mid Sussex.
There are a host of personal stories--like that of William Roberts, in 1618
whipped as a vagrant at Cuckfield and sent to 'travayle' home to Anglesey within
30 days. Or Mary Wilson, in 1743 a serving maid in a London Coffee house, left
destitute by the death of her soldier husband at the siege of Cartagena in
Central America. Or Edward Hillman, in 1741 sent back in his old age from
Tonbridge to the 'home' parish of Cuckfield he had left 37 years before. Or Anne
Wright, a soldiers wife found begging in Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, in 1746 and
sent back by a succession of carriers to her husband's parish of East Grinstead.
Or Thomas Andrew, a Marine from Chatham in 1764, sent back to Cowfold where he
had been born to vagrant parents a quarter century earlier.
The result is the biography of a rootless underclass over two centuries. It
records the origins, movement, employment and unemployment of over 10,000
individuals whose poverty made them subject to constant invigilation from the
local officials. The volume will have enormous appeal to family historians, and
great value to demographers, and to social historians of the dispossessed. An
invaluable source.
Contents:
Introduction
- The legislative framework
- Paupers in a rural economy
- The Poor Laws in action in Sussex
- The sources in use
- The parochial system in crisis
- Conclusions
Editorial Preface
Notes and References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Mid Sussex Poor Law Records
- Albourne
- Ardingly
- Balcombe
- Bolney
- Clayton
- Cowfold
- Crawley
- Cuckfield
- Ditchling
- East Grinstead
- Henfield
- Horsted Keynes
- Hurstpierpoint
- Ifield
- Keymer
- Lindfield
- Shermanbury
- Slaugham
- Twineham
- West Hoathly
- Wivelsfield
- Woodmancote
- Worth
Appendix: Additional Poor Law Documents
Index of Personal Names
Index of Place Names
