Poor relief administration in the 1840s, and its effect on the poor: the Carlton Gilbert Incorporation, and Holbeck, Leeds

Abstract

A considerable corpus of literature addresses the poor relief crisis and its culmination, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. However, the Act's adoption was not uniform, temporally or geographically, and the role of West Riding Gilbert incorporations in delaying its local implementation, and the consequences of that delay, have received little attention. The environs of Leeds were less affected by the Act than elsewhere. Four sprawling incorporations comprising 160 townships, established under Gilbert's Act of 1782, obstructed the formation of New Poor Law unions. The largest, the Carlton Incorporation, included in its membership seven of the ten Leeds out-townships. Alongside member townships, others, interspersed but non-incorporated, like Holbeck in Leeds, might also administer relief predominantly in the tradition of Old Poor Law welfare mechanisms, with greater autonomy, and by select vestries, to which working men might be elected. Such was the case in Holbeck, where on three occasions in the 1840s Chartist administrations were returned. This paper examines the impact on the poor of relief administration in the Carlton Incorporation, and Holbeck, during the 1840s, introducing an analysis of the workings, policies, and effects of an example of Chartist local governance.