Chelsea Settlement and Bastardy Examinations, 1733-1766

Butler University Digital Commons @ Butler University Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Summer 2000 Tim Hitchcock and John Black, eds., Chelsea Settlement and Bastardy Examinations, 1733-1766 John D. Ramsbottom Butler University, jramsbot@butler.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Ramsbottom, John D., "Tim Hitchcock and John Black, eds., Chelsea Settlement and Bastardy Examinations, 1733-1766" Albion / (Summer 2000): 314-315. Available at https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/718 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact digitalscholarship@butler.edu. Review Author(s): John D. Ramsbottom Review by: John D. Ramsbottom Source: Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), pp. 314-315 Published by: The North American Conference on British Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4053802 Accessed: 17-09-2015 19:57 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The North American Conference on British Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 159.242.192.186 on Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:57:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 314 Albion andits sometimesAllen's"Hartleyopathy" is whatgivesthebookbothitspeculiarstructure impressiveinsight. Boston University AARONGARRETr Tim Hitchcock and John Black, eds. Chelsea Settlementand Bastardy Examinations, 1733-1766. London:LondonRecordSociety. 1999. Pp. xxii, 177.?20. ISBN 0-90095233-4. Paul Slack (Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England [1988]) has argued that economic growth had begun to banish "deep poverty" from England by the end of the seventeenthcentury,leaving the aged anddisabled,along with the unemployed,as fit objects of relief through the Poor Law. But the complex statutes concerning legal "settlement" played a role in directingthis assistance, and historiansdisagree about their significance. Some insist that magistratesused the laws to exclude immigrantswho might deplete local resources.Othersassertthatmigrationwas actuallyencouragedby the fact that,in principle, all English men and women possessed a settlementin some parishand thereforefelt free to take their chances moving. The documentsat hand are valuablebecause they illustratethe efforts of the poor to establisha claim to relief in a rapidlyurbanizingparishon the outskirts of HanoverianLondon,the scene of tumultuouseconomic and social change. The editorsprovidea useful interpretiveintroduction.By the mid-eighteenthcentury,the activities of parish government in relieving poverty amounted to "a welfare state in miniature"(p. xvi). Chelsea apparentlywas a model of efficiency-even its workhouse childrensurvivedlonger thanaverage-and its archivesare certainlyextraordinaryin their completeness.The documentsreproducedheredescribeinhabitantsthoughtlikely to become a financialchargeon the parish,eitherby having a bastardchild or by falling into need. The examinationsconductedby local justices were designed to elicit the informationnecessary to determinepaternityor a settlement-the circumstancesof birth,marriage,apprenticeship, and residence-and they also gave the examinee an opportunityto fashion a life-story.The editors suggest thatthe "powerrelationship"implicit in this interrogationdid not leave the poorhelpless. "Byjudicious self-censorshipthe apparentvictim of the processcould, within limits, effectively controlits result"(p. vii). The over 400 biographiesrepresentedin these examinationsyield insightsinto the nature of migration,work, and sexuality in the period. Immigrantsto the capital tended to come not only from nearbyruralcounties but also from more distantlocations, includingIreland and Scotland,where men enteredthe armyonly to end theircareersyears lateras "Chelsea pensioners."The parishwas undergoinga shift from agriculturalto industrialemployment; how this affected the poor can be studiedthroughthe useful entries for occupationsin the index. Women who deliveredbastardswere mainly young, unmarried,migrantservants,a conclusion broadlyconfirmedby Nicholas Rogers' work on Westminster("CarnalKnowledge," Journal of Social History [1989]). Those who did marryoften took advantageof a cheap ceremonyat the Fleet prison,whereneitherbannsnor license were required.All these trends underlinedthe authorities'fear of "violence and disorder,representedby unwed mothers,abandonedchildren,and the unemployed"(p. xxi). Even a cursory survey reveals that the capacity of the poor to influence their fate was indeed "limited."With the completion of the parish workhouse in 1737, many of those needingrelief wereplacedthere;a substantialproportionof the rest (judgingfromthe index) were "passed"to anotherparish.But local officials could not escapethe requirementto assist This content downloaded from 159.242.192.186 on Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:57:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Reviews of Books 315 relief'to qualifiedpaupers.By 1749,a footnoteinformsus, theparishincreased"outdoor wasnotjusta meansof copewiththeoverwhelming demand.Moreover,theexamination restricting relief,butalsoa courtof appealforthosewhohadpawnedeverything,likethe motherwhowasstillunableto payburialexpensesforherchild,"whichobligeshertoapply to theparishofficersforrelief' (p. 57), or forconcernedrelatives,likethemanappearing for"(p.26).The onbehalfof hisbrother, whohad"goneto seaandlefthischildunprovided editorsof thisvolumewishto underline thesuggestion,basedonrecentresearchindifferent sources,thatthe poorincreasinglycameto believethataccessto parishreliefwas their whoselives arerecountedhereemergeprimarily "right"(p. viii). WhethertheLondoners of thereader.In eithercase, as "victims" or as "agents" will dependupontheperspective thePoorLawgavethemsomewhere to turn. Truman StateUniversity JOHND. RAMSBOTTOM Kirstin Olsen. Daily Life in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland. (Daily Life throughHistory.) Westport,Conn.:GreenwoodPress. 1999. Pp. xiv, 395. $45.00 ISBN 0-313-29933-1. Compendiaof informationon everydayEnglish life in past time, often writtenby nonacademics, are currentlya modestly thriving genre, as witness the success of Liza Picardon RestorationLondonor Daniel Pool on WhatJane AustenAustenAte and Charles Dickens Knew.Now KirstinOlsen has addedto theirnumber,rathernicely filling the chronological gap with Daily Life in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland,partof a series from GreenwoodPress on everyday life in differenthistoricaleras. Olsen's introductionbegins with a seriesof parallelsbetweeneighteenth-centuryEngland and modem Americaboth countriesare dynamicallycapitalist,see challengesto traditional values, aretechnologicallyinnovative,andso on. Althoughshe does not exaggeratethe class mobility of the period,Olsen's is a modem, dynamic,bustling,and secularizingeighteenth century, not a J. C. D. Clark-style Church and monarchy-dominatedold regime. (It is significantin this respectthatreligion is the subjectof the eighteenthchapter,out of a total of nineteen.) Her principalscholarly sources for eighteenthcenturysocial history are Paul Langford,Roy Porter,and E. P. Thompson.She avoids both the Scylla of the "MerryOlde England"approachand the Charybdisof an overemphasison hopeless misery to paint a pictureof an Englandwhere vast differencesin power between classes, genders,andraces combinedwith a fundamentalideological consensus on the virtuesof the system. Daily Life in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland is more a topically organizedreferencebook thana unified treatmentof eighteenthcenturysocial historylike Porter'sEnglish Society in the Eighteenth Century.The pleasantly written chapterscover the basic topics of social history-politics, the family,the economy andso on-as well as classic subjectsof everyday life books such as clothing and food. As her title indicates,Olsen's focus is English rather than British. Her knowledge of the period has some problems-she accepts the old and discreditedfeministchestnutaboutthe purportedderivationof the tenn "ruleof thumb"from the legal restrictionof the size of a stick a man could use to beat his wife. Informationis presentedin a variety of ways, including tables, illustrationsand a brief timeline of dates relevant to the topic at the conclusion of most of the chapters. The illustrations,mostly fromthe PrintCollectionof the Lewis WalpoleLibraryat Yale, arewell chosen althoughthe reproductionsare not always good and the scale is often too small to make out the detail. Quotationsfrom primarysources are also well chosen, althoughnot This content downloaded from 159.242.192.186 on Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:57:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions