Catalogue description Content: Folios 25-26. Letter from William Wilson, Mansfield Poor Law Union,...

Ordering and viewing options

  • Free

  • Download format PDF
  • Approximate size 1 MB

Order up to 10 items per basket, and up to 100 in a 30 day period.

Details of MH 12/9361/20
Reference: MH 12/9361/20
Description:
Content: Folios 25-26. Letter from William Wilson, Mansfield Poor Law Union, Normanton, Alfreton to the Poor Law Commission. He states that a hand mill was recently erected by the guardians to be worked by travelling vagrants in return for food and lodgings. That on the previous Thursday in the petty sessions room at Mansfield one of the magistrates informed him that he had committed a man to the Southwell House of Correction for refusing to work the mill and said that he would not do so again because of the following reason. That he considered the vagrant was only obliged to do 'some useful work' such as 'breaking stones, weeding the garden or rolling walks' as an equivalent for the food and lodging given them. He did not consider the work in question was an equivalent for food and lodging and did not think the vagrant was obliged to do it and therefore would not convict again. The mill performed no work and was erected upon the principle of the vagrant mill at the Southwell Poor Law Union Workhouse which had worked well. He asks whether the magistrate's opinion is correct and whether he would justified under the circumstances in refusing to commit a vagrant who refused to work on the mill the time specified in your orders. The guardians had erected the mill at considerable expense, which if the opinion of the magistrate is correct, will be 'nearly useless.' Annotated: agrees with the view taken by the magistrate and thinks that the 'turning of a wheel without any object and without producing any result is not a task of work'. It is like 'digging pits and filling them in again.' W L G [William Golden Lumley, Assistant Secretary to the Poor Law Commission], 3 February 1845. Paper Number: 1606/B/1845. Poor Law Union Number 337. Counties: Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Date: 1 Feb 1845
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?

Help with your research