Abstract
On the whole, geographers have not paid much systematic attention to the influence of institutional factors on the evolution of settlement patterns. One exception is the reference by K. C. Edwards to the relationship between great houses and landscape features in the Dukeries.1 Also in Nottinghamshire, his colleague J. D. Chambers was one of the first regional historians to relate social structure to enclosure history and poor law policy.’ Enclosure history has long been of interest to geographers for its contribution to landscape evolution. On the other hand, poor law policy has been very largely overlooked. This is, therefore, an appropriate opportunity to bring forward some neglected evidence collected in Nottinghamshire by Francis Howell in 1848.
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References
K. C. Edwards, The land of Britain, part 60: Nottinghamshire (1944). pp. 499–501.
J. D. Chambers, Nottinghamshire in the eighteenth century (1932, republished 1966, particularly pp. 142, 152, 168, 172, 266–7.
This passage is based mainly on: A. Redford, Labour migration in England,1800–1850 (1926);
T. Mackay, A history of the English poor law (1899), especially vol. 3, pp. 340–64;
and S. Webb and B. Webb, English poor law history, part II: the last hundred years (1929), especially pp. 419–34.
T. Mackay, op. cit., p. 350.
Ibid., p. 351. The Act was 9 and 10 Vic., c. 66, 1846.
Ibid., p. 352. The Act was 10 and 11 Vic., c. 110, 1847.
Their work is contained in Reports to the Poor Law Board on the operation of the laws of settlement and removal of the poor presented to both Houses, 1850. There is a copy in Nottingham University Library. The reports also covered Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Reading Union of Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northumberland. Mr P. Grey of Bedford College of Education is working on Bedfordshire and Mr J. Walton of the University of Keele on Oxfordshire.
Ibid., p. 132.
Ibid., p. 130–1.
Ibid., p. 129.
Ibid., p. 126, 138–9. It is interesting to notice that 1847 was the only year in which there was a nationwide collection of parochial data on poor rates: Return showing population, annual value of property, expenditure, rate in the pound, total number of paupers relieved (B.P.P., 1847–8), 735, liii, 11.
D. R. Mills, Landownership and rural population with special reference to Leicestershire in the mid-nineteenth century, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leicester, 1963;
D. R. Mills and D. R. Smith, ‘Has historical geography changed?’, in Open University, New Trends in Geography, iv, Unit 14 (1972) pp. 58–77.
J. A. Sheppard, ‘East Yorkshire’s agricultural labour force in the mid-nineteenth century’, Agr. Hist. Rev., 9 (1961), 43–54.
Based on fieldwork and D. R. Mills. op. cit.
D. R. Mills, op. cit., and D. M. Smith, ‘The British hosiery industry at the middle of the nineteenth century’, Trans. Inst. Br. Geogrs., 32 (1963), 131–6.
C. T. Smith, Population, Victoria County History of Leicestershire, III (1955), p. 151.
D. R. Mills, op. cit.; investigations into family history; the records of hiring fairs; and in novels of the period, especially those of Thomas Hardy.
Howell’s Report, p. 142.
T. Mackay, op. cit., p. 354. The Act was 11 and 12 Vic.. c. 110, 1848.
T. Mackay, op. cit., p. 355–6. These Acts were 24 and 25 Vic., c. 55, 1861; and the Union Chargeability Act, 28 and 29 Vic., c. 79, 1865.
Commission on the employment of children, young persons and women in agriculture (B.P.P., 1868), appendix to part 1 of the first report.
R. Mellors, In and about Nottinghamshire (Nottingham, 1908), pp. 326–7.
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Mills, D.R. (1973). The Geographical Effects of The Laws of Settlement in Nottinghamshire. In: Mills, D.R. (eds) English Rural Communities. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15516-3_9
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