The Down and Out King - 11

EMILY

The starving poor, who need relief,

With cheeks so wan and pale,

While we are enjoying good roast beef

And drinking of strong ale.

The hardest heart it sure would melt,

To see such great distress,

Which by the poor alone is felt,

While we enjoy our rest.

I had a very curious letter back from Mr. King. He seemed pleased to hear from me, and although he mentioned porridge, he didn’t really answer my question. Perhaps he thought that it wasn’t worthy of his regard, or perhaps he felt that if he said that milk porridge was worth paying more money for, they should be doing it there too. Who knows? Anyway, all he said about porridge is that as a child he most enjoyed eating it with treacle. I remember the other recipe that I gave cook did not use milk but used treacle. If my experiment fails, then I have that to fall back on.

But one thing he wrote certainly caught my attention. He said a friend of his, a fellow pauper, had made a very interesting proposal. He suggested that a library room might benefit a workhouse - as the paupers had little to do of interest on Sundays, and at least at their establishment, books were not kept in good accord, and were not very plentiful. I wonder how many of our regulars would value
something like that. We do have spare space at the moment so we could use one of the rooms meant for sleeping accommodation as a library, and see what happens. For it to work, however, we would need a vast range of books on various subjects and suitable for various intellects. Even picture books would be of value to our children and our poor imbeciles. I must find a nicer name to
call them. I shall ask our vicar, Rev. Duncan, if he might make an announcement in church, requesting donations of unwanted books for our cause.

But now I have a pleasant family experience to remember. My brother John, whom we all call JCR, standing for his three names, John Curel Roberts, came with his new wife, Caroline, to visit her family last weekend. We were invited to her parents’ house, the Duncans, for dinner. Caroline’s family live next door but one to us - although the property between the workhouse and their nursery is in fact a graveyard. They arrived back in this country from many years abroad in Mauritius. James Duncan, the grandfather of Caroline, was responsible for the Pamplemousse Gardens of Mauritius, which are quite wonderful to behold, or so we were told. There were many photographs of the family taken when they lived there, as well as views of the gardens.

Also invited to dinner with us were the Vicar, John Duncan, and his wife Alice, much younger than he, and their daughter Isabel, who is 8. She was a school friend of the other Duncan family's daughter, Eveline, who is 9, but of the two she appeared younger, as she was very withdrawn and shy. I asked Caroline if she knew more about the relationship between them and the Vicar.

“I think Vicar John is our cousin. If I have the story right, his father, or maybe it was his grandfather, also called John, was the family poet. I'm sure they have a copy of his work here somewhere.”

She produced a book of poems and opened it to one. “This one he wrote about John and my grandfather James' grandmother, Jane Duncan, who died in 1841.

From where the city spires uprear,

And scenes of life abound

A stranger, I, a pilgrim here,

Now tread on kindred ground.

The recent wound still pains my heart

Still warmly falls the tear

Cold duty claim'd the solemn part

Lately performed here.

I late consigned my dearest friend

To this unwelcome cave

Pale grief's sad recollections blend

To mourn beside her grave.”

“Very sad,” I said politely, still not being sure what the answer to my question was.

“Father didn't know John the Vicar when they were children, although they are not that far off in age. I believe John the Vicar is four years older than father. But my grandfather, James Duncan and his wife Sarah, were living near Taunton at the time he was born, and Vicar John was still in Aberdeen for awhile after his father's death in 1850. I have heard that his father was penniless at the time of his
death, and my great-grandfather, William, had to pay for his funeral. He apparently lived with his four older brothers and sisters until he was able to make his way to England and into the ministry.”

“How long has he been here in Calne?”

“Well, again, being the nosy one in the family, I have asked all these questions myself. He was a Perpetual Curate at Lyneham in Wiltshire in 1861, and I think he became Vicar here in about 1865.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She laughed. “I do know the answer to that one. It is the title of a clergyman officiating in a parish or district to which he had been nominated by the impropriator and licensed by the bishop and which
was not served by a rector or vicar. Perpetual curates do not undergo institution or induction. Unlike rectors and vicars their income does not derive from the possession of tithes.

“After the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII lay impropriators as lay rectors were required to nominate persons to serve the cure to the ordinary (usually the bishop). Such
appointments became 'perpetual' in that the incumbent could only be removed by the revocation of the ordinary's licence. Aren't you pleased you asked?”

“And what exactly is an impropriator?”

“Well, it is simple really. It is a lay person who is given the task of appropriating ecclesiastical property or revenues.”

I also found out more about the other John Duncan, Caroline’s father who is called John Corbett Duncan, and he is now in charge of the nursery - his father having died in 1876. After his father, James Duncan's, death (he apparently is buried here in Calne at Holy Trinity Church Yard - not the one next door) his widow moved to live with her daughter, Caroline, in High Wycombe. Caroline (my sister-in-law)'s mother is called Francis Maria, and is originally from South Africa, although they were living in Mauritius in the mid 50’s when she met and married John.

When I asked Francis Maria whether she missed living in Mauritius, she said she certainly missed the weather there. She could not get used to the cool damp climate in England. She told me that she, sadly, lost two babies in Mauritius, but they have three living children, Caroline and her brother, George, who is currently helping in the nursery but is destined for the ministry if he gets his way, and the young Eveline who was born after they returned to England. George is great friends with Vicar John. At the time he is only 20 and studying at Oxford and helping in the nursery between times.

JCR is so very proud of his wife, and although they have been married somewhat over a year, they act like newlyweds. Caroline is expecting their first child early next year. I took to the family, and am so pleased that we now have some friends in this town who have nothing to do with the workhouse. They appeared very interested in our plan to improve our institution and make it the best we can, and it was Francis’ suggestion to have Rev. Duncan ask for donations of books. She said she would look out several herself, and let me have them by next week.

We have our next Guardians’ meeting next Wednesday. John is very worried that my excesses in food have thrown our budget completely out the window. He brought his files in last night to go over them with me, in order for me to understand the nature of the problem.

We are given, by the governors, 7 shillings per week per pauper. There is a complicated formula they use to determine the breakdown based on age, sex and whether the pauper is a casual or a regular.  Each fortnight they visit they note how many we have, as the numbers vary with births and deaths, and also the number of tramps apparently increases in the winter. This is how our statistics looked for this past fortnight.
 

Resident paupers – male 45

Resident paupers - female - - ¾ male 50 x .75 =37.5

Resident paupers - children - = ¼ male 25x .25 =6.25

Resident paupers - babies = 1/8 male 5 x .125 =0.62

So 125 real people count as 90 male equivalents.

Casual paupers each week- male /7 168/7 = 24 per day

Casual paupers - female/7 = ¾ male 140/7 = 20 x .75 =15 per day

Casual paupers - children/7 = ¼ male 28/7 = 4 x .25 =1  per day

So 40 male equivalents per day on average.

For the regulars, 90 times 7 shillings is £31/10. And for the casual, 40 times 6d is £7.  However, we do have an extra source of income - from the oakum picking. For that we get a penny per lb. and each casual is supposed to do 4 lbs. per day - although many are not up to the job. So I expect the average is more like 3 lbs. per day. We get about 40 casuals per day, so that amounts to 120 lbs. of oakum picked per day, or 720 per week - which earns us about 60 shillings or £3 a week. Of course, as the number of casuals drops off in the summer, so does our income from them. So our total income per week this time of year is £41 or £82 for the fortnightly period just finished.

It seems a lot of money, but our expenditure for the same period has been:

Oats - 2 lbs per day for 14 days = 28 lb at 2 d/lb = 56d = £2/16 

Milk - 4 gallons per day for 14 days- 56 gal at 1 d/gal = 56d = £2/16

Bread - home made but the ingredient costs approximate - 1 d per 4 lb loaf - ¾ of which serves
a person per day - 96 loaves = 10 shillings x 14 days = £7

Meat - 7 d /lb per adult per week = 182 shillings = £8/16 shillings per fortnight

Vegetables - 4 oz. per person/week or 75 lbs. at 5 d/lb =  £2/10

Butter - 4 oz per person/week at 11 ½ d per lb. or £6/ 5

Cheese - 4 oz per person/ week at 4.5 d per lb. or £2

various cooking ingredients - approximately £2

We have spent £36/1 just on food. Remember that I said our fortnightly income is £82.

But that total must pay for all the other costs of running this place.

Coal - 19 shillings a ton, but we use a ton a week in this period so that is £1/18.

The extra items of expenditure include the costs of cleaning materials and replacement sheets,
blankets and towels. Also, although we make and reuse the clothing provided, this requires replacing and patching, which has a considerable cost - especially for things like shoes. I have
ascertained the cost of shoes - but have no idea how many pairs we will have to plan to buy each year. I shall assume that each of the 150 people gets a pair of shoes every third year which works out to £11/10  per year.

I am calculating the cost of candles - at 7 dozen per month 5/6 per dozen, makes £1/18/6  per month, but we will use none at all in the summer, so that would make about £6 for the year.

I have checked on the quarterly charges for other things and find that we have been paying about £5
for stationery, £10 for drapery, £11 for bedding and clothing, £7 for ironmongery, £10 for coal. We pay 12 shillings per coffin, plus 4 shillings for other funeral expenses.

I don’t think the expenses for our salaries or cost of food comes out of the pauper allotment,
although I must check with the guardians to make sure about that. Also the salaries of the nurse, teacher and porter must come from somewhere, but hopefully that is dealt with by the guardians and not us.

By increasing our milk consumption (I have not yet tried having the bread sliced and buttered) we have in fact spent about a pound more per week, but I feel that it has had a very great effect on the satisfaction of meals, and perhaps even on the well being of our inmates. But how can I judge that to make some sort of case for justifying the extra expense? I will have to give it some thought before the next meeting. If they say that my plan is causing us a problem, I will agree to alter the experiment, by reducing the amount of milk, or using buttermilk, or using treacle in it instead of milk. I did give cook the second recipe for porridge with treacle - and whichever new recipe we try, I will ascertain by careful observance, how the new mixture is accepted by regulars and casuals alike.