Welsh Journals

Whatever reservations one may have about this method of presenting history, Michael Rose's volume on The English Poor Law, 1780-1930, is a most capable example of its kind. His documents are well chosen, varied and lively, and they illustrate well the different aspects of his subject. They do reveal the vividness of some of the material buried in the government Blue Books from which the bulk of the extracts are taken. 'Saucy Harry and his moll will be at Chester to eat their Christmas dinner, when they hope Saucer and the fraternity will meet them at the union'. Shaver here, bound for Salop to see the Rev. Henry Burton, a most benevolent minister of the Church of England, and may the devil fetch him soon.' The writings of tramps on the workhouse walls have lain buried in a Poor Law Board report of 1866 on vagrancy, until Dr. Rose resurrected them. Dr. Rose's editing is lucid and thorough, so that introductions and extracts together convey a surprisingly coherent picture of the rise, administration and decline of the Victorian Poor Law. Some topics have been omitted, such as the Poor Law treatment of unmarried mothers; some wider connections have been lost, such as the place of Poor Law schools and workhouse infirmaries in the development of public education and medical services in the nation at large. But the book is an interesting survey of Poor Law history. One looks forward to a further volume from Dr. Rose, freed from the trammels of the 'source book' approach. URSULA HENRIQUES Cardiff THE HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS HOUSING. Edited by S. D. Chapman. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1971. Pp. 306. £ 4.75. This book is an important contribution to working-class and urban history. It is a pioneer study, a collection of eight articles on housing in areas as far apart as Glasgow and Ebbw Vale. Some of the early chapters are repetitive, but the overall impression is one of diversity and variety; chapters six and seven, for example, are concerned with the architecture of weavers' loomhouses in the north country and with the activities of building clubs and the Freehold Land Society in Birmingham. The book has, unfortunately, no conclusion, but the final chapter is a gem: Mr. F. J. Ball, headmaster of Glyncoed Secondary School, Ebbw Vale, documents the development of housing in the area between 1778 and 1914. In the early days of the industrial revolution the ironmasters at Ebbw Vale were forced to build new houses for their workmen and there were also the usual expedients of converting farm-houses and taking in lodgers. By 1841 each occupied house contained an average of 5.9 persons, and the sanitary conditions were appalling. As the town continued to expand the great employers took less interest in house-building, and their place was taken by speculators, workmen and, after the turn of the century, by the local council. The housing of 1914 was a distinct improvement on the old, but the workmen paid for this by devoting a greater part of their income to rent. It is a familiar story.