PAP 031

The Poet and The Paupers

VI.031


Amongst the smaller landowners as far as Chiddingly was concerned was a third Lord, the Earl of Liverpool. As he owned only forty acres – which he rented to the Oxley family – he may not even have known where Chiddingly was, and his thoughts were certainly not on that parish on May 28^th 1821, for, as Britain’s Prime Minister, he had great affairs of State on his mind, especially how to keep Queen Caroline away from her husband’s coronation due in about a month’s time. A year earlier he had introduced a Bill into Parliament to divorce the Queen from King George IV – perhaps better known nowadays as “Prinny” of Royal Pavilion fame in Brighton – but had been forced to abandon the project for fear of precipitating a revolution, so strong was public sentiment on the Queen’s side. Indeed, her return to England from the Continent against the King and the Prime Minister’s wishes was met with scenes of tumultuous rejoicing. Nevertheless she was excluded from the coronation on July 29^th 1821 and died shortly afterwards of what is usually described as “a broken heart”. In the absence of any figures relating to incomes, the number of servants in a household can be taken as some guide to the relative prosperity of various Chiddingly inhabitants in 1821. (Richard Lower is listed as having one servant, a 12-year old girl named Mary Pinney.) By this standard the farmers were clearly the wealthy section of the parish community. One farmer had seven servants (including his housekeeper); another six; two others, four each; six, three each; one, two; and seven, just one. Two farmers had no servants but three lodgers apiece and five farmers had no one in their household except family. As, however, one of the latter had eight children and two others six each, it is possible either that they had no need for additional hands to help about the house or that the number of children they had to support weighed down so heavily that they could not afford to maintain a servant, even if the Vestry supplied a pauper child and contributed towards its board and clothing. The size of families in an age before family planning was a powerful factor contributing towards extreme poverty, but even more powerful factors were the lowness of labourer’s wages and the high cost of food. In March 1789 the Sussex Weekly Advertiser had carried an article which analysed the household budgeting of a Sussex agricultural labourer earning 8s. per week. With a wife but as yet no children to support, his weekly expenditures were:

Amongst the smaller landowners as far as Chiddingly was concerned was a third Lord, the Earl of Liverpool. As he owned only forty acres – which he rented to the Oxley family – he may not even have known where Chiddingly was, and his thoughts were certainly not on that parish on May 28^th 1821, for, as Britain’s Prime Minister, he had great affairs of State on his mind, especially how to keep Queen Caroline away from her husband’s coronation due in about a month’s time. A year earlier he had introduced a Bill into Parliament to divorce the Queen from King George IV – perhaps better known nowadays as “Prinny” of Royal Pavilion fame in Brighton – but had been forced to abandon the project for fear of precipitating a revolution, so strong was public sentiment on the Queen’s side. Indeed, her return to England from the Continent against the King and the Prime Minister’s wishes was met with scenes of tumultuous rejoicing. Nevertheless she was excluded from the coronation on July 29^th 1821 and died shortly afterwards of what is usually described as “a broken heart”.

In the absence of any figures relating to incomes, the number of servants in a household can be taken as some guide to the relative prosperity of various Chiddingly inhabitants in 1821. (Richard Lower is listed as having one servant, a 12-year old girl named Mary Pinney.) By this standard the farmers were clearly the wealthy section of the parish community. One farmer had seven servants (including his housekeeper); another six; two others, four each; six, three each; one, two; and seven, just one. Two farmers had no servants but three lodgers apiece and five farmers had no one in their household except family. As, however, one of the latter had eight children and two others six each, it is possible either that they had no need for additional hands to help about the house or that the number of children they had to support weighed down so heavily that they could not afford to maintain a servant, even if the Vestry supplied a pauper child and contributed towards its board and clothing.

The size of families in an age before family planning was a powerful factor contributing towards extreme poverty, but even more powerful factors were the lowness of labourer’s wages and the high cost of food. In March 1789 the Sussex Weekly Advertiser had carried an article which analysed the household budgeting of a Sussex agricultural labourer earning 8s. per week. With a wife but as yet no children to support, his weekly expenditures were:

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