Contents
Preface: The Small Bills and Petty Finance project
Peter Collinge and Louise Falcini
Introduction: The Old Poor Law
Peter Collinge and Louise Falcini
1. Accounting for illegitimacy: parish politics and the poor
Louise Falcini
Interlude 1: Thomas Woolgar, the mystery man
Jean Irvin
2. Clothing the poor
Elizabeth Spencer
Interlude 2: Elizabeth Overing, sent to Bedlam
Elizabeth Hughes
3. Vagrancy, poor relief and the parish
Tim Hitchcock
Interlude 3: Elizabeth Malbon (c.1743–1801)
Dianne Shenton
II. Providers and enablers and their critics
4. Women, business and the Old Poor Law
Peter Collinge
Interlude 4: The Wilkinsons and the Griffin Inn, Penrith
Margaret Dean
5. The overseers’ assistant: taking a parish salary, 1800–1834
Alannah Tomkins
Interlude 5: The parochial career of James Finlinson (1783–1847)
William Bundred
6. Who cares? Mismanagement, neglect and suffering in the final decades of the Old Poor Laws
Samantha A. Shave
Interlude 6: Abel Rooker (1787–1867), surgeon
Janet Kisz
7. Public histories and collaborative working
Louise Falcini and Peter Collinge