Interlude 5

The parochial career of James Finlinson (1783–1847)

William Bundred

The chapter on Assistant Overseers opened with the decision taken by the parish of Dalston, Cumberland, to memorialize James Finlinson. Over a lifetime dedicated to public service, Finlinson occupied a number of other parochial positions. Spanning the Old and New Poor Law these included workhouse governor, overseer, registrar of Dalston district, manager of roads, guardian of the poor and assistant registrar of the Carlisle union.1

The eldest of four children of yeoman James Finlinson of Houghton and Ann (Nancy) Corry, Finlinson was baptised at Bolton, Cumberland, in 1783.2 He married Elizabeth Pape (1784–1869) in Kingston-upon-Hull. He may also have been the James Finlinson, weaver, recorded in the 1818 militia list for Cumberland.3

Notices illustrating Finlinson’s activity appeared regularly in Carlisle’s newspapers and are recorded in vestry minutes. In 1825, he and his wife were appointed respectively as governor and matron of Dalston workhouse on a salary of £14 and were also provided with a room for a loom.4 In 1826, a new workhouse was built, and the following year Finlinson was appointed assistant overseer on a salary of £13 and keeper of the workhouse for which he was paid £12.5 In 1838, in his capacity as assistant overseer, Finlinson supported pauper Jane Hall’s claim for relief. Unable to work owing to an inflammation of the chest, Hall and her nine-year-old daughter were dependent on parish relief.6 In the same year, applications to survey and map Dalston were sent to Finlinson, in his capacity as manager of the roads.7 In 1844, he became embroiled in a case involving a John or George Cairns of Carlisle. Cairns was charged with causing a false entry of a birth to be made by Finlinson in the Dalston parish register and of having obtained money under false pretences. Cairns claimed that his wife had given birth on 6 July at Buckabank. Finlinson registered the birth and gave Cairns two shillings. Joseph Nixon (the relieving officer for Carlisle), Margaret Bell (a midwife) and John Hodgson (a surgeon) all disputed Cairns’s story attesting that Jane Cairns had given birth on 23 June and that the child had been registered at St Mary’s, Carlisle; relief had also been given at the same time. Cairns, who was in an advanced stage of consumption, was committed for trial for perjury.8

Despite a proliferation of parish appointments, no occupation for James Finlinson is stated in the 1841 census. In 1842, he was elected as a poor law guardian, a position he also occupied in 1846.9 He resigned as overseer in November 1844, only to be reappointed in February 1845. He died in 1847 and is buried in Dalston churchyard.

1 For further details see W. Bundred, ‘James Finlinson’, The Poor Law (2020) <https://thepoorlaw.org/james-finlinson> [accessed 13 Apr. 2021]. The blog post is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

2 CAS, PR158/2, Bolton, Cumberland, All Saints parish register, 1714–90, 2 Mar. 1783.

3 CAS, Q/MIL/6/2/7, Militia liable books, Cumberland ward, 1814–19.

4 East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service, PE185/16, Hull St Mary Lowgate, Parish register, 11 May 1809.

5 CAS, SPC44/1/1, Dalton, Vestry minute book, 1825–7.

6 Carlisle Patriot, 19 May 1838, p. 3.

7 Carlisle Journal, 29 Dec. 1838, p. 2.

8 Carlisle Journal, 20 Jul. 1844, p. 3; 10 Aug. 1844, p. 3.

9 Carlisle Journal, 26 Feb 1842, p. 1; 27 Feb. 1846, p. 1.