Acknowledgements

The production of Providing for the Poor has been made possible through the support and interest shown by many colleagues, friends and organizations. It emerged out of the research conducted during the project ‘Small Bills and Petty Finance: Co-creating the History of the Old Poor Law’. At the pilot stage in Staffordshire, this was funded by Keele University’s Impact Acceleration Fund and the Jack Leighton Trust. The expansion of the project to include the counties of Cumbria and East Sussex was made possible through generous funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Archivists and search-room staff in record offices and libraries in Brighton, Carlisle, Kendal and Stafford gave generously of their time and assistance and granted permission to reproduce images from items in their collections. Particular thanks go to Matthew Blake in Staffordshire; to Robert Baxter, Louise Smith, Michael Stephens, Sarah Wood and Andrew Wright in Cumbria; and to Elizabeth Hughes and Christopher Whittick, who supported and enabled the project in East Sussex.

Several of the chapters began life as conference and study day presentations in Amsterdam, Derby, Edinburgh, Keele, Leiden, Oxford, Vancouver, York and Zurich and benefited from the questions and discussions they generated. Thanks are due to Joe Harley and Peter Jones who, along with Elizabeth Spencer, collaborated in our project workshops and augmented our sense of what it is possible to achieve with overseers’ vouchers.

Thanks are also due to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Steven King produced a detailed report on the draft of Providing for the Poor and, along with Heather Shore, ran a workshop for the editors of the volume. Their timely advice has been invaluable.

We are grateful to our publishers, the Royal Historical Society and the University of London Press.

Ben Jackson of Sussex Humanities Lab provided valuable research and technical development for the ‘Small Bills’ data capture platform and associated mobile phone app, while Kelcey Swain of Larchwood Research created the project website.

The ‘Small Bills’ project and this book have benefited enormously from the dedication, enthusiasm and research skills of the volunteers:

• in Cumbria: Anita Bamforth, Beth Banks, Ellie Berry, Chris Brady, William Bundred, Angie Davidson, Margaret Dean, Elaine Hicks, Pauline Huston, Hazel Jefferson, Joe McDarby, Bob Nicholl, Alison Nicholson, Keith Osborne, Jill Saunders, Claire Smith and Claire Wilson.

• in East Sussex: Mary Barnett, Susan Carnochan, Gina Cuthbertson, Kay Dixon, Linda Grange, Hilary Holt, Elizabeth Hughes, Jean Irvin, Jane Long, Christine Morris, Margaret Rowe, Sandra South, Veronica Stevenson, Joan Turner and Anne White.

• in Staffordshire: Denise Allman, Brian Cooper, John Hughes, Janet Kisz, Josh Newton, Sandra Probert, Rose Sawyers, Norman Moir, Dianne Shenton and Jackie Williams.

Peter Collinge and Louise Falcini