2. Clothing the poor

Elizabeth Spencer

In 1828 the widow Elizabeth Newell wrote to her home parish of Yoxall in Staffordshire to make a request of the overseer of the poor:

Sir I have taken the liberty to send for my small account for I am now ill and in need of it if you please to send me a dark gown and a small print [?] yards I am sorry to say I can make no return for your good will to me at present But will take the first opertunity I hope your goodness will [excuse] my freedom.1

A later note shows that Newell received ‘13 weeks pay’ at £1 19s, but with no hint of whether her accompanying plea for a gown and fabric was answered.2 However, while she asked the overseer to ‘excuse her freedom’, Newell was clearly confident that in writing she might meet with success.3 Indeed, hers was not an unusual or unreasonable request; the provision of clothing and textiles was a consistent feature of the Old Poor Law as it was issued as ‘relief in kind’ alongside a range of other goods and services.4 Alongside a pension, a pauper might receive clothing on a regular, semi-regular, occasional or one-off basis in response to acute material need. In turn, this provision of clothing had broader consequences for the scale of the local economy, as well as for the circulation of money within and beyond the parish. Drawing on 404 overseers’ vouchers across eight settlements in Cumberland and nine parishes in Staffordshire, this chapter explores the range of practices involved in this provision of clothing between 1769 and 1834.5 It looks first at the purchase of textiles and haberdashery items across these seventeen locations, then at the items of clothing distributed to men, women and children by these Poor Law authorities, and finally traces some of the differing practices surrounding this.

Pauper clothing has been subject to increasing attention since the turn of this century, both in studies of the day-to-day operation of the Old Poor Law and as a topic in its own right. This scholarship has thus far followed two strands. The first is concerned with the material reality of clothing provision. Drawing primarily on accounts, bills and receipts, it seeks to understand what was purchased and in what quantities and qualities; how, when and to whom this was distributed; and how ‘generous’ this provision was.6 Early studies suggested that overseers were primarily focused on supplying basic needs by the cheapest means possible.7 It was Steven King, however, who largely set the terms for subsequent debate in 2002 when he suggested that most paupers ‘could expect to see regular replacement of their clothes’ and contended that Poor Law authorities were willing to buy expensive and fashionable fabrics.8 Focusing on the early nineteenth century, Peter Jones broadly agreed with King that paupers were ‘well clothed’ but argued that this was a ‘compassionate pragmatism’ with an emphasis on functional, hard-wearing textiles and a high degree of standardization, driven partly by the importance of apprenticeship. One of the most important aspects of clothing relief, Jones suggested, was that it remained significant even in the crisis years leading up to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.9 Vivienne Richmond, in contrast, has disagreed with both King and Jones, drawing on Poor Law records in Sussex and Kent to argue that parish clothing relief ‘virtually ceased’ in the 1820s. Moreover, while Richmond found a brief rise in clothing provision in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, she argued that the clothing supplied was inferior and ‘possibly stigmatic’.10 The literature therefore reflects differing levels of agreement on the overall generosity, scale and significance of clothing provision under the Old Poor Law, though there is general consensus that clothing provided by parishes was on the whole hard-wearing and possibly even uniform compared to that of the wider population. John Styles, for instance, has argued that, while the poor were able to exercise some choice, clothing provided by parishes was ‘consistently cheap, coarse, and undecorated’, with the dress of paupers ‘barely matching, let alone surpassing, non-pauper adults at the lower point of the family poverty cycle’.11 An issue related closely to clothing provision is badging the clothing of paupers with red or blue cloth, a requirement introduced in 1697 and repealed in 1810.12 However, there is little evidence for the practice in the vouchers, save for frequent purchases of blue textiles.

A second strand of scholarship has turned from questions of quantity and quality to focus on letters written by, for or about paupers, though attention has rested largely on requests for relief by paupers themselves, whether written in their own hand or by an intermediary.13 These letters were generated by the out-parish system whereby someone living beyond their parish of settlement wrote ‘home’ to the parish authorities.14 As Elizabeth Newell’s letter demonstrates, clothing and textiles could form part of a written request for relief; indeed, in a sample of 3,271 letters, King found that, after sickness and housing, ‘issues around cloth or clothing’ were ‘the most important motifs of pauper narratives’.15 These letters reveal a rich resource for attitudes towards and understandings of clothing, as well as a rhetoric surrounding insufficient clothing, nakedness and raggedness frequently deployed to support pleas for assistance.16 As Jones has argued, paupers were aware of ‘wider cultural discourses on issues such as clothing, decency and propriety’, which fed into their requests for relief.17 Pauper letters concerning clothing – or a lack thereof – were sometimes combined with a specific request for clothing or money with which to buy it, and were often accompanied by the recurring threat that, without relief, writers would be forced to ‘come home’ or to send dependents ‘home’ to their parish of settlement.18 This was a particularly effective threat, as it was often cheaper to relieve an out-parish pauper than it was for their equivalent living within the parish.19 In drawing primarily on accounts, bills and receipts, this chapter inevitably engages in more depth with scholarship focused on the material reality of clothing provision, though there are letters written by paupers, their advocates or intermediaries dotted throughout the sample of vouchers. These letters are invaluable in that they can reveal ‘coincidental’ details about the material lives of the poor, but clothing could form an important part of a strategic request for relief in its own right.20 Pauper letters as a source ‘from below’ have been much discussed, and their overall credibility as accounts of poverty established.21 However, they are also complex, strategic and performative pieces of writing that hint at processes of negotiation often obscured by entries in accounts, bills and receipts.22

In any discussion of clothing provision under the Old Poor Law two things must be kept in mind. First, it was rare for any pauper to be clothed entirely by the parish.23 Much has been written on the ‘economy of makeshifts’, in which the poor could ‘make do’ through various formal and informal strategies.24 The pauper wardrobe might therefore be supplemented by charity, prizes, gifts, clothing societies or clothing produced in the home, and even through less legitimate avenues such as theft.25 Indeed, Styles has highlighted that ‘involuntary consumption’ of clothing chosen by someone else was a widely shared experience for the eighteenth-century plebeian population beyond those on parish relief.26 It is also usually impossible to determine what clothing a pauper owned at the point at which they sought relief, though sometimes inventories appear in the vouchers. As Alannah Tomkins has highlighted, those on parish relief ‘might encompass a wide range of material wealth’.27 For instance, while a young servant might have opportunity to build up a wardrobe of fashionable clothing, a family with young children would see this stock depleted.28 Second, and significantly, it must be remembered that there were regional differences in practice that inevitably impact on any consideration of clothing provision, while the strategies of different authorities within a region or a county might still vary significantly.29 Provision could vary even within a single location as, for example, it experienced a period of significant economy.30 This exacerbates difficulties with determining the overall significance and scale of clothing provision as different parishes, counties and regions may yield very different conclusions. Indeed, this is reflected in an ongoing lack of consensus in existing literature on clothing provision.

In focusing on Cumberland and Staffordshire, this chapter adds further case studies for building up regional and intra-parish perspectives on the provision of clothing and textiles. However, its aim is not to reconstruct precisely the scale of spending or to establish in their entirety specific details about the clothing provided by each settlement, parish or county. Indeed, the chapter will demonstrate some of the difficulties involved in doing so, not least that there are simply more vouchers for some places than others. Even for places where vouchers provide a fairly strong picture of what was purchased, when and how much it cost, there remain difficulties in determining how, when and to whom it was distributed. This is exacerbated by inconsistent accounting practices, different descriptive words and significant gaps in the record; as Stephen Walker has demonstrated, badly kept accounts were a particular target for Poor Law reform in the 1830s.31 More importantly, as King has argued, an entry in an account book or name listed in a bill for clothing simply records the end of what could be a lengthy process of negotiation, while those who made unsuccessful requests are entirely obscured by these records.32 The very nature of the vouchers provide yet further challenges. This chapter draws on overseers’ vouchers ranging from accounts, bills, receipts and notes to letters written by, about or on behalf of out-parish paupers. The key criterion for inclusion in the sample is that vouchers relate to clothing and textiles in some way, whether through purchase, provision, inventorying or requests for relief.33 The chapter does not draw in detail on vouchers relating to footwear, focusing instead on the ‘soft’ clothing and accessories issued by parishes, though both shoes and clogs appear across overseers’ vouchers more broadly.34 Nevertheless, as Peter Jones has argued, the issue of ‘shoeing the poor’ is a topic unto itself.35

This patchwork of sources makes it difficult to extract data concerning the overall scale and cost of clothing provision with any certainty; any ‘final figures’ must be regarded as an estimate at best. However, this chapter demonstrates that the strength of the vouchers lies in highlighting adaptability and diversity (as well as inconsistency) in the ways in which clothing and textiles were purchased, made and distributed from the 1770s up to the final years of the Old Poor Law, something often overlooked by attempts to determine the overall generosity of clothing provision.

Purchasing textiles

Evidence from the overseers’ vouchers across Cumberland and Staffordshire suggests that, aside from accessories such as shoes and hats, clothing was not often purchased ready-made. Rather, echoing the consumption practices of much of the wider population, cloth was purchased first and then ‘made up’ into items of clothing. This pattern is consistent with that identified by Styles, whereby overseers outside London and larger provincial towns continued to source clothing in this way despite the increasing availability of ready-made garments.36 The vouchers can therefore provide significant information on what textiles were purchased by parishes but remain relatively underused in studies of eighteenth-century consumption, which tend to focus on individual ‘choice’.37 This section extracts details about the types of textiles that were purchased, as well as information about price and quantity, while the vouchers also hint at some of the practices involved in the purchase and distribution of textiles. This exercise, however, comes with three important caveats; first, the vouchers that survive may not necessarily reflect a parish’s overall textile consumption in any given year or period. Second, not all textiles purchased by the Poor Law authorities were intended for clothing but were used for other household items such as bedding. Sometimes it is straightforward to determine when this was the case as, for instance, parishes purchased ‘sheeting’. However, these distinctions are easily lost in generic descriptions such as ‘cloth’. Finally, there is usually little way of knowing how the textiles purchased were distributed: the vouchers do not always make clear distinctions between indoor and outdoor relief, for instance, and it is also possible that some of these textiles did not end up in the homes or on the backs of parish paupers at all.

Despite these limitations, it is possible to explore textile consumption at both parish and county level. An examination of Cumberland in Table 2.1 shows the kinds of fabrics purchased and the average price per yard across the eight locations. This is based on 616 purchase entries gleaned from the sample of 404 vouchers, including accounts, bills and receipts where a named fabric is listed, and sometimes accompanied by the length purchased and a price. Often the price per yard of a fabric was specified, but where it is not this has been calculated based on the length purchased and the final price (if available). The categories listed in Table 2.1 obscure a greater diversity of descriptive terms and identifiers, and therefore deserve explanation. The table demonstrates that linens appear most often across the sample at an average of 12½d per yard. Fabrics were sometimes straightforwardly described as ‘linen’ or ‘linen cloth’, but this category also includes linen textiles such as tow cloth, fustian, canvas and harden, harden being especially popular across parishes. Very few purchases of more expensive linens such as lawn, Holland or cambric are in evidence, while the cloths that were purchased most often tend towards the coarse and hard-wearing. These textiles might have been used to make aprons, caps or bedding, as well as shifts and shirts. It is also probable that some of the textiles in Table 2.1 simply described as ‘cloth’ were linen or linen mixes; however, some of the ‘cloths’ costing 20d to 30d per yard would have referred to woollen or woollen mixes.

Table 2.1 Fabrics and prices across 240 overseers’ vouchers, Cumberland, 1770–1837

Duffel, a coarse woollen cloth used to make outerwear such as coats and cloaks, is the second most popular fabric in the sample after linen. Though the average price across the parishes was 20¼d per yard, it was repeatedly purchased at 22d per yard, suggesting that there may have been an agreed price between different suppliers or a price stipulated by parish overseers. The purchase of calicoes and cottons is discussed in more detail below, but Table 2.1 shows that parishes also purchased a range of woollen and woollen-mix fabrics; the manufacturer Elizabeth Proud, for example, supplied Hayton near Brampton with grey woollen cloth.38 ‘Stuff’ refers to a woven material and was used as a generic descriptor for a mixed fabric probably used to make women’s gowns. Specific to the parish of Brampton was ‘Wildbore’ stuff, probably an unglazed worsted mix.39 Woollen textiles such as flannel and serge were used to make garments like petticoats and breeches. Plaid or ‘pladen’, at an average of 10d per yard, might have referred both to a plaid woollen cloth or to a fabric with a checked pattern; the most expensive, at 22d per yard, was probably woollen, and the cheapest, at 7½d, a cotton, linen or linen mix. This lighter fabric, along with ‘check’, which was a feature of much textile production in Cumberland, might be used for various purposes; ‘chack’ for lining garments was purchased by Brampton in 1781, which also purchased an ‘Apron check’ in 1817.40 The category of ‘other’ includes fabrics that appear only infrequently or are not possible to identify. Focusing on Wigton provides an understanding of how the averages across Cumberland relate to the expenditure of an individual township. As Table 2.2 demonstrates, purchases in Wigton closely follow the pattern for Cumberland as a whole, with the exception that there are no purchases of calico. Looking at the year 1772 alone, there are purchases of ‘blue stuff’, ‘broad Lin cloth’, ‘white tow cloth’, ‘Pladden’, ‘Blue duffel’, ‘cloth’, ‘harden’, ‘Strong blue duffel’, ‘cloth sheary’, ‘dark strip[e]’, ‘gray stuff’, ‘strip[e]’, ‘green stuff’ and ‘black [calamanco]’.41 This gives some idea of the diversity of descriptive terms deployed, as well as the range of textiles purchased by one location. Figure 2.1 shows the detail of a bill drawn up by Joshua Harrison of Wigton. Aside from serge, the average price per yard for fabrics purchased by Wigton falls slightly below the averages for Cumberland as a whole, probably as a result of inflation in later years.

Looking across textile consumption in the nine Staffordshire parishes highlights both similarities and differences. As Table 2.3 demonstrates, a key contrast is that, where Cumberland shows a marked reliance on duffel, Staffordshire demonstrates a greater diversity of woollen and woollen-mix fabrics. These were probably used for a range of garments such as coats and cloaks, as well as waistcoats, gowns, petticoats and breeches. Under this category are several woollen and woollen-mix textiles including ‘woollen and jersey’ as well as woollen and terry, linsey woolsey, jersey, kersey, worsted and frize.42 These textiles cost an average of 18d per yard which was cheaper than duffel, though this obscures a wide range of prices. Again, the category of linens includes a range of textiles including canvas, drabbit, harden, Irish linen and ‘Barnsley linen’. However, in contrast to Cumberland, there are also four entries for finer ‘Holland’ purchased by Abbots Bromley in the 1820s and for cambric purchased by Lichfield in 1831.43 There is again the possibility that some of the fabrics described as ‘cloth’ were also linen or linen mixes, but of significance in Staffordshire is the large quantity of ‘Hemp cloth’ purchased by the parish of Wednesbury between 1778 and 1793. Though this cloth was woven from hemp rather than flax, it was probably put to much the same use as linen. Further down Table 2.3 are calico, cottons and gingham, as well as flannel at an average of 16½d per yard. The most expensive flannels were ‘milled’ or ‘double milled’ at 22d to 24d per yard, and there is also ‘Welch’ and ‘fine Welch’ flannel in the sample. Stuff and serge appear only infrequently. The average price per yard for textiles across Staffordshire is slightly lower than for Cumberland, but this may simply be the result of a smaller sample.

Table 2.2 Fabrics and prices across 65 overseers’ vouchers, Wigton, Cumberland, 1770–8

Figure 2.1 Detail of a bill for material supplied by Joshua Harrison, 1776

Table 2.3 Fabrics and prices across 164 overseers’ vouchers, Staffordshire, 1769–1831

Table 2.4 shows the fabrics purchased by the parish of Wednesbury between 1778 and 1801.44 Indeed, with 262 entries for textile purchases, Wednesbury dominates the entire sample for Staffordshire and therefore, unsurprisingly, follows closely the overall pattern for the county. Linens and hemp cloth, when combined, appear most often across the vouchers, at an average of 11d to 12d per yard. There are also payments for weaving cloth in the Wednesbury vouchers, which is not something that appears in the Cumberland sample; for example, William Russell was paid for ‘58 yds of shirt cloth wove at 3d per yard’ in 1779.45 Woollen and woollen-mix fabrics appear second at a relatively low average of 14¾d per yard, with a ‘woollen and jersey’ mix purchased most frequently. Flannel appears next at a high average of 21d per yard when compared with the overall average for Staffordshire, largely because the parish frequently purchased expensive ‘milled flannel’. One difference when compared with other vouchers in both Cumberland and Staffordshire is that Wednesbury purchased ‘striped cotton’ seven times between 1782 and 1794, which was relatively early for the consumption of cotton. The parish usually only purchased around two yards of this at a time, which suggests that it may have been used for aprons, handkerchiefs, lining garments or for children’s clothing.

Table 2.4 Fabrics and prices across 90 overseers’ vouchers, Wednesbury, Staffordshire, 1778–1801

Neither Wigton in Cumberland nor Wednesbury in Staffordshire demonstrate the increasing purchase of cotton and cotton-mix textiles reflected in Tables 2.1 and 2.3. In both counties the cotton textile calico appears after 1800 and increases in frequency in the 1820s. Dalston and Papcastle in Cumberland clearly illustrate this shift; in Dalston bills for the period 1778 to 1787 show no purchases of calico, but five entries alone for 1831 to 1836 show ‘Grey calico’ twice in 1831 at 4½d per yard and ‘Calico’ at 7¾d per yard in 1836. In Papcastle, of forty entries for textile purchases between 1821 and 1837, there are sixteen for calico at an average of 5½d per yard but only two for linens. Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire follows a similar pattern; there are only eleven vouchers for the period 1822 to 1827, but they contain rich detail about textiles, showing fifty-two purchases of calico including olive, white, dyed, black glazed, unbleached and ‘print’ calico at an average of 6d per yard. There are only eleven entries for linens, and even the cheapest linen at 7d was more expensive than the average price per yard for calico. The purchase of calico by parishes was identified by King as an indication of relative generosity, most likely based on an assumption that the term referred to fashionable printed calicoes.46 However, it is probable that by this point ‘calico’ referred rather to a plain cotton cloth, something supported by the prices recorded and descriptive terms such as ‘unbleached’. This does not rule out the possibility that some of these calicoes came in prints used for women’s gowns; for example, Abbots Bromley purchased ‘Print Callico’ at 3d and 6d per yard in 1827.47 However, their primary purpose was probably as a cheaper replacement for linen and linen-mix textiles. Indeed, this may have formed a deliberate attempt to reduce clothing expenditure, as Richmond found for Sussex and Kent in the 1820s.48 This would not necessarily have resulted in significant savings in the long term, however, as calico was less hard-wearing than linen. As Styles has outlined, it was only after 1825 that cottons began to offer a meaningful price advantage over linen for making shifts and shirts.49

In addition to calico, the vouchers demonstrate a wider shift towards cotton or cotton-mix textiles after 1800, which fall under the category of ‘cottons’ in Tables 2.1 and 2.3. These included corduroy, cotton, dyed cotton, muslin, nankeen, printed cotton, gingham, striped cotton velveteen and jaconet. Corduroy and the silk-like velveteen might have begun to replace woollen textiles for outerwear like waistcoats and breeches, and were the most expensive of the cotton fabrics, accounting for high averages in Tables 2.1 and 2.3. Greystoke in Cumberland, for example, purchased corduroy four times between 1820 and 1836 at an average of 24d per yard. Abbots Bromley purchased gingham sixteen times between 1822 and 1827 at an average of 10d per yard, while it also purchased corduroy at 32d per yard, velveteen at 21d, stripe cotton at 13d, muslin at 12d and dyed cotton at 6d. There were also various iterations of ‘prints’ purchased by authorities across both Cumberland and Staffordshire which may have been cotton or cotton-mix textiles used for women’s gowns; for example, ‘blue & white print’ was purchased by Hayton in Cumberland in 1831.50 Cotton textiles had by no means entirely eclipsed other fabrics by 1834, as linens appear across all years of the sample. However, their increasing presence does reflect an important shift in textile consumption after 1820.

It is possible to extract some detail about the lengths of fabrics purchased by parishes, but extremely difficult to determine averages. The vouchers in Cumberland suggest that overseers purchased an average of four yards of linen at a time, but in Brampton this ranged from one yard of harden purchased on several occasions between 1781 and 1796 to thirty-one yards of ‘Housewife linen’ purchased in 1794 and 1795. Duffel seems to have been supplied at around four yards at a time with slightly more consistency, perhaps in response to specific need, for instance, to provide a coat for an apprentice.51 Nevertheless, in Hayton purchases of duffel still ranged from one to thirty-five yards. The Staffordshire parishes are broadly similar.52 The average purchase of linen was slightly higher than in Cumberland at eight and a quarter yards, but in Wednesbury this ranged from 141 yards of ‘strong linen cloth’ purchased in 1779 to half a yard of harden in 1789.53 This shows differing practices even within parishes, as some may have kept a store of fabrics purchased in bulk but also purchased textiles in response to need and for specific individuals. This might reflect distinctions between indoor and outdoor relief as parishes stockpiled textiles for use in workhouses, but the vouchers often make these distinctions difficult to confirm, particularly when these purchases appear in a bill issued by a vendor. The parish of Wednesbury did purchase textiles intended for ‘the house’ a number of times, though no clear pattern emerges in terms of the lengths supplied; in 1789, for example, purchases ranged from five yards of linen, sixteen yards of jersey, thirty-five yards of ‘white jersey’, four yards of harden, and one and a half yards of linen.54 The 1789 manual Instructions for Cutting Out Apparel for the Poor emphasized that purchasing textiles wholesale contributed to considerable savings.55 However, contrary to this advice, parishes continued to purchase a mix of longer and shorter lengths up to the end of the Old Poor Law.

The nature of the vouchers, as well as inconsistent descriptive practices, makes it difficult to reach overall judgements about textile consumption by different authorities. There are some purchases of more expensive fabrics such as lawn in evidence but never in significant numbers and, as Jones, Styles and others have found, the textiles purchased across Cumberland and Staffordshire were relatively inexpensive, coarse and perhaps even uniform in some instances. There are certainly none of the expensive damasks and camlets purchased by the plebeian Latham family between 1724 and 1767, for instance.56 No parish purchased additional decorative trimmings such as ribbons or lace, which were relatively cheaply available. Striped fabrics, plaids, checks, ginghams and prints may have provided some colour variation and pattern, but textiles were most consistently described as blue, white, grey, brown, black and sometimes as green. The most striking consistency of colour is in the purchase of duffel across Cumberland as, of seventy-three entries, forty-five are described as blue. As duffel was probably used to make outerwear such as coats and cloaks, this suggests a degree of uniformity.57

In addition to purchasing lengths of fabrics, authorities across Cumberland and Staffordshire were consistently supplied with haberdashery items. In Cumberland, vouchers record purchases of coat, breast and shirt buttons, horn and metal buttons, tape, whalebone (baleen), hooks and eyes, laces, apron strings, twists and yarn. There is a similar picture across Staffordshire with purchases of buttons, laces, inkles, pins, thread, binding, tape, yarn, sewing cotton, silk and even needles. In both counties it can be difficult to disentangle the prices of these items as they are often listed alongside each other as in the typical entry ‘to Tape thread Whail Bone and Laces’. However, they usually never cost more than a shilling at a time as thread could be little as 1d to 2d an ounce, while a dozen buttons could be had for 4d to 9d. There is evidence to suggest that some parishes purchased haberdashery items in bulk; Lichfield, for example, purchased ‘6 dozen buttons at 9d’ in 1822.58 However, the overall picture is one of consistent, if small, expenditure alongside lengths of textiles. This expenditure has frequently been overlooked in studies of pauper clothing, perhaps because it is difficult to map onto ‘final figures’ for clothing provision, but it is important to understandings of the processes by which parishes acquired and distributed clothing and textiles as relief.

Distributing clothing

Clothing and textiles might be distributed through a range of practices, some revealed and some obscured by the vouchers. Providing clothing or cloth rather than cash may have been a way to ensure that relief was not ‘frittered away’, but parishes seem to have been fairly flexible in meeting demand.59 It is also difficult to determine from the vouchers alone how pauper requests for relief shaped provision. Elizabeth Newell’s letter shows that she made a clear request for clothing, and letters such as this hint at interactions and negotiations that must have taken place within the parish.60 King has demonstrated that both requests by and attitudes towards in- and out-parish paupers differed little, and so one might imagine similar requests being placed – and fulfilled – in person.61 Sometimes requests were fairly general, but Newell’s reflects that paupers might also make more specific demands. The vouchers can also work to obscure differences between recipients of clothing relief, particularly in attempts to extract general trends and patterns of expenditure.62 There were many different people in receipt of relief, of which in- and out-parish paupers are just two examples.63 Gender and life cycle impacted significantly on poverty and there must have been clear differences between regular recipients who could build up a more extensive ‘pauper wardrobe’ and those who received one-off relief.64 For the parish of Campton in Bedfordshire, for example, Samantha Williams found that 80 per cent of clothing went to regularly paid pensioners.65

If we turn to look at what items of clothing were distributed, the vouchers demonstrate that hats, handkerchiefs, stockings and sometimes garments like aprons could be purchased ready-made. In Cumberland, a ‘Hat’ ranged from 1s to 1s 6d, while handkerchiefs appear across the sample at an average price of 13½d.66 With these items it is often difficult to determine whether the intended recipient was a man, woman or child unless they were named. Wednesbury purchased an ‘aporn for John Wolson’ at a high price of 3s 3d in 1801, but an apron was also an important part of a working woman’s wardrobe.67 Stockings were usually purchased ready-made, though there are some payments for stocking yarn. In Cumberland, prices ranged from 10d for a ‘pare of hose’ in 1770 to two pairs of stockings at 20d each in 1824.68 In Staffordshire the average cost of a pair of stockings was 1s 4d, but they increased in price from the 1790s onwards. Beyond these items, it is very difficult to determine prices for individual garments, or to estimate how many individual items of clothing were distributed. However, what the vouchers do reveal are frequent payments for making clothing; Dalston, for instance, paid 2s to ‘Timothy Crosier for making Cartnors Cloaths’ in 1785.69 These payments appear across the vouchers and could range from 8s to 10s for making a suit or several items to 4d to 10d for making a single garment. Sometimes payments were made to tailors, as in a bill ‘To a Taylor’s week and wages for making cloaths’ for ‘Olive Munkers child’ at 1s 4d in 1774.70 Some of the women who issued bills for making to the parish were also likely mantua-makers or milliners by trade. As Pam Inder has demonstrated, there were dressmakers catering to all levels of society in this period.71 However, parish paupers might also be paid to make up garments that only required plain sewing such as shirts and shifts. In these instances, not only did this provision benefit the recipients of clothing but also those who undertook this work, as the parish paid them for a service rather than simply providing financial relief. Again, from these costs alone it remains difficult to place an overall price on an item of clothing, particularly when payments were simply made for ‘making clothes’; in Skelton, for instance, £1 4d was paid for ‘Mary Stubs Cloaths making etc’ in 1796 or 1797.72 Nevertheless, these payments demonstrate broader practices of provision across parishes and hint at hidden economies of making that may have taken place inside the pauper household, poorhouse or workhouse; it is possible that some textiles and haberdashery items were issued directly to paupers, as bills appear only when someone other than the recipient was paid to make clothing (Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2 Margaret Fenton’s bill for making gowns, frocks and stays

It is clear from the overseers’ vouchers that, after providing shoes, a parish’s biggest undertaking when it came to clothing was the purchase and distribution of linen garments, and in particular of women’s shifts and men’s shirts, which were worn close to the body, washed often and required regular replacement. These body linens were essential to understandings of cleanliness and decency.73 As Alice Dolan has highlighted, pawning linen had severe implications, as the absence of clean linen was a marker of poverty that might provoke disgust.74 Crucial to this was owning a change so that one shift or shirt could be worn while the other was laundered. Indeed, a number of overseers’ vouchers record the purchase of blue and starch.75 On average, two and a half yards of cloth were needed to make a shift, three and a half to make a shirt and just under two yards for a child’s shift or shirt. Overseers across Cumberland and Staffordshire frequently purchased linen, linen mixes, cloths and cottons, and some of the lengths purchased closely match these quantities; for instance, Dalston often purchased two and a half yards of linen or cloth at a time and in the 1790s Wednesbury purchased two and a half to three and a half yards of harden on several occasions. A 1777 Wigton bill reflects the distribution of linen to thirteen recipients including Suse Morrow, Ruth Betterton and Molly Akin who each received ‘2 yards and a halfe of white tow cloth’ at 10d a yard between May and September.76 Suse Morrow, who appears to have been in the poorhouse, had also received two yards of tow cloth at 11d in December 1776.77 This suggests that some parishes distributed lengths of fabric specifically intended for shifts and shirts directly to paupers. Conversely, the 141 yards of ‘strong linen cloth’ purchased by Wednesbury in 1779 would have made forty shirts, fifty-six shifts or, with over half a yard spare, seventy shifts and shirts for children.78 It is possible to glean some details about prices for linens from the vouchers, though there are marked difficulties with calculating individual costs for these items. However, it is likely that an adult’s shift or shirt cost around 2s to 3s 6d, depending on when it was purchased, how it was purchased and who made it up.79 Prices for making a single shift or shirt were usually 4d to 6d, and payments might be made at different times, as a parish purchased fabric that was then made up at a later date.

Beyond linens, a basic set of outerwear for a man consisted of a suit made up of coat, waistcoat and breeches, as well as a shirt, stockings, hat and a pair of shoes, all of which are in evidence in the vouchers. The majority of entries for men’s outerwear across Cumberland and Staffordshire reflect payments for making up these items rather than for purchasing them ready-made, though, again, there are difficulties with estimating an individual price for these items; in Cumberland, for instance, costs for making men’s outwear ranged from 2s to 8s. Instructions for Cutting Out Apparel for the Poor suggested that coats, waistcoats and breeches could be issued separately as ‘it is seldom found that a poor labouring man can afford a whole suit of cloaths at once’, and it is clear from the vouchers that parishes frequently provided these items individually.80 Often they were directed for a named individual, particularly in the case of suits, which were expensive to purchase and make up. In the Staffordshire vouchers there are also payments for men’s smock frocks, a garment worn by agricultural labourers in the south and Midlands; for instance, Lichfield paid 10s for ‘A blue mans frock’ in 1830.81 Women’s clothing tended to be cheaper to purchase and make than men’s but consisted of more individual items. Ann Stubs of Skelton received a relatively full set of clothing in 1792 including a gown, two shifts, a handkerchief, a petticoat, a pair of stockings and an apron, while her child received two shifts and a bedgown.82 A gown was the equivalent of a suit, though the vouchers suggest that they were purchased less frequently. Nevertheless, it may be that women made up their own or paid someone else to do so; costs for making a single gown ranged across the vouchers from 12d in 1775 to 8d in 1797, to 1s 6d in 1831. As already highlighted, parishes were certainly purchasing textiles often used for gowns. A full gown would require around seven yards of fabric, but there are also shorter bedgowns across the sample that required only three yards.83 Some women received petticoats – for example, Mary Acwood received one at 3s 10d in 1780 – though they do not appear regularly in the vouchers.84 This is also the case for cloaks, though again this does not mean that they were not being made from duffel or woollen fabric purchased by the parish.85 A bill was issued to Lichfield in 1830 for four cloaks at a total of £1 16s, which were perhaps purchased ready-made, for example, while a bill to Dalston in 1831 listed ‘To making a cloake & Lining’.86 One key component of a woman’s wardrobe that appears relatively infrequently in the sample are stays; in Cumberland there are only seven entries between 1770 and 1776, including three pairs purchased in 1771 at 4s 6d, 4s and 3s 6d ‘for the use of the Poor’.87 The overseer of Greystoke also made a payment of 1s 4d in 1822 for ‘Making a pair of Stays’, but in both Cumberland and Staffordshire purchases of whalebone, ‘stay tape’, binding and laces hint at the making of stays beyond this (Figure 2.3).88

Children also appear as named recipients across the vouchers, and indeed might require a significant outlay as their clothing wore out or became too small. This was especially the case with younger children who required frequent changes, a cost all the more prohibitive for unmarried or single mothers.89 Looking again at Ann Stubs of Skelton, a 1788 bill for her child lists a wide range of items including three caps and one bib, striped linen, blue flannel and a yard of Irish linen for two shawls at a total of 5s 11d.90 Moreover, naked or poorly clothed children were representative of extreme deprivation, placing an obligation on a parish to provide urgent relief.91 Younger children received frocks and skirts, but older ones received much the same clothing as adults. For instance, Wigton purchased two pairs of stays for ‘the use of Stalker’s wife’s children’ in 1771.92 The vouchers suggest that it was, unsurprisingly, slightly cheaper to clothe a child as, for example, a child’s bedgown cost 9d compared to the 2s 11d spent on a ‘Bedgown for Ann Stoker’ in 1792.93 In Wigton in 1772, four boys hats were purchased at 10d each while ‘a ‘Mans Hat’ cost 1s 2d, and payments for making boys’ suits were usually lower than for men’s. It is well established that a parish might purchase a full set of clothing for children about to go into employment or apprenticeships, and this could again require significant one-off expenditure.94 In an undated voucher from Lichfield, for instance, is a payment for five days’ work at 2s ‘for making Michael Done a new sute of clothing for his apprenticeship’, while the overseer of Threlkeld paid 5s ‘To Cloaths’ for Thomas Hudson’s daughter ‘going in to Service’ in 1790.95 Indeed, pauper writers often asked parishes to provide clothing to enable their children to secure employment; in 1829, for instance, the Essex pauper Samuel White asked for ‘20 or 30 shillings’ to send his daughter ‘out a little respectable’ to work in a shop.96

Figure 2.3 Coarse linen stays, 1760–80. York Castle Museum

In addition to making clothing, payments for mending and repairing clothing appear across the vouchers. They by no means form a large part of expenditure but often remain overlooked in discussions dominated by newly purchased or issued clothing. In Wigton in 1770, for instance, alongside ‘Quarter of a years Board and Lodgings for Mary Tremble’ was a payment of 2s for ‘Mending and repairing old cloths’.97 In Cumberland, payments ranged from 4d spent on mending clothes in 1796 to payments of 2s 6d and 5s for ‘mending the pa[u]pers close’ in 1788 and 1789.98 Mending is not as much in evidence in Staffordshire, though in 1828 payments for ‘Mending etc’ and ‘Mending shoes and clothes W Harris’ at 3s each appear in the Yoxall vouchers.99 Abbots Bromley also purchased ‘3 yds Callico’ and ‘Cotton Worsted’ for ‘mending at the workhouse’ in 1822, suggesting that some of the textiles and haberdashery supplies purchased by parishes went towards the repair of clothing.100 Indeed, this again hints at broader practices of mending and repair, and suggests that the parish could provide clothing relief by a range of means. While mending and repair might not reflect expenditure on new clothing, they do demonstrate that the parish could play a wider role in the maintenance and upkeep of the pauper wardrobe. Indeed, as with making, poorer members of the community may have been paid for mending to relieve pressure on poor relief.

While it is therefore possible to glean some details about the distribution of clothing from the vouchers, other practices are only hinted at. For example, it is difficult to determine whether some of the payments issued to paupers in ‘distress’ were intended for clothing, though a 1780 receipt in the vouchers from Margaret Huet to the parish of Brampton for ‘Five shillings for to help buy cloathes’ demonstrates that money could be provided for this purpose.101 The practices of pawning and redeeming clothing, which appear again and again across pauper letters, are not reflected in the sample of the vouchers at all, though they probably took place.102 Several letters from Philip and Frances James to Uttoxeter mention pawning goods; for instance, Frances wrote in 1833 that ‘I have been [obliged] to Pledge & Sell Almost every thing we had’.103 Though it did not form direct expenditure on clothing, payments that enabled paupers to fetch clothing out of pawn again reflect broader involvement and investment by the parish in the pauper wardrobe. The overseers’ vouchers therefore reveal diverse and flexible practices in the distribution of clothing, as well as parish assistance with the maintenance of the pauper wardrobe, though it remains clear that parishes were far more likely to provide paupers with textiles or to have something made up than they were to purchase clothing ready-made or second-hand, despite a thriving second-hand market.104 Extracting a ‘final’ price or quantity for specific items of clothing necessarily excludes some of these strategies.

How clothing provision was received by paupers is difficult to determine, though scholarship on pauper letters has gone some way towards uncovering popular understandings. However, clothing in these letters is always filtered through the need to construct a successful request for relief. Therefore, while a few writers did express surprise or disappointment that a parish had not provided cloth or clothing, they were unlikely to be critical of clothing they had received; rather, requests centred on insufficient, ragged or absent clothing. The repeated purchase of blue duffel in Cumberland suggests that pauper clothing could certainly be uniform in some respects and may have marked out recipients of relief within or even beyond their home parish. However, much like the practice of badging, the meanings of clothing provided by the parish were probably ambiguous rather than straightforwardly reflective of shame or dependency.105 It is also important to remember that parish relief was just one way in which labouring men, women and children might receive clothing through channels without ‘choice’.106 Finally, it is clear that paupers were more than capable of supplementing parish clothing; when he entered the Skelton poorhouse in 1781, for instance, John Matthews had in his possession one silk handkerchief, which was unlikely to have been acquired through relief.107

Conclusion

A shroud or winding sheet marked the last time a pauper might be clothed by the parish; Ann Garnet of Papcastle received four yards of flannel in November 1825, for instance, while 2s was paid shortly afterwards in January 1826 for her shroud.108 For some this represented the end of a regular supply of clothing, for others it was the end of an occasional or one-off source of relief, while many more may have relied on different strategies that made up the makeshift economy when they were alive. Some may have even been involuntary consumers of parish clothing through inheritance, recycling, theft or pawning; clothing and textiles issued by the parish did not necessarily stay with their initial recipient, though the vouchers usually fix them at the point of purchase or distribution.

By looking across overseers’ vouchers in Cumberland and Staffordshire, this chapter has further highlighted regional and inter-parish differences in the ways overseers purchased, supplied, distributed and recorded the clothing and textiles issued to paupers between 1769 and 1834. This demonstrates the importance of further research at both a regional and a parish-by-parish level to unpick this patchwork of practices. The findings outlined here broadly confirm the utility and potential uniformity of clothing provided in Cumberland and Staffordshire, but demonstrate that, rather than focusing on the ‘final’ point of distribution, clothing provision needs to be understood as a network of practices. In attempting to determine how many items of clothing were distributed by parishes and how much they cost, there is a risk of obscuring a wider range of strategies evident across the vouchers that included the consistent purchase of haberdashery items as well as the repair of pauper clothing. Not only do difficulties with the source material make sweeping conclusions about quantity and quality tricky, but the adaptability and diversity of these practices is in itself significant. As King has highlighted, end-of-process spending is an ‘inadequate guide’ to the range of experiences of provision.109 Clothing provision came in different guises and was added to different wardrobes at different points in the life cycle.

Whether paupers were beneficiaries or losers by way of this diversity is more difficult to say. It highlights, in theory at least, the potential for overseers to exercise flexibility in responding to requests for clothing. Indeed, this flexibility was important for authorities in responding to the varying circumstances of different paupers; the parish of East Hoathly, for instance, was invoiced by Bethlehem Hospital for clothes provided for Elizabeth Overing.110 Nevertheless, it is likely that in practice it generated mixed experiences. The example of Sarah Sowerby of Threlkeld, an out-parish pauper living in Kendal, is certainly evidence that the system could create marked difficulties for paupers in need of clothing. Between 1801 and Sowerby’s death in 1812, three different letter writers addressed the authorities to request relief for her in the form of linen and other items of clothing, including the master of the Kendal workhouse, Daniel Dunglinson. In 1807 Dunglinson twice requested permission from Threlkeld to supply Sowerby with ‘necessary Clothing’ but was met with silence, and so found it necessary to mobilize the overseer of Kendal who wrote in December 1807 to reiterate Sowerby’s ‘great Want of Clothing’.111 Dunglinson’s attempts to secure payment for these items show that in some cases clothing relief required repeated negotiation and interaction with the parish authorities, particularly when distributed via the out-parish system. When the range of practices found across the vouchers is taken into account, the ‘generosity’ of clothing provision also proves a slippery system of measurement; how should the generosity of a parish that provided linen cloth and thread to a family who deployed the scraps as rags be compared to that of a parish that paid to have a family’s shifts and shirts made up? Indeed, paying to have clothes made may even have formed part of a wider parochial strategy, as making up might be given to another individual or family on the margins to help tide them over in a difficult time or to keep them from the workhouse. Moreover, how is generosity to be understood when these different practices were found within the same parish?

Some of the overseers’ vouchers for Cumberland show purchases made after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, though it is not clear what these textiles were for; in 1837, for instance, Papcastle purchased ‘Blue & Yellow Print’ at 6½d per yard.112 As already outlined, scholars have differed in their interpretation of the scale and significance of clothing provision in the final years of the Old Poor Law. The vouchers alone do not provide enough information to determine whether clothing provision was significantly impacted in Cumberland and Staffordshire in particular years of ‘crisis’, though, unlike Richmond’s Sussex and Kent parishes, it certainly continued into the 1820s.113 What is clear is that in the dying days of the Old Poor Law a number of parishes supplemented the purchase of linen and heavy woollen fabrics with lighter cotton textiles, and particularly calico, which perhaps reflected a broader attempt to make savings. Nevertheless, as King has highlighted, an established sense of entitlement among many paupers often made it difficult for parishes to sustain meaningful savings in the years leading up to 1834.114 It has already been demonstrated that the shift to the New Poor Law was not automatic or uncontested, and it is not difficult to imagine that this was also the case with the provision of clothing and textiles.115 Customary rights, expectations and understandings surrounding pauper clothing were unlikely to be transformed overnight.116

1 SRO, D730/3/13, Yoxall, Overseers’ vouchers, 1828.

2 SRO, D730/3/13, 1828.

3 S. King and A. Stringer, ‘“I have once more taken the leberty to say as you well know”: the development of rhetoric in the letters of English, Welsh and Scottish sick and poor, 1780s–1830s’, in Poverty and Sickness in Modern Europe: Narratives of the Sick Poor, 1780–1938, ed. A. Gestrich, E. Hurren and S. King (London, 2012), pp. 69–92, at p. 88.

4 S. Williams, ‘Poor relief, labourers’ households and living standards in rural England, c.1770–1834: a Bedfordshire case study’, The Economic History Review, lviii (2005), 485–519, at 485.

5 The 240 vouchers for Cumberland are divided as follows: Wigton, 65; Brampton, 39; Threlkeld, 29; Hayton, 28; Dalston, 26; Greystoke, 21; Papcastle, 18; Skelton, 14. There were 164 vouchers for Staffordshire: Wednesbury, 90; Lichfield, 27; Abbots Bromley, 11; Darlaston, 9; Uttoxeter, 9; Gnosall, 5; Hamstall Ridware, 5; Yoxall, 5; Endon-with-Stanley, 3.

6 H. French, ‘How dependent were the “dependent poor”? Poor relief and the life-course in Terling, Essex, 1762–1834’, Continuity and Change, xxx (2015), 193–222, at 195.

7 A. Buck, Dress in Eighteenth-Century England (London, 1979), p. 155; B. Lemire, ‘“A good stock of cloaths”: the changing market for cotton clothing in Britain, 1750–1800’, Textile History, xxii (1991), 311–28, at 317.

8 S. King, ‘Reclothing the English poor, 1750–1840’, Textile History, xxxiii (2002), 37–47.

9 P. Jones, ‘Clothing the poor in early-nineteenth-century England’, Textile History, xxxvii (2006), 17–37.

10 V. Richmond, ‘“Indiscriminate liberality subverts the morals and depraves the habits of the poor”: a contribution to the debate on the Poor Law, parish clothing relief and clothing societies in early nineteenth-century England’, Textile History, xl (2009), 51–69; V. Richmond, Clothing the Poor in Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 187, 210.

11 J. Styles, The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, 2007), pp. 261–75.

12 The parish poor of Stone, Staffordshire, may have been required to wear badges between 1697 and 1784: S. Hindle, ‘Dependency, shame and belonging: badging the deserving poor, c.1550–1750’, Cultural and Social History, i (2004), 6–35, at 10, 23–34.

13 S. King and P. Jones, ‘Testifying for the poor: epistolary advocates and the negotiation of parochial relief in England, 1800–1834’, Journal of Social History, xliv (2016), 784–807, at 788; S. King and P. Jones (eds), Navigating the Old English Poor Law: The Kirkby Lonsdale Letters, 1809–1836 (Oxford, 2020).

14 T. Sokoll, ‘Institutional context: the practice of non-resident relief’, in Essex Pauper Letters: 1731–1837, ed. T. Sokoll (Oxford, 2016), pp. 10–17, at p. 11.

15 S. King, ‘“I fear you will think me too presumtuous in my demands but necessity has no law”: clothing in English pauper letters, 1800–1834’, International Review of Social History, liv (2009), 207–36, at 216.

16 King, ‘“I fear you will think me too presumtuous”’, 224–7; S. King, ‘Negotiating the law of poor relief in England, 1800–1840’, History, xcvi (2011), 410–35, at 426; S. King, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s–1830s (Montreal, 2019), pp. 265–6; T. Sokoll, ‘Negotiating a living: Essex pauper letters from London, 1800–1834’, International Review of Social History, xlv (2000), 19–45, at 36; King and Stringer, ‘“I have once more taken the leberty”’, pp. 73–4; P. D. Jones, ‘“I cannot keep my place without being deascent”: pauper letters, parish clothing and pragmatism in the south of England, 1750–1830’, Rural History, xx (2009), 31–49, at 33; T. Hitchcock, Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London (London, 2004), pp. 107–8.

17 Jones, ‘“I cannot keep my place”’, 31–2.

18 K. D. M. Snell, ‘Belonging and community: understandings of “home” and “friends” among the English poor, 1750–1850’, The Economic History Review, lxv (2012), 1–25, at 9; Sokoll, ‘Negotiating a living’, 28.

19 S. King, ‘Pauper letters as a source’, Family & Community History, x (2007), 167–70, at 167.

20 A. Tomkins, ‘“I mak bould to wright”: first-person narratives in the history of poverty in England, c.1750–1900’, History Compass, ix (2011), 365–373, at 369.

21 T. Sokoll, ‘Pauper letters as a historical source’, in Essex Pauper Letters, ed. Sokoll, pp. 3–8, at p. 3; T. Sokoll, ‘Writing for relief: rhetoric in English pauper letters, 1800–1834’, in Being Poor in Modern Europe: Historical Perspectives, 1800–1940, ed. A. Gestrich, S. King and L. Raphael (Oxford, 2006), pp. 91–112, at p. 108; Snell, ‘Belonging and community’, 2; King, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, p. 56.

22 A. Levene, ‘General introduction’, in Narratives of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. A. Levene (5 vols, London, 2006), i. pp. vii–xix, at p. xix; King, ‘Negotiating the law of poor relief’, 417; P. D. Jones and N. Carter, ‘Writing for redress: redrawing the epistolary relationship under the New Poor Law’, Continuity and Change, xxxiv (2019), 375–99, at 379; T. Sokoll, ‘Old age in poverty: the record of Essex pauper letters, 1780–1834’, in Chronicling Poverty: The Voices and Strategies of the English Poor, 1640–1840, ed. T. Hitchcock, P. King and P. Sharpe (Basingstoke, 1997), pp. 127–54, at pp. 131, 146.

23 S. Hindle, On the Parish? The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England, c.1550–1750 (Oxford, 2004), p. 270.

24 A. Tomkins and S. King, ‘Introduction’, in The Poor in England, 1700–1850: An Economy of Makeshifts, ed. S. King and A. Tomkins (Manchester, 2003), pp. 1–38 , at p. 1; Hindle, On the Parish?, pp. 4, 9; S. Williams, Poverty, Gender and Life-Cycle under the English Poor Law, 1760–1834 (Woodbridge, 2011), p. 7; J. Boulton, ‘“It is extreme necessity that makes me do this”: some “survival strategies” of pauper households in London’s West End during the early eighteenth century’, International Review of Social History, lxv (2000), 47–69, at 56.

25 S. King, Poverty and Welfare in England, 1700–1850: A Regional Perspective (Manchester, 2000), p. 258; Styles, Dress of the People, p. 258; Hindle, On the Parish?, p. 4; Richmond, Clothing the Poor, p. 298; Richmond, ‘“Indiscriminate liberality”’, pp. 51–69; D. MacKinnon, ‘“Charity is worth it when it looks that good”: rural women and bequests of clothing in early modern England’, in Women, Identities and Communities in Early Modern England, ed. S. Tarbin and S. Broomhall (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 79–93; J. Broad, ‘Parish economies of welfare, 1650–1834’, The Historical Journal, xlii (1999), 985–1006, at 1002.

26 Styles, Dress of the People, p. 247.

27 A. Tomkins, ‘Pawnbroking and the survival strategies of the urban poor in 1770s York’, in The Poor in England, ed. King and Tomkins, pp. 166–98, at p. 184. Pauper inventories also highlight that they had differing levels of domestic goods: J. Harley (ed.), Norfolk Pauper Inventories, c.1690–1834 (Oxford, 2020); J. Harley, ‘Material lives of the poor and their strategic use of the workhouse during the final decades of the English Old Poor Law’, Continuity and Change, xxx (2015), 71–103.

28 J. Styles, ‘Involuntary consumers? Servants and their clothes in eighteenth-century England’, Textile History, xxxiii (2002), 9–21; J. Styles, ‘Custom or consumption? Plebeian fashion in eighteenth-century England’, in Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, ed. M. Berg and E. Eger (Basingstoke, 2003), pp. 107–15.

29 J. Kent and S. King, ‘Changing patterns of poor relief in some English rural parishes circa 1650–1750’, Rural History, xiv (2003), 119–56, at 119; French, ‘How dependent were the “dependent poor”?’, 215; H. French, ‘An irrevocable shift: detailing the dynamics of rural poverty in southern England, 1762–1834: a case study’, The Economic History Review, lxviii (2015), 769–805, at 773; R. Dyson, ‘The extent and nature of pauperism in five Oxfordshire parishes, 1786–1832’, Continuity and Change, xxviii (2013), 421–49, at 443; P. Sharpe and J. McEwan, ‘Introduction: accommodating poverty: the housing and living arrangements of the English poor, c.1600–1850’, in Accommodating Poverty: The Housing and Living Arrangements of the English Poor, c.1600–1850, ed. J. McEwan and P. Sharpe (Basingstoke, 2011), pp. 1–21, at pp. 2–3; Tomkins and King, ‘Introduction’, p. 9.

30 King, ‘Introduction’, p. xxxiv.

31 S. P. Walker, ‘Expense, social and moral control: accounting and the administration of the Old Poor Law in England and Wales’, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, xxiii (2004), 98–9, at 104.

32 S. King, ‘“Stop this overwhelming torment of destiny”: negotiating financial aid at times of sickness under the English Old Poor Law, 1800–1840’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, lxxix (2005), 228–60, at 248; King, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, p. 10.

33 The sample contains 404 vouchers tagged under the major field ‘Clothing, shoes and textiles’ and under the subfields ‘Men’s clothing’, ‘Women’s clothing’, ‘Children’s clothing’, ‘Textiles’ and ‘Haberdashery’ on the project data capture programme. The sample does not reflect the entirety of the collection of vouchers for each county.

34 For example, see P. Collinge, ‘Women, business and the Old Poor Law’, for discussion of Ann Keen, supplier of ready-made shoes.

35 Jones, ‘Clothing the poor’, 22–3.

36 Styles, Dress of the People, pp. 164–5.

37 Styles, Dress of the People, p. 247.

38 E. Berry, Elizabeth Proud, Woollen Mill Owner and Manufacturer, Hard Bank Mill, Hayton <thepoorlaw.org/elizabeth-proud-…bank-mill-hayton> [accessed 25 Oct. 2021].

39 ‘Wildbore’, in C. W. Cunnington, P. E. Cunnington and C. Beard, A Dictionary of English Costume, 900–1900 (London, 1960), p. 280; P. Collinge, ‘Wild boar stuff’, <https://thepoorlaw.org/wild-boar-stuff> [accessed 21 July 2020].

40 T. W. Carrick, The History of Wigton (Carlisle, 1949), p. 30; CAS, PR60/21/13/2/36, Brampton, Overseers’ vouchers, 1781; PR60/21/13/5/47, 1817.

41 Calamanco was a woollen stuff.

42 Frize, a coarse woollen cloth, appears only once in 1769.

43 SRO, LD20/6/7/242, 1831.

44 Wednesbury has good records between 1778 and 1794, though there are no textile bills for 1780 and only one textile purchase recorded in 1787. There is a gap between 1794 and the seven entries for 1801.

45 SRO, D4383/6/1/9/1/5/3, Wednesbury, Overseers’ vouchers, 1779.

46 King, ‘Reclothing the English poor’, pp. 43–5.

47 SRO, D1209/4/3/1/152, Abbots Bromley, Overseers’ vouchers, 1827.

48 Richmond, ‘“Indiscriminate liberality”’, pp. 51–69; Richmond, Clothing the Poor, p. 187.

49 Styles, Dress of the People, p. 95; J. Styles, ‘What were cottons for in the early Industrial Revolution?’, in The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850, ed. G. Riello and P. Parthasarathi (Oxford, 2013), pp. 307–27.

50 CAS, PR102/112/16, Hayton, Overseers’ vouchers, 1831.

51 J. Lane, Apprenticeship in England (London, 1996), pp. 28–9.

52 Some Staffordshire parishes used ‘nails’, around one-sixteenth of a yard, as a measurement.

53 SRO, D4383/6/1/9/1/5/8, 1779; D4383/6/1/9/2/114, 1789.

54 SRO, D4383/6/1/9/2/65; D4383/6/1/9/2/126, 1789.

55 Anon., Instructions for Cutting Out Apparel for the Poor; principally intended for the Assistance of the Patronesses of Sunday Schools, and other Charitable Institutions, but Useful in all Families (London, 1789), p. 1.

56 Styles, Dress of the People, p. 263.

57 P. Collinge, ‘Blue duffle’, The Poor Law (2019) <https://thepoorlaw.org/blue-duffle> [accessed 21 July 2020].

58 SRO, LD20/6/6/51, 1822.

59 Hindle, On the Parish?, pp. 264–5.

60 Sokoll, ‘Institutional context’, p. 11.

61 King, ‘Introduction’, p. l; King, ‘Negotiating the law of poor relief’, 416.

62 French, ‘How dependent were the “dependent poor”?’, 195.

63 Kent and King, ‘Changing patterns of poor relief’, 119.

64 A. Levene, ‘Poor families, removals and “nurture” in late Old Poor Law London’, Continuity and Change, xxv (2010), 233–62, at 235; S. R. Ottaway, ‘Providing for the elderly in eighteenth-century England’, Continuity and Change, xiii (1998), 391–418, at 404.

65 Williams, Poverty, Gender and Life-Cycle, p. 44.

66 Based on twenty-eight entries for handkerchiefs which usually cost around 10d to 14d.

67 SRO, D4383/6/1/9/3/146, 1802.

68 CAS, PR36/V/1/23, Wigton St Mary, Overseers’ vouchers, 1770.

69 CAS, SPC44/2/37/5, Dalston, Overseers’ vouchers, 1778–9.

70 SRO, D730/3/6, 1820.

71 P. Inder, Busks, Basques and Brush-Braid: British Dressmaking in the 18th and 19th Centuries (London, 2020), pp. 78–9.

72 CAS, PR10/V/20, 1797.

73 S. North, Sweet and Clean? Bodies and Clothes in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2020), p. 196.

74 A. Dolan, ‘Touching linen: textiles, emotion and bodily intimacy in England, c.1708–1818’, Cultural and Social History, xvi (2019), 145–64, at 148, 159.

75 For example, CAS, PR36/V/6/33, 1776, and SRO, D4383/6/1/9/1/16/4, 1790.

76 CAS, PR36/V/7/44, 1777.

77 CAS, PR36/V/6/81, 1776.

78 SRO, D4383/6/1/9/1/5/8, 1779.

79 Taking the average price of linen in Cumberland as 12½d per yard plus 5d for making, a shift comes to 3s ¼d and a shirt 4s ¾d. Taking the average price of linen in Staffordshire as 11¾d per yard plus 5d for making, a shift comes to 2s 10½d and a shirt 3s 10d. These are high estimates, illustrating the difficulties of establishing the total cost of a garment from the vouchers.

80 Anon., Instructions for Cutting Out, p. 54.

81 SRO, LD20/6/7/162, 1830.

82 CAS, PR10/V/17, Skelton, Overseers’ vouchers, 1792.

83 Anon., Instructions for Cutting Out, pp. 16–17; Styles, Dress of the People, pp. 41–2.

84 SRO, D4383/6/1/91/6/10, 1780.

85 Anon., Instructions for Cutting Out, p. 68.

86 SRO, LD20/6/7/203, 1830; CAS, SPC44/2/48/136, 1831.

87 CAS, PR36/V/2/66, 1771.

88 CAS, PR5/67-D/6, Greystoke St Andrew, Overseers’ vouchers, 1822.

89 For the rising cost of illegitimate children see S. Williams, Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis, 1700–1850: Pregnancy, the Poor Law and Provision (Cham, 2018); S. Williams, ‘The maintenance of bastard children in London, 1790–1834’, The Economic History Review, lxix (2016), 945–71, at 968.

90 CAS, PR10/V/14/4, 1788.

91 J. Bailey, ‘“Think wot a mother must feel”: parenting in English pauper letters, c.1760–1834’, Family & Community History, xiii (2010), 5–19, at 16.

92 CAS, PR36/V/23, 1771.

93 SRO, D4383/6/1/9/3/210, 1792.

94 Jones, ‘Clothing the poor’, p. 28; Jones, ‘“I cannot keep my place”’, 39.

See also K. Honeyman, ‘The Poor Law, the parish apprentice, and the textile industries in the north of England, 1780–1830’, Northern History, xliv (2007), 115–40.

95 SRO, LD20/6/7/21, undated; CAS, SPC21/8–11/8A, Threlkeld, Overseers’ vouchers, 1794.

96 Sokoll (ed.), Essex Pauper Letters, no. 264.

97 CAS, PR36/V/1/11, 1770.

98 CAS, PR60/21/13/2/94, Brampton, Overseers’ vouchers, 1788; PR60/21/13/2/72, 1789.

99 SRO, D730/3/14, 1828.

100 SRO, D1209/4/3/1/9, 1822.

101 CAS, PR60/21/13/2, 1780.

102 For discussion of the pawning practices of York paupers see Tomkins, ‘Pawnbroking and the survival strategies of the urban poor’, pp. 166–93.

103 ‘Letters from Philip and Frances James and others at Leicester to the parish of Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, 1832–7’, in Narratives of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. A. Levene (5 vols, London, 2006), i. pp. 273–81.

104 For the second-hand clothing trade see B. Lemire, ‘Consumerism in preindustrial and early industrial England: the trade in secondhand clothes’, Journal of British Studies, xxvii (1988), 1–24, at 4; B. Lemire, ‘The theft of clothes and popular consumerism in early modern England’, Journal of Social History, xxiv (1990), 255–76; M. Lambert, ‘“Cast-off wearing apparell”: the consumption and distribution of second-hand clothing in northern England during the long eighteenth century’, Textile History, xxxi (2004), 1–26.

105 Hindle, ‘Dependency, shame and belonging’, p. 29; S. King, ‘The clothing of the poor: a matter of pride or shame?’, in Being Poor in Modern Europe, ed. Gestrich, King and Raphael, pp. 365–88, at p. 369.

106 Styles, Dress of the People, p. 247.

107 CAS, PR10/V/15, 1781.

108 CAS, SPC110/1/3/2/3/199, Papcastle, Overseers’ vouchers, 1826–8.

109 King, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, p. 344.

110 See Interlude 2 (E. Hughes, ‘Elizabeth Overing, sent to Bedlam’) after this chapter.

111 CAS, SPC21/8–11/47, 43, 37, 1807.

112 CAS, SPC110/1/3/2/3/125, 1837.

113 Richmond, ‘“Indiscriminate liberality”’, pp. 51–69; Jones, ‘Clothing the poor’, p. 34.

114 King, ‘Negotiating the law of poor relief’, 413.

115 Jones and Carter, ‘Writing for redress’, 384–6.

116 T. Hitchcock, P. King and P. Sharpe, ‘Introduction: Chronicling poverty – the voices and strategies of the English poor, 1640–1840’, in Chronicling Poverty, ed. Hitchcock, King and Sharpe, pp. 1–18, at p. 10.