Guardians to show cause why they should not contribute towards the maintenance of their aged parents.
I was cross-examined on my evidence for some hours by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. At the close of my examination I was thanked by the late King and the other members of the Commission for my evidence. The Commission held their sittings in the Queen's Robing Room in the House of Lords. When my evidence was published it caused quite a sensation in the country, and I think the report of this Commission hastened on the passing of the District and Parish Councils Act. About this time I grew so disgusted with the treatment meted out to my mother that I absolutely refused to contribute any more towards the sum granted her by them. I told the Board they could stop the miserable 2s. 6d. per week and this they did forthwith. My wife and I at once gave notice to the landlord of the cottage in which my mother had lived for fifty years, the rent of which we had paid between us, and I decided to take her to our home and look after her. My sister had the furniture with the exception of the bed on which my mother slept and an old chest of drawers. I kept my mother until she died on February 5, 1892, without receiving a penny from anyone.
In 1894 the Government brought in a Bill known as the District and Parish Councils Bill, which provided for the establishment of a Council in every parish having a population of 300 and over, and the placing of the obtaining of allotments for the working classes in the hands of the Council, together with the appointing of trustees for Parish Charities. It also sought to abolish all property qualification in election as Guardians. Mr. Z. Walker and I jointly entered into a campaign during the passage of the Bill through Parliament, Mr. Arch paying as many visits to the county as his parliamentary duties would permit. We also had the valuable assistance of the English Land Restoration League, as it was then called, Mr. Frederick Verinder being the General Secretary. The League sent down one of their vans and a lecturer.
The Trades Union Congress was held in Norwich this year (1894). I attended the Congress as delegate from the Norfolk and Norwich Amalgamated Labour League and moved a resolution on the tied cottage system.
At the end of the session the Bill became law, and by the instructions of my Executive I set about preparing to put the Act in force. I held meetings in every village where we had branches of the Union and explained the provisions of the Act. By the time the first meetings were held to elect the Parish Councils in many of our villages we had got our men ready and well posted up in the mode of procedure as to nominations and how to carry on.
The first meeting was held in December in the village in which I lived. We held a preliminary meeting in the schools to explain the Act. This meeting was attended by the Rev. W. W. Mills, the Rector of the parish, who caused some little amusement by his constant personal interjections. For some years for some reason he had shown a personal dislike to me, and he never lost an opportunity to manifest this spirit of dislike. What influenced him I never could understand, but he always seemed jealous of my influence in the village as a Nonconformist. A few days after this meeting was held the Rector came to my house to inform me that Mrs. Mills was being nominated as a candidate for the District Council, and I informed him that I was also being nominated. He expressed a wish that the contest might be friendly. I informed him that so far as I was concerned it would. He then accused me of being the cause of the meeting referred to above being disorderly, which I stoutly denied. He then called me a liar, and it looked for a few moments as if we were in for a scuffle, for I threatened to put him out of my house and began to take steps to do so. He at once rose from his seat and rushed to the door before I could lay hands on him, but in getting away he caught my hand in the door and knocked the skin off my knuckles. My wife was in the next room, and had she not appeared on the scene I do not know what would have happened. She got between us, took the Rector by the collar and put him out of the yard. This event caused some little excitement in the village.
At the meeting held for the election of Parish Councillors all the Labour members nominated were elected. We had nominated sufficient candidates to fill all the seats but one, and this was taken by Mr. Groom, the schoolmaster. The parish of Felbrigg was also joined to Aylmerton for the purpose of forming the Parish Council, and it became known as the Aylmerton-cum-Felbrigg Parish Council. At the first meeting of the Council I was elected chairman. I was also elected on the Beckham Parish Council on which I served for some years, and I was also one of the charity trustees. One of the first things we did on the Aylmerton Council was to obtain allotments for the labourers in the parishes of Aylmerton and Felbrigg. In fact, our enthusiasm to do something was so great that it was the cause of our undoing, for at the next election we all got defeated, and I took no more interest in the affairs of the parish while I lived there.
At the District Council election I beat my opponent by four votes. My wife was elected for the parish of East and West Beckham unopposed, Mr. Barker was elected for Sustead, Mr. T. Self for Felbrigg, Mr. Walter Towler for Edgefield and Mr. B. Johnson for Sheringham. Thus we started the new Erpingham District Council and Board of Guardians with six direct Labour representatives, which beat the record in all rural England. I was a member of this Council for eighteen years and my wife for ten years.
The reception we received at the first meeting of the Council was rather mixed. Many of the members were rather alarmed at so many Labour members being elected, particularly myself, whom they looked upon as being the leader of the group, and of course I was looked upon as being a rebel, out for revolution, to upset law and order, and to go in for most indiscriminate outdoor relief. Our arrival at the Board was rather late, and on entering the room we found all the other members present discussing the probable events of the day. As soon as I appeared in the room I saw some of the members point to me and remark, that I was "the fellow." Well, it was quite true, we were there for business and to make a great alteration in the administration of the Poor Law. On settling down to work we found the outdoor relief allowed by this Board was as follows: Aged couples, one stone of flour and 2s. 6d. per week, and in a few special cases 3s. per week; single persons, half a stone of flour and 1s. 6d. per week; young widow with family 6d. per week and half a stone of flour for all the children with the exception of one, which the widow was expected to keep as well as herself. We found another shameful practice in existence. If the late husband of the recipient was in a sick club, the widow was requested to show all her bills as evidence of how she had spent her husband's funeral money before any relief was granted.
This seems almost incredible, but it is true. We made an early attempt to alter this scandalous state of things, as the following account of a debate that took place will prove. Although we did not get the improvements we aimed at, still we made some advancement, and it encouraged us to aim very soon at other improvements. We Labour members made strict inquiries into the conditions of the poor. We also found in those days that the Relieving Officers had not advanced far from their predecessors in the treatment of the poor and would take any excuse to deprive the poor of relief. On going to the Board meeting one day my wife found that a poor sick and aged widow had had her relief stopped by the Relieving Officer, the excuse being that the woman had given birth to an illegitimate child. This the officer said he knew to be true as the woman had told him so. This astounded my wife, as she knew it was impossible for such a thing to have happened, and she undertook to investigate the matter. This she did, and was able to inform the Board that the so-called illegitimate child was thirty years of age, married, and a mother herself. Needless to say, we Labour members did not fail to denounce this cruel act for all we were worth and we got the poor woman her money put on again. The Relieving Officer was made to pay her her back money himself and never to come to the Board again with such a story.
The next question we tackled was the relief given in kind. We found that meat tickets ordered by the doctor had been refused in numbers of cases, so much so that the doctors had begun to complain. I raised the question on the Board and I found up a clause in the Poor Law Act that prohibited the Guardians from refusing to give relief in kind ordered by the doctor. It caused a good deal of discussion, but we got the matter put right. The quality of the flour allowed to the poor next came under our notice. One week a poor widow living in my village brought me a loaf of bread she had made from the flour the Relieving Officer had left her that week. One could take the middle out and leave the crust standing like two walls. My wife gave the woman some of her own
