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A BUSY
OFFICIAL
Workhouse Master and Vestry Clerk
In an interesting article, one of an "Old Harrogate" series that
appeared in the Harrogate Herald during the winter of 1892-3, W. H.
Breare mentions the election, held some fifty years before, of the
first Town Improvement Commissioners. He is giving details about
each of the candidates in turn when he frankly confesses, “Henry
Peacock I have not heard of." In a later article he remarks, "I am
wondering if Harrogate ever had a Poor House of its own." As the
township records were not available in Breare's time, he was unaware
of the connection that exists between his two comments. Harrogate
had a Workhouse of its own for nearly fifty years, and for thirteen
of them Henry Peacock was its capable and energetic Master. The
records of the Workhouse throw much light on life and conditions in
the first half of the nineteenth century, but the character of
Peacock is a matter of more personal interest.
Like other people, he had his good and bad qualities, but he clearly
had an energy, a vitality, much above the ordinary. As is usual with
such characters, he aroused admiration, respect and, possibly, warm
affection, in some; in others, dislike and something not far from
contempt. Starting in poverty, he was determined to make life give
him what he felt was his due and as far as possible to control
circumstances.
Under the date June 2nd, 1825, in the Overseer's expenses account is
the laconic entry : "collecting new Master and Mrs. for the
Workhouse." The persons thus collected were Henry Peacock and his
wife Elizabeth. After three years' service at the workhouse of
"Aldborough and Boroughbridge" they had come to the much larger one
at Harrogate at the joint salary of £50 a year and "all found." A
flattering testimonial, signed by township officers and "principal
inhabitants," gives as their reason for the change "they consider
they can better themselves." In Henry's case, at any rate, this
phrase was no formal one thought up to suit the occasion. It was a
concise expression of his rule of life. Of Elizabeth we know nothing
more than that she was a good wife, being kept hard at work, and was
always ailing. She died in January, 1827, not unexpectedly. In a
letter she received some month before a woman friend tells her - in
a rather awkward attempt at sympathy - that at their last meeting
she had had the feeling they would never meet again. Henry's chief
concern seems to have been to collect a little money that was due to
her.
In August, 1828, he married Jane Dodd, for the Workhouse had to have
a Mistress. She helped by her frugal management to keep down the
cost of each pauper to about half-a-crown a week, and she also added
a little to the joint income by extra duties. Besides supervising
the washing and baking for the whole "family" of fifty or so she
probably had in her charge also the brewing, for quantities of malt
were bought, and the weekly item, "Jane Peacock : yest, etc," crept
up to 15s. a week. Jane had been maid to Sir Charles des Voeux, of
Woodhall, and had accumulated during her years of service a balance
of about £150 in the York Saving Bank. In November, 1828, this
account is put in her husband's name.
When Peacock had been appointed Workhouse Master in 1825, he had
become Vestry Clerk too. Overseers were nearly always busy men -
here they were innkeepers, farmers, tradesmen, even one manufacturer
- and as township duties increased they were ready to hand over all
routine matters to a paid official. This was the Vestry Clerk, and
after 1832 it was the Assistant Overseer. Peacock held the latter
office as long as he remained Workhouse Master, that is to 1838.
Besides spending the township's money he had therefore to collect
it, and this involved making out the Rate Books, with their
assessments. Though he got help once or twice in collecting the Poor
Rate he, on the other hand, sometimes collected the Highways Rate
for the Surveyors, of course for a fee. In addition to these
official activities he became steward for some half-dozen property
owners at a commission. Once he received payment in kind - a salmon
- for his "good services," the nature of which is not stated.
He was an enthusiastic, though perhaps rather a "slapdash" public
official. Possibly, even for him, there were too many irons in the
fire. He received many letters from Overseers, for those were days
when poor relief was an exasperatingly complicated business. Each
township acting independently and being responsible for all paupers
who could claim a settlement in it, Overseers set themselves to
disclaim responsibility whenever there was the least chance of doing
so. On occasions Peacock received abuse: on others, compliments.
"For God's sake don't waste our time - you know the man belongs your
township," wrote H. Frost, of Knaresborough. Another correspondent
wishes that "other overseers gave him as little trouble."
He and the Overseers received a host of letters - many pathetic,
several decidedly truculent - from those applying for relief.
Incidentally, these do not fit in with the popular idea that the
poor at that time were usually unable to read and write, or even to
express themselves well and often cogently. As Peacock quite often
made copies of his own letters, his correspondence may almost be
described as voluminous. But in addition he had the true collector's
instinct. Mixed up with official papers are private letters and
documents (such as the Bank Book!) some of which present him in a
favourable light, but there are others that a less self-confident
man would have been careful to destroy.
The poverty of his own family, and that of his first wife, is
obvious enough. A brother-in-law writes. in 1831: "the landlord has
been and he has sold all that we have. he brought with him what we
call an odds and ends man. and he sold all there was for £3 19s. and
i wanted to buy the Bed back again and he would not let me have it
under £2. my mother takes it as well as can be expected for i have
encouraged her by you." Peacock himself, apparently, is the one hope
of the family. Yet he allowed his own mother to receive poor relief,
at least from 1829 to 1834, and to be buried by the township in
which she died.
Possibly because he knew from the inside the life of the poor, he
quite often showed sympathy to those who were down on their luck. At
the same time he was a keen detector of malingerers and charlatans.
But, above all, his experience made him determined to force or
flatter people into giving him what he wanted, and this was not
little, for he had large ideas, spending freely when he had either
money or credit.
How to meet his private bills was his perpetual problem. In 1825
some follow him from Boroughbridge, accompanied by dunning letters -
but some honest folk have a similar experience! It is from notes he
left among the township papers that we can piece together something
rather more serious.
One of his financial transactions covers many years. In 1819 he had
got .a loan of £20, at the then, usual rate of 5 per cent., from a
James Dickinson, of Burley. This friend was either gullible or, as
is more likely, generous and long-suffering. The year following,
instead of paying interest, Peacock obtained from Dickinson a
further loan of £5, giving him some twenty yards of cloth. Interest
was then allowed to accumulate, year after year, until the marriage
with Jane, when most of the debt was cleared. The payment of this
and other accounts, and certainly a bout of spending (as his private
'bills show), explain the reduction of Jane's balance of £150 to a
mere £20 in under two years and its complete disappearance soon
after. The curious item of cloth is not explained till 1835. In that
year, a Thomas Briggs returned from abroad to reclaim 26 yds. of "Peleice
cloth," worth 8s. 9d. a yd., that he had left with Peacock in 1816
for safe keeping. When Briggs asked for his cloth, Peacock refused
to give it or its value in money "on account of what he had to do
for his own family," and went on to blame Dickinson for "helping him
into his, present situation." Hearing later that Briggs had reported
this conversation, Peacock wrote hurriedly to Dickinson to assure
him that he could "fully explain." No doubt he did!
The taking-in of a newspaper is a minor matter, but just for that
reason it is likely to indicate a man's financial habits. From
December, 1823, Peacock took the Yorkshire Gazette, which cost him
7d. a copy, the usual price in those days of taxed newspapers. At
rare intervals he paid half of the overdue account; but in June 1827
he still owed £3. By June, 1830 we find him taking the Leeds
Mercury.
The episode of a Robert Taylor of Leeds again shows the patience of
his creditors or his own plausibility. In January, 1828 this man
requests the immediate payment of an old debt of some pounds, with a
painted reference to the "respectable situations " that his debtor
had " so long held," but in February, 1831 he is still demanding the
same sum, with the same pointed reference. Peacock does not .pay in
the end, having, he says, "taken benefit of the Insolvent Act."
Taylor then asks for a personal interview, at which he intends to
take other measures. Peacock engages to meet him - I have the
principal of a Man about me" - and if Taylor wants an assurance that
the promise will be kept, he can refer to - James Dickinson of
Burley!
In August 1831, a certain "James Firth, late Overseer of Fewston,"
asked for the immediate repayment of ten shillings. Peacock had
obtained this from him, he says, "on the pretext of it being usual
for Out-Townships to make a present" to the Harrogate Workhouse
Master. Firth had discovered a little late that "no such Gift had
ever been made or even applied for" before, and 'his township had
disallowed the item.
There is little doubt that, some time in the early 1820's, Peacock
"took religion." His wife Jane was a devout Methodist, and it is
'probable that his first wife Elizabeth had been one also. The
evidence of his own attitude is not so much his paying for "seats"
in the local Chapel as the number of letters he received,
particularly from women, of a strongly religious tinge. Among those
for whom he managed property were John and Mary Knaresborough people
who had moved to Bradford and, curiously enough, liked the change.
In a letter from Mary, mainly concerned with business details, there
is a passage showing how her particular group looked at things. "I
have got one of the best of Husbands and as far as Earthly comfort
can go we are happy indeed, but yet there is one thing lacking. my
Husband tho, an excellent Moral Character is not a Religious Man,
but yet he never throws any hindrances in my way. We always go twice
or three times to Chapel on the Sunday and he is always ready to
accompany me on a Weeke Night and he will not engage himself or me
on that Night because he knows I like to go. . . ." The fact that
Mrs Pullan considers a "Religious Man" like Peacock to be in some
mysterious way superior to a "Moral Character," such as her positive
paragon of a husband, is one more confirmation of the Yorkshire
saying: "There's nought so queer as folk."
On a "yest " bill in August, 1828, the Leeds brewer has written,
"Should it be correct, I wish you every blessing connected with your
h'onourab'le and happy state." Presumably it was "correct," for the
marriage with Jane 'must have been a fairly .happy one. She showed
deference, apparently, to her more gifted husband, but was hardly a
nonentity. She played her part not only in the work of the
institution, but in establishing human relations between the members
of what they all called the "family" within it. But, like her
predecessor Elizabeth. she was often ill - right from the time when,
within two months of the marriage, Peacock tells a friend that his
"Dear Wife" is very "poorly." But there is plenty of evidence that
she did her many duties till not long before she died.
Henry and Jane did more than their official duty towards some of the
inmates. There was, for example, a man called Franklin, a member of
a good family that tried to forget his existence. He was well
educated, as his many letters show, but he suffered from what is
called to-day "nervous breakdown," during one spell of which he had
committed some minor crime that sent him to the House of Correction
at Ripon. When, afterwards, he came into the Workhouse, the Peacocks
treated him with understanding and sympathy and gave him, obviously
without any hope of reward., as much freedom as institutional
regulations would permit, and small luxuries such as tea and coffee.
In the ordinary way these were given to paupers only on a doctor's
prescription. There is a letter, too, from John Hagley, uneducated
but hard-working and honest, who finds himself in York Castle for
debt. After asking for a loan to be begged for him from any one of
Peacock's well-to-do Harrogate friends, whom he mentions by name, he
adds,. "You have both singular and plural eased my troubled mind,
for which I shall never never forget."
One of the few letters written by Jane - dated August 17th, 1833,
and addressed to her husband at Scarborough - gives in its naive way
a feeling of the atmosphere of the Workhouse community and a hint of
its day-to-day activities:
I Take up my pen to wright to you according to your wish. I have not
anything particular to say. we are all very quiet and peasable as
yet. we have got Oddy's Children: Mr. W. and Mr. Allinson. brought
the few things yesterday. Mr. W. had Mr. Pullon and. Mr. Ripley with
him yestarday to pay the Power, and as you was not at home we had
the Beason out. they drank your good health and Safe Return. I hope
you find yourself better but you cannot tell in so short a time, but
I cincearly hope it will do you good. I had Mr. Benn this Morning to
say Joseph Bramly is to go to Mr. Wright's on Munday Morning. he
will giv 5 shillings per week with him. as I was wrighting Jane was
Standing by. She said who is that for Aunt. is it for uncel. giv my
love to him. I shall be so glad when he cums home again. we are both
well and all the Family Except. Joseph belongs Spufforth. He waists
fast. he looks at present as though you would not see .him any mor.
and old William Sissens likewise. the other old man is no worse. I
Conclude with kindest love and Effection ever. - Jane Peacock.
The "Power" were those who received out-door relief each week and
were known as pensioners. "Mr. W." was probably Martin Wilson, then,
Churchwarden and a prominent draper in the town. Joseph Bramly is an
inmate who will work at a coach-builder's during the day, and the
township will benefit: on the credit side of overseers' accounts
there is sometimes the item,. Labourage. The "Beason" (i.e. basin)
appears to have been their private name for a bowl or tankard. Jane,
the niece, lived with the Peacocks for a number of years.
Peacock was very busy in the early 1830's with township business;
for he had an eye to the public profit as well as his own. He
'managed to reduce expenses, in the Workhouse by putting the paupers
on an almost completely vegetarian diet. He made the placing of poor
children as apprentices very lucrative for the township by imposing
a fine of £10 on any who refused to take one.
In 1834, the Poor Law Commissioners demanded elaborate reports,
preparatory to the passing of the new Poor Law, which was to make
drastic changes in the system. This work, in the township; was left
largely to Peacock, and it was done efficiently. Shortly after, he
was given a "bonus" of £12 or so, a private subscription by
prominent townsmen.
This windfall, which he himself, as appears from his notes, had
"shaken from the tree," was not enough to save his desperate
financial situation. A fresh embarrassment is revealed in letters
from John Ragg, Overseer of Pateley Bridge. Peacock's 'mother had
received poor relief in Holbeck for the previous four years, and she
had been given a pauper's funeral. Her "settlement" was in Pateley
Bridge, so that township had to reimburse Holbeck. Pateley Bridge,
in its turn, naturally hoped to recover the money from her
apparently well-to-do son. A letter from Ragg; dated January, 1835 -
following lengthy negotiations - makes clear the threat to Peacock's
official position. "I am again instructed to write to you respecting
the expences of your mother's order of suspension. The rate payers
here don't feel inclin'd to pay the whole without they cant help
themselves, but they have order'd me to say that they will sacrifice
the £15 already paid if you will pay the remaining £20, which I
advise you to do, for you must own she was your mother and it will
'be the last duty you have to perform... . In case of your refusal I
shall have to lay the case before the Poor Law Commissioners giving
them to understand how the parties are situated.. I think your
Salary is 50 or 60£ Per Ann. as head master of the Workhouse for
Bilton cum Harrogate and 8 or 10 adjoining Townships, with meat
drink, etc., etc."
This further composition with his creditors - though, in this
instance, rather regrettable - is a tribute to his negotiating
ability. His enforced resignation, here hinted at, he managed
somehow or other to put off for three more years. When it came he
had made due preparation for it.
In spite of her poor health, his wife continued her duties until
1837, but in the summer of that year her illness became more severe.
After her death„ a woman friend wrote, in a letter of condolence :
"It was a happy change for her, as her life in the state she had
been in some time certainly was not desirable. When in health she
lived the life of a true Christian." It was in the early autumn that
Jane died.
Some months later; in February, 1838, the Workhouse Committee
resolved "that Mr. Henry Peacock shall be served with his notice to
give up his situation as Governor of Harrogate Work House on the
twentieth. Day of May next ensuing. "In the same month his successor
as Assistant Overseer was also appointed.
His service as a public official was ended, but not his career.
Since the time when he had been "collected," thirteen years before,
he had cultivated influential friends and improved his social
standing. Even the Committee in its dismissal notice attached the
then respectful title of "Mr"; and "Mr Peacock, Harrogate" was the
only address on many of his letters. He had not been an "Unjust
Steward," but he had one point in common with the man in the
Parable: when he failed, he had a habitation into which he was
received. The Harrogate Advertiser in August, 1838, records his
marriage to: Mrs Waudby, of the Brunswick Hotel. This time he is
married in the Knaresborough Parish Church by the Vicar (the Rev.
Andrew Cheap). The following issue of the Advertiser shows that he
has become landlord of the Brunswick as successor to the widow.
'This inn " by the Great Pillar " was not of the size that it has
since grown into as the Prince of Wales but it was already a "
Posting House" and rivaled the Swan of the period, though hardly the
Granby.
For the next eleven years. Peacock was to belong to what was
probably the most influential group in Harrogate life at that time,
the "innholders." If he had left his public offices under a cloud
this was forgotten. for the township asked his advice 'on Rating. In
1841 he got many votes (though he just failed of election), when the
first Town Improvement Commissioners were chosen, and the following
year, through the resignation of some Commissioners, he was actually
called to office. As a reminder of how soon men, even officials, are
forgotten, it was this particular candidate of 1841 who, to a
knowledgeable Harrogate man, only some fifty years later, had become
just a name.
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