The poor in Herefordshire

In Herefordshire the lack of employment opportunities was as bad as in other parts of England. In 1556, for example, the Justices of the Peace for the county received an application from the mayor and citizens of Hereford for licences to be granted to 27 poor men and women (and children) to go abroad to beg. That means that these families would be given a passport to allow them to beg in other parishes, because Hereford itself could not support them any more.

Unless you had a passport for a specific journey or a licence to beg in certain areas, you would find it difficult finding a place to stay. People were fined for letting vagrants stay in their homes. In Leominster, for example, people were fined 11 shillings in 1633 "for suffering strangers late come to towne to dwell in their houses ...".

A case documented in the Leominster Court Leet shows that some people showed considerable ingenuity in trying to make ends meet. In 1628 the court charged a Margaret Bridges, "a late comer to inhabite in the Lower Marsh within this Borough, for usinge of Charmes and taking upon her to tell fortunes, to the dishonnor of god, and contrary to the Lawes of this Land".

Poverty and unemployment remained a problem in Herefordshire. In October 1658 an inquest urged the council to find work for the unemployed:

"[I] humbly desire that there might be some care taken for putting of the poore at worke & not suffering them to walke the streets as they doe wch would tend to the glory of God & Credit of this Cittie & all such as will not worke and are able it is needfull that there should be a bridewell provided for them." (A bridewell was a combined prison/workhouse.)

People sometimes had to give up their children because they could not afford to keep them. Many desperate people travelled abroad as indentured servants in search of a new and perhaps better life in the new colonies of America and the West Indies. This meant that a person could agree to be an unpaid servant for a specified period, such as five or seven years, in return for the fare to the colonies and their freedom once they had served their time. Some families were split up among different masters with little hope of reunion. Sometimes parents sold their children into this type of service or the children were talked into transportation by the false promises of unscrupulous men.

A fascinating Herefordshire case involves slavery and the West Indies. A John Seaborne of Canon Pyon was accused of abducting children for slavery in 1670. The accuser, a Thomas Blythe of the parish of Weobley, asserted that the said John Seaborne had inveigled and carried away poor children, including his own child, to be sold for slaves into Barbados.

(Note: The sugar cane (and to a lesser extent tobacco and cotton) plantations in the West Indies required a large number of workers and, especially in the years before the introduction of slaves from Africa, white people from Britain were transported to the colony of Barbados, either as prisoners or indentured servants. For example, nearly 7000 Irish were transported during the Cromwellian period - seehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/barbados_02.shtml.)

As our court case proves, kidnapping was also a source of forced labour. Descendants of the white slaves and indentured labour (referred to as Red Legs) still live in the east coast regions of Barbados. Perhaps descendants of those original kidnapped Herefordian children are among these "Red Legs"?

Several appeals to the civic authorities for support are recorded:

In 1655 a Francis Rawlings, almsman of Price's Hospital, "being lame and unable to work, and with a wife and four children to support," complained that his monthly pay had been discontinued.

An interesting case involved a woman hurt during the siege by the Scottish army during the Civil War. Jane Merrick was injured whilst helping to build defences and was subsequently presented to the King during his visit in Hereford. He promised her she would be cared for. However, the city authorities had seemingly not kept this promise and hence she was appealing for support, having already petitioned them several times before.

[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2003]