The parish records of St Nicholas Church, Chiswick, date from the 17th century and among the lists of ratepayers and records of baptisms, marriages and burials is one untitled volume, the purpose of which was once conjectural. In fact it shows the records of a Clothing Club and provides a glimpse of some of our ancestors’ lives.

Among the records at St Nicholas Church Chiswick is an intriguing leather-bound volume covering the years 1840 to 1842 – it has no title page and there is nothing written on the cover. In 1963 the Middlesex County Record Office called it an Account Book of Disbursements to Poor Families and the Mormons when they microfilmed the records in 2000 thought it was a list of poor relief payments. However by the 1840s poor relief had been taken over by the Board of Guardians of the recently created Brentford Poor Law Union, and this was evidently a Chiswick parish document and nothing to do with the Guardians. The dating of the payments offered another clue – most started in the spring and run through to the autumn, a period when seasonal work in the fields and market gardens would have been easier to obtain, and families were therefore less likely to require help from the parish. They might be able to put aside a little money each week to tide them over the difficult winter months when there was less work available and they would have the extra costs of fuel and warm clothing.

A typical page in the ledger showing entries for Patrick and Mary Corrall (altered in pencil to Carran) of 21 Bennett Street. Recorded as Irish with five children. The page shows payments from 13 April to 14 September totalling ten shillings with five shillings added by the parish. The clerk notes that: P. Carran works for Robins and for Mrs Haslam in St Peter’s Square – a very civil thankful man – wife works in the gardens – 3 boys – 2 girls – eldest boy wants a place as shoe and errand boy – 2 younger boys go to Charity School. In Coal Club – thorough Irish – very grateful – but badly off.

So evidently the book was recording money being collected in rather than money being paid out – an early savings club. Many parishes in the 19th century ran savings clubs which might help with clothing, food or fuel. They catered for those who were employed but for various reasons, such as low wages, large families, old age or illness still needed help in order to make ends meet. The goals of the organisers of these self-help charity clubs were to reduce the poor rates (the tax levied on all the residents of the parish according to the value of their property, and used to fund the relief of the poor), to assist the poor who without some kind of assistance would have descended from poverty to utter destitution, and to encourage provident habits and improve the morality of the club members. As one clergyman wrote:

By the aid of a Clothing Society, justly and rigidly conducted, I do not hesitate to say that more good may be done, first to the temporal, and afterwards to the spiritual welfare of the Poor, than by all the sermons which the most popular preacher can deliver, or by any other methods with which I am acquainted, for permanently ameliorating the condition of the labouring classes. Rev Francis Litchfield ‘Three Years Results of the Farthinghoe Clothing Society, with a Few Remarks on the Policy of Encouraging Provident Habits among the Working Classes’ (1832) page 22

After setting up such a club in his parish he reported increased attendance at school, a rise in employment for older children, a decrease in drunkenness and socially undesirable behaviour, and no more illegitimate births.

How the Club was organised
Usually the clubs were run by the local clergy and parish clerk. The members paid in a regular amount on a weekly basis, and at the end of the period the parish added a bonus. Then when needed, the subscribers would collect their goods in accordance with the total investment amount allocated to them.There are several references to the clerk believing that certain households were not in real need, for example, Hannah Brady of Furze Street:

‘a big strong old market gardener woman has worked many years at Jessops and the Duke’s, husband has left her 12 years sons and daughters all grown up and out Hannnah is in full employment and though very civil – think she is not in need of the charity’

In the case of John and Sarah Cotton of Bennett Street it is recorded that John was believed to be ‘tipsy’ and lost his job for misconduct: ‘Husband sat by fire either tipsy or ill – wife says he works for Jessop – but out of it now. Was turned away by Finch for misconduct, 2 sons, 5 daughters, 1 son aged 24 laid up sick for many years, one daughter seemed a tidy girl – walked lame. All brought up in charity school, some there now cloathed. In Coal Club’

The clerk commented on William Davis, whose wife had abandoned him and their children: ‘his wife has come back to him now and they lodge with Mrs Smith (Ledger 46) are related to the Davis’s of (Ledger 25) Must speak to her about it and not allow her to belong if she goes again – haven’t seen her yet’

All these families were allowed to stay in the Club and continued to remain members of it in the following years. Rules and regulations were normally a strong feature of these clubs, and disobedience was punished by immediate expulsion, and exclusion in following years. While parishes tended to vary in their rules, generally subscribers were not allowed to be in arrears of payment. Criminal activity, drunkenness, illegitimacy or even the suspicion of any of these circumstances would result in expulsion. Unfortunately there is no record of the rules and regulations under which the Chiswick Club operated, however it appears that the parish of St Nicholas erred on the side of compassion. Evidence from the ledger shows that St Nicholas’ church did not mete out punishment for non-compliance, and turned a blind eye if a family occasionally missed a weekly payment.

Who were the subscribers to the Club?
Each of the first 109 pages of the ledger records one family – giving their names, their address and other information about their circumstances, plus a neatly ruled record of their payments into the Club from spring to autumn 1840. The information on payments made in 1841 and 1842 is recorded on charts at the end of the book with references back to the pages containing the full descriptions of the families. This suggests that 1840 could have been the first year of the Club’s existence, but may more likely be the year they needed to start a new ledger – and the earlier years’ records have not survived. Each family had a book in which their payments were recorded; these are mentioned in several entries, such as the description of Emma Snell of 3 James Street, wife of the blacksmith: ‘a little tidy young woman who brought the books and the money for some of her neighbours’.

In 1840 the payments were usually six pence per week but some families managed one shilling some weeks while others had blank weeks when they had no spare money. At the end of the period in September the payments were totalled and the parish added half as much again – so savings of ten shillings were converted into possible spending money of 15 shillings. Unfortunately the record of payments out has not survived, so we cannot be certain whether payments were made in cash or kind, although clothing was mentioned several times, such as in the entry for Widow Caroline Arnold of Wood Street, a washerwoman who needed clothes for her two children ‘as she wants to make them tidy to send to school’.

Many of the families were also in the Coal Club. The subscribers to the Club all lived within a small area close to the church, mainly in the streets of the New Town, the area of one room up and one room down terraced houses built in the 1820s for the poorest in the parish. Bennett Street, William Street and Wood Street had the highest concentration of Club members. There were also members in the turnings off Church Street such as Lamb Yard and Fishermans Place, but the poor who lived in more distant parts of the parish such as Strand on the Green and Turnham Green were not included in the Club.

The views of some sections of society about the poor at the time were that they did not want to work, that they were lazy and immoral, and that they could better their situations if only they worked harder. However, this ledger, coupled with the information from their 1841 census entries, shows that the vast majority of these subscribers were already in work. Additionally, not only were they working but also a significant number of poor households had morethan one contributing income. The women, more often than not, worked, especially in the Irish families where the women would labour in the farms and gardens next to the men. Other women typically engaged in taking in washing, going out cleaning,nursing, taking in lodgers etc. The older children would often work and their wages would be included in the household income.

It was also interesting to note that not all the occupations of the subscribers were what would be typically associated with the poor. There were skilled workers such blacksmiths, an omnibus driver, several shoe makers and even some policemen, although as expected the largest group were just listed as labourers or gardeners. Judging from the ledger it seems that in Chiswick poverty was not a product of laziness or work not being available, but was in fact linked to low wages, large families, old age and illness or disability.

The parish’s priorities for their poor
Apart from their Christian duty to help the poor, and a desire to encourage habits of thrift and self reliance – and of course to keep the poor rate payments as low as possible – the education of the children appears to have been quite an important priority for the parish. A charity school had been set up at the beginning of the 18th century and by the 1840s the girls were taught in a building in the churchyard and the boys in a recently rebuilt schoolroom at Turnham Green. The clerk to the Club recorded whether children in a particular household were attending school. If they were of school age and not at school it seems the clerk would elicit a promise to have the children start attending school. Another priority was to have older children working. This seemed to mean either being apprenticed out or obtaining a ‘place’ as a domestic servant. It appears that the parish made efforts on behalf of these families to help their children find work.

Attitudes towards the poor
Civil and respectful behaviour was expected from the poor. In the ledger the notes on the families make significant mention of people and whether they were ‘civil’ or ‘good-tempered’, ‘grateful’ and ‘tidy’ or whether they were ‘rather dirty’ or ‘unrespectable’. The clerk writes with approbation of Widow Middleton, an old nurse living by the Ferry: ‘A very respectable old woman and requires assistance – very poor but tidy’, and of Thomas and Susan Davis of Bennett Street:’In Coal Club – has the blankets given before very civil young woman – seems sickly and poor but always attentive and good tempered – like her very much – related to Davis (Ledger 86).’

Whether the clerk’s attitude was representative of the feelings of Chiswick’s larger community is open to debate. It can be deduced from the comments of the clerk that the householders he liked were the oneswho knew their place and interacted with him as befitted someone of their station i.e. the poor should come hat in hand, show humility and gratitude and be civil. Then there were the householders the clerk did not approve of – they did not stand when he came to visit them and they talked to him as to an equal. He described them as ‘not particularly civil’ or a ‘fine worded woman’.

‘Children have all been in the schools – out now the eldest daughter who spoke to us so smart a young lady that either she is not respectable – or does not require the charity’.

There is sufficient evidence from the St Nicholas’ Clothing Club accounts ledger that the parish made real efforts to assist its poor. Their attitudes towards the poor may grate on our 21st century sensibilities but their priorities and programmes for the poor were of real benefit. The ledger gives us a fascinating glimpse into the life of the poor in Chiswick in the early 1840s.

Sources
Based on Rachel Robinson’s essay Discovering the Worth of Parochial Club Records through Analysis of St Nicholas Church Chiswick’s Clothing Club Ledger for the Postgraduate Certificate in Genealogical Studies, University of Strathclyde, 2010-11

Acknowledgment
With thanks to the PCC and the Archives Team at St Nicholas’ Church for allowing access to the Clothing Club ledger

Rachel Robinson is a professional genealogist living in Chiswick and now working towards a Masters in Genealogy with the University of Strathclyde. She analysed and digitised the St Nicholas’ Clothing Club Ledger as part of the Strathclyde degree course.
Carolyn Hammond is Editor of this Journal