8 - Charity and Commemoration: a Berkshire Family and their Almshouse, 1675–1763

Summary

In comparison with the volume of research dedicated to the history of formal, state-sponsored poor relief, research into the history of philanthropy is in its infancy. Within the gamut of private philanthropy, a particularly neglected topic among academic historians is the English almshouse, although there are a considerable number of popular (and often pictorial) almshouse histories, many of which command academic respect. This neglect is perhaps surprising, given the ubiquity and longevity of these institutions. This chapter provides a contribution towards rectification of this situation by focusing upon the Raymond almshouses founded by Philip Jemmett in the late seventeenth century in Newbury, Berkshire, and placing this institution within the wider context of the historical geography of almshouse foundation as revealed in recent publications and hitherto unpublished research. We therefore combine a macro-historical approach, informed by close attention to regional and local variation, with a micro-historical approach via a case study of a particular institution and the family with which it was associated.

Almshouses originated in medieval England as places that provided care for the sick poor, usually attached to a monastery. Their original focus on travellers or monks was extended in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to include lay people who were sick or feeble, commonly housed in separate establishments administered by the monks and lay brethren. Specific care was provided for lepers in distinct institutions called lazar houses, some 250 of which were founded in the medieval period. Hospitals were also established by non-monastic benefactors – the crown, clergymen, the aristocracy and gentry, urban livery companies and guilds or individual merchants. The diverse origins of the modern almshouse resulted in an array of terminology in the medieval period: spitalhouses, bedehouses, Godshouses, and a range of other descriptors were used, as well as the terms hospital and almshouse. Many were multi-purpose, and had not yet evolved into the residences for the (usually) elderly poor that is the modern almshouse characteristic. From the late fifteenth century, English parishes started to play a fuller role in the relief of the poor, and parish fraternities increasingly accumulated stocks of land or animals, gave doles to the poor and sometimes (especially in market towns) established almshouses too. Just why these developments took place at this time is unclear, but it has recently been argued that there may have been a demographic imperative behind this growth in foundations.