Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T04:53:20.292Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The other Victorians: age, sickness and poverty in 19th-century Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2015

CHRIS GILLEARD
CHRIS GILLEARD*
Affiliation:
Division of Psychiatry, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Chris Gilleard, Division of Psychiatry, Faculty of Brain Sciences, Charles Bell House, 67–73 Riding House Street, London W1W 7EJ, UK E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing primarily upon data from the various censuses conducted in Ireland after the Act of Union in 1800, this paper seeks to elucidate the changing position of older people in Ireland during the Victorian period. Following the Great Famine of 1845–1849, it is argued, Ireland was transformed from a young, growing country to one that, by the end of the 19th century, had become ‘prematurely’ old. By the end of Victoria's reign, not only had Ireland grown ‘old’, but its older population were more likely to be identified as paupers. Later-life expectancy decreased and sickness and infirmity among the over-60 s increased. By employing a stricter form of ‘less eligibility’ in the drafting and implementation of the Irish Poor Law, proportionately more older people received indoor relief than outdoor relief compared with the rest of the British Isles. Not until the Old Age Pensions Act in 1908 did these disparities begin to change, by which time many of these ‘other’ Victorians had passed away.

Keywords

aged poorIrelandsocial policyworkhouses
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 36 , Issue 6 , July 2016 , pp. 1157 - 1184
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arnold, R. 1912. The old folks. The Irish Review, 2, 17, 264–71.Google Scholar
Benn-Walsh, Sir J. 1831. On Reform of Parliament: and on Poor Laws for Ireland. J. Ridgway, London.Google Scholar
Bicheno, J. E. 1830. Ireland and Its Economy: Being the Result of Observations Made in a Tour Through the Country in Autumn, 1829. John Murray, London.Google Scholar
British Medical Journal Special Commission 1895. Reports on the nursing and administration of Irish workhouses and infirmaries. British Medical Journal, 21 September, 740–2.Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1843. Report of the Commissioners to Take the Census for Ireland for the Year 1841. General Report. HMSO, Dublin. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1841/Ireland [Accessed 14 June 2014].Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1851. Census of Great Britain. Population Tables II, Volume I. England and Wales. Divisions I–VI, Appendix. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/TOC?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1851/GreatBritain&active=yes&mno=30&tocstate=expandnew&display=sections&display=tables&display=pagetitles [Accessed 3 June 2014].Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Paper (BPP) 1851–1901. Reports of the Commissioners of the Census for Ireland – Various. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser?path=Browse/Census(bydate) [Accessed 3 July 2014].Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1854. Seventh Annual Report of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for the Relief of the Poor in Ireland. HMSO, Dublin. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1854/Ireland [Accessed 15 June 2014].Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1856a. The Census for Ireland for the Year 1851. Part III. Report on the Status of Disease. HMSO, Dublin. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1851/Ireland [Accessed 3 July 2014].Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1856b. The Census for Ireland for the Year 1851. Part V. Tables of Death (two volumes). HMSO, Dublin. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1851/Ireland [Accessed 3 July 2014].Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1875. Census for Ireland, 1871, Part II. Vital Statistics, Volume II, Report and Tables Relating to Deaths. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1871/Ireland&active=yes&mno=424&tocstate=expandnew&display=sections&display=tables&display=pagetitles&pageseq=74 [Accessed 16 November 2014].Google Scholar
British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) 1894. Census of Ireland, 1891. Part II. General Report, Tables and Appendix, Table 128. HMSO, Dublin. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/PageBrowser?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1891/Ireland [Accessed 9 July 2014].Google Scholar
Budd, J. W. and Guinnane, T. 1991. Intentional age-misreporting, age-heaping, and the 1908 Old Age Pensions Act in Ireland. Population Studies, 45, 3, 497–518.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cassell, R. D. 1997. Medical Charities, Medical Politics: The Irish Dispensary System and the Poor Law, 1836–1872. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, UK.Google Scholar
Census of the British Empire 1901. Summary Tables. Available online at http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/TOC?path=Browse/Census(bydate)/1901&active=yes&mno=136&tocstate=expandnew&display=sections&display=tables&display=pagetitles [Accessed 11 November 2014].Google Scholar
Central Statistical Office, Ireland 2014. Period Life Expectancy at Various Ages by Age, Sex and Year. Available online at http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?MainTable=VSA30&PLanguage=0&PXSId=0 [Accessed 10 November 2014].Google Scholar
Chadwick, E. 1842 Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Coogan, T. P. 2013. The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK.Google Scholar
Crossman, V. 2006. The humanization of the Irish Poor Laws: reassessing developments in social welfare in post-Famine Ireland. In Gestrich, A., King, S. and Raphael, L. (eds), Being Poor in Modern Europe: Historical Perspectives 1800–1940. Peter Lang, Bern, 229–50.Google Scholar
Crossman, V. 2013. Workhouse medicine in Ireland: a preliminary analysis, 1850–1914. In Reinarz, J. and Schwarz, L. (eds), Medicine and the Workhouse. University of Rochester Press, Rochester, New York, 123–39.Google Scholar
Crossman, V. 2014. Politics, Pauperism and Power in Late Nineteenth-century Ireland. Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK.Google Scholar
Englander, D. 2013. Poverty and Poor Law Reform in Nineteenth-century Britain, 1834–1914: From Chadwick to Booth. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland (EBPPI) 1844. Report of the Commission for Inquiring into the Execution of the Contracts for Certain Union Workhouses in Ireland. Available online at http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/11838 [Accessed 11 November 2014].Google Scholar
Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland (EBPPI) 1848. Poor Law Commissioners: Thirteenth Annual Report with Appendices. Available online at http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/12367 [Accessed 9 July 2014].Google Scholar
Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland (EBPPI) 1861. Commissioners for Administering Laws for Relief of Poor in Ireland: Fourteenth Annual Report, with Appendices. Available online at http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/14251 [Accessed 30 July 2014].Google Scholar
Evans, R. L. 1995. Epidemics and revolutions: cholera in nineteenth-century Europe. In Ranger, T. and Slack, P. (eds), Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 149–74.Google Scholar
Geary, L. M. 2004. Medicine and Charity in Ireland, 1718–1851. University College Dublin Press, Dublin.Google Scholar
Goldewijk, K. K. 2005. Three centuries of global population growth: a spatial referenced population (density) database for 1700–2000. Population and Environment, 26, 4, 343–67.Google Scholar
Gray, P. 2009. The Making of The Irish Poor Law, 1815–43. Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, T. W. 1888/89. A statistical survey of Ireland, from 1840 to 1888. Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 9, 68, 321–61.Google Scholar
Hamlin, C. 1995. Could you starve to death in England in 1839? The Chadwick–Farr controversy and the loss of the ‘social’ in public health. American Journal of Public Health, 85, 6, 856–66.Google Scholar
Himmelfarb, G. 1997. The age of philanthropy. The Wilson Quarterly, 21, 2, 48–55.Google Scholar
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) 1835. Appendix to First Report from His Majesty's Commissioners for Inquiring into the State of the Poorer Classes in Ireland. Appendix A. Impotent Through Age. HMSO, London. Available online at http://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk/fulltext/fulltext.do?id=1835-015615&DurUrl=Yes [Accessed 18 June 2014].Google Scholar
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) 1852–1872. Annual Reports of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland, 1850–70. Available online at http://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk/home.do [Accessed 14 September 2014].Google Scholar
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) 1872–1901. Annual Reports of the Local Government Board for Ireland, 1871–1901. Available online at http://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk/home.do [Accessed 14 September 2014].Google Scholar
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCCP) 1902a. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, for the Year Ending 31st March 1901 (Local Government (Ireland): Annual Report. Available online at http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:hcpp&rft_dat=xri:hcpp:rec:1902-002335 [Accessed 14 September 2014].Google Scholar
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) 1902b. Departmental Committee on Workhouse Nursing. Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Departmental Committee Appointed by the President of the Local Government Board to Enquire into the Nursing of the Sick Poor in Workhouses; Together with Appendix and Index to Evidence. Part II. Appendix XXIII. Available online at http://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk/fulltext/fulltext.do?id=1902-002435&DurUrl=Yes [Accessed 13 February 2015].Google Scholar
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) 1910. Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. Appendix Volume XXXI. Statistics Relating to Ireland. Available online at http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:hcpp&rft_dat=xri:hcpp:fulltext:1910-012504 [Accessed 2 August 2014].Google Scholar
Ingram, J. K. 1864. A comparison between the English and Irish Poor Laws with respect to conditions of relief. Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 4, 27, 43–61.Google Scholar
Jordan, T. E. 1997. ‘A great statistical operation’: a century of Irish censuses, 1812–1911. New Hibernia Review/Iris Éireannach Nua, 1, 3, 94–114.Google Scholar
La Berge, A. F. 1988. Edwin Chadwick and the French connection. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 62, 1, 23–41.Google Scholar
Linehan, T. P. 1991. History and development of Irish population censuses. Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 26, 4, 91–132.Google Scholar
Mac Thomais, E. 1973. The South Dublin Union. Dublin Historical Record, 29, 2, 54–61.Google Scholar
Macdermott, W. R. 1897. Irish workhouse reform. VII. Old age as a factor in the workhouse mortality. British Medical Journal, Mar. 6;1, (1888), 599–600.Google Scholar
Monacelli, M. 2010. England's re-imagining of Ireland in the nineteenth century. Études Irlandaises, 35, 1, 9–20.Google Scholar
Nicholls, G. 1856. A History of the Irish Poor Laws. John Murray, London.Google Scholar
Ó Gráda, C. M. 1999. Black ‘47 and Beyond. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ó Gráda, C. M. 2002. ‘The greatest blessing of all’: the old age pension in Ireland. Past and Present, 175, 124–61.Google Scholar
Pugh, M. 2002. Working class experience and state social welfare, 1908–1914: old age pensions reconsidered. Historical Journal, 45, 4, 775–96.Google Scholar
Purdy, F. 1862. The relative pauperism of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1851–1860. Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 25, 1, 27–49.Google Scholar
Shackleton, A. 1881/2. On the anomalous differences in the poor-laws of Ireland and of England with reference to outdoor relief, area of taxation, etc. Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 8, 59, 282–8.Google Scholar
Smith, F. B. 1990. The People's Health 1830–1910. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.Google Scholar
Soloway, R. A. 1995. Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birth-rate in Twentieth-century Britain. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Thane, P. 1978. Women and the Poor Law in Victorian and Edwardian England. Editorial Collective, History Workshop, Ruskin College, Oxford, 30–51.Google Scholar
Thane, P. 2000. Old Age in English History. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
The Times 1909. 21 January, 10.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. 1903. Irish poor-law reform, with suggestions for the consideration of the Vice Regal Commission. British Medical Journal, 28 November, 1410–12.Google Scholar
Thomson, D. 1984. The decline of social welfare: falling state support for the elderly since early Victorian times. Ageing & Society, 4, 4, 451–81.Google Scholar
Vaughan, W. E. & Fitzpatrick, A. J. 1978. Irish historical statistics: population 1821–1971. A New History of Ireland: Ancillary Publication, (2). Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.Google Scholar
Whelan, S. 2010. Mortality in Ireland: Past & Projected. Society of Actuaries in Ireland. Available online at https://web.actuaries.ie/sites/default/files/event/2010/06/100610%20Mortality%20in%20Ireland%20for%20website.pdf. [Accessed 3 July 2014].Google Scholar
Woodham-Smith, C. 1991. The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, UK.Google Scholar
Woods, R. 2000. The Demography of Victorian England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar