The Loes and Wilford Poor Law Incorporation 1765–1826: ‘A Prison with a Milder Name’

Are you a parachutist or a truffle hunter? A curious question from which to start in regards this publication by the Suffolk Records Society, bringing together a collection of transcribed records of the Loes and Wilford Poor Law Incorporation from over its sixty-one-year lifespan. Shaw adopts such a metaphor from Le Roy Ladurie, the French Annales historian, to explain the scope of this work: historians can be either parachutists, observing patterns from high above; or truffle hunters, scratching ‘with their noses searching for some : : : precious fact’ (Shaw, 2019). There are clearly dangers in both, with the parachutist missing the tasty morsel and the hunter often oblivious to their wider surroundings. Shaw concludes that the historian is usually an amalgamation but offers this volume to ‘cater to the needs of the truffle hunter’ (Shaw, 2019). The local, then, is the focus here. The volume explores the experience of rural incorporations which, outside of the Webbs (1922) and Digby (1978), has largely been bypassed in discussions of Old Poor Law enabling legislation. As Shaw comments, such incorporations ‘have only obtained a passing comment : : : with most texts failing even to mention their existence’ (Shaw, 2019). Distinct from the more familiar and nationally-reaching 1723 Knatchbull’s Act and 1782 Gilbert’s Act, rural incorporations were a particularly East Anglian experience (albeit also existing in Shropshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight) formed between 1756 and 1806 by parliamentary act and providing indoor relief within a workhouse for incorporated parishes (Higginbotham, 2016). Shaw’s focus is on the oldest of such incorporations in Suffolk: the Loes and Wilford Poor Law Incorporation, formed in 1765 and disincorporated in late 1826. The volume begins with an introduction, setting out the local, national, legislative and historiographical context of the work, as well as including a longitudinal analysis of policy and outcomes over the course of the incorporation. The documentation-proper is split between seven quarterly minute books, beginning in July 1765 and ending in October 1826, with a further section on post-disincorporation documents. These post-1826 documents consist largely of correspondence and accounts, but also include overviews of names and settled parishes for resident paupers; inventories of the incorporation’s goods; and important, general demographic information for incorporated parishes. The content of the final section gives a good overview of the nature of the documentation in general, which outlines the detailed day-to-day running of the incorporation through such things as committee meeting notes; accounts and finance records; demographical information about both administration and paupers; inventories; legislative documentation; and incorporation policy. The minute books for the 1810s and 1820s also give particularly detailed information, organised via parish, on pauper demographics, settlement and weekly and quarterly allowances made. Detailed and precise information about the scope and nature of documentation is given (including archive reference numbers, condition and size measurements of documents) with editorial notes giving wider context by providing modern