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Poor Law Opposition
The Poor Law Commission of 1832-4 concluded that charitable relief to the able-bodied
would lessen the will to work; and the resulting Poor Law Amendment
Act of 1834, requiring the accommodation of the poor in Poor
Law Union workhouses, where conditions were deliberately made
uncomfortable. Poor relief was taken out of the hands of townships
and assigned to local Unions.
Though most Calderdale townships went into
the Halifax Union, Wadsworth, Erringden, Heptonstall, Langfield,
Stansfield, and Todmorden with Walsden were incorporated into
the Todmorden Union, and this was where John Fielden and others
were active in opposition to the new scheme, to a much greater
extent than in Halifax. Todmorden with Walsden refused to pay
poor rates to the Union, but persisted in managing its own poor
relief, as before, on the grounds of the severity of the new
system and the traditional autonomy of the townships. The Todmorden
Working Men's Association, a group that later allied itself with
Chartism, was founded in 1836 and declared its intention to seek
repeal of the Act. Public meetings, demonstrations and trade
boycotts of shops and merchants supporting the law were among
the repertoire of their activities.
In 1838, William Ingham of Mankinholes, local
Overseer of the Poor, was fined for the local refusal to contribute
towards a Union Workhouse; his refusal to pay brought two special
constables to his door to confiscate goods on November 16, 1838.
John Fielden, however, or his workers at Lumbutts Mill,
had prepared for trouble and when the constables arrived at Ingham's
house (now Mankinholes Youth Hostel) alarm bells were rung from
Lumbutts Mill (of which the waterwheel tower remains) and a crowd
of over a thousand gathered at the scene. The constables were
severely beaten and stripped of their uniforms before finding
refuge in local houses. A rumour that they were returning with
a troop of soldiers on November 21 sparked off another, more
destructive riot that took a crowd of a thousand or more strong
to the homes and mills of local Poor Law supporters, including
Todmorden Hall, damaging doors, windows and other property. Forty
men were arrested for the disturbances; investigations with a
view to prosecuting Fielden failed to find anybody prepared to
testify against him. In the end, only one was imprisoned, the
presiding magistrate commenting
that he felt others were more responsible for the riots than
those in the dock - a veiled reference to John Fielden's role
in the affair.
Exasperated by this stubborn local resistance,
the Poor Law Commission took steps to take over administration
from the townships on July 6, 1838. Fielden immediately promised
to close his mills on that day unless the Poor Law Guardians
backed down, a strategy designed to place 3000 workers and dependents
on to the Commission's responsibility, thereby severely disabling
the system. The Guardians held out, local magistrates drafted
in cavalry and special constables in case of disorder, and Fielden's
Mills reopened on July 16. Militant resistance to the law continued
during the summer and autumn. A troop of infantry was permanently
stationed in the town, restricting public opposition to boycott
tactics (though intimidation of Guardians was not uncommon in
Todmorden and Hebden Bridge).
The fear aroused by the violence of riots,
and intimidation of Poor Law supporters in Hebden Bridge and
Todmorden, almost paralysed the local Guardians and led them
by 1840 to pursue an interpretation of their role that was very
similar to the old township system in all but name, and an unsatisfactory
(to the Commission) status quo settled until 1871, when the Poor
Law Board threatened to disband the Todmorden Union and reallocate
the townships between Rochdale and Halifax - unless they built
a union workhouse. The local guardians finally agreed to do so
and built the new workhouse at Beggarington, in Langfield (The
building later became Stansfield View Hospital) .
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