Social care for paupers provided by some villages in Rutland was championed by some as a paradigm to be copied throughout the country, not least because of the savings in poor relief it afforded. Yet not all were of this opinion; the New Poor Law, characterised by the Union workhouse and the abolition of outdoor relief, was just around the corner.
“PAUPERISM.–In an able article in the new number of the Quarterly Review, on the “condition of the English Peasantry,” it is recommended as the most efficient means of preventing pauperism, to attach 2 or 3 acres of land to each poor man’s cottage, to fill up the whole of his spare time and employ his children, which by being cultivated under spade husbandry would yield abundant means of keeping a cow, pigs, and poultry, besides garden-stuff, sufficient with the produce of his daily labour to prevent the necessity of application for parochial relief. Instances are adduced to exhibit the benefits of this system, in villages where it has always been in operation, (which villages are all in the county of Rutland, viz. Hambleton, Egleton, Greetham, and Burley on the Hill,) the average of the poor-rates of which parishes is only 9d. in the pound-rent, whilst at four other parishes where no employment is afforded to the labourers beyond their mere earnings, the rates average 10s. 3d. in the pound.–The whole of the article merits the attention of magistrates and agriculturists.”
Stamford Mercury, 24th July 1829.