Pre welfare state

18-03-2018 01:53PM

Basically, people lived one step above starvation a lot of the time.

Capt'n Midnight · 18-03-2018 01:58PM

Hitman3000 wrote: »

1889 Bismarck introduced the pension for over 70's in Germany. For Ireland we just followed the British.

It was a cynical move to kick that particular can down the road.

Life expectancy in Prussia back then was 45.

https://www.economist.com/node/13900145

In 1908, when Lloyd George bullied through a payment of five shillings a week for poor men who had reached 70, Britons, especially poor ones, were lucky to survive much past 50.

It only came into law in 1909 and was means tested.

https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/irish-pension-records.html

The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society published in December 1910 suggested that the percentage of take up among those eligibile for the Old Age Pension 'could probably be accepted as approximately indicative of the relative poverty of the population'.

The level in England and Wales was 44.7%. In Scotland it was 53.8%.

In Ireland it was 98.6%, once again demonstrating the plight of the island and central governments lack of investment in it.

Graces7 · 18-03-2018 02:03PM

shaunr68 wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse

My grandfather was born in the Liverpool workhouse in 1915.

If you read any cemetery records in the UK when researching family, you will see the death rate among babies is horrendously high and many who died in the workhouse. You see entry after entry of "3 hours" and less. Little maternity care and no money for doctors

My maternal grandmother birthed 7 or maybe 8 babies( they used to give the name of a perinatal death to another child later so it is hard to tell) . She raised 3 of those.

TB was rampant. Three of her children survived to their teens then were stricken down .

That lessened dramatically after the NHS was founded. Before that they could not afford any medical care.

shaunr68 · 18-03-2018 02:31PM

Graces7 wrote: »

If you read any cemetery records in the UK when researching family, you will see the death rate among babies is horrendously high and many who died in the workhouse. You see entry after entry of "3 hours" and less. Little maternity care and no money for doctors

My maternal grandmother birthed 7 or maybe 8 babies( they used to give the name of a perinatal death to another child later so it is hard to tell) . She raised 3 of those.

TB was rampant. Three of her children survived to their teens then were stricken down .

That lessened dramatically after the NHS was founded. Before that they could not afford any medical care.

Similar story with my working class Liverpool ancestors. 12 children on one side, 5 made it to adulthood.

Though it has become a byword for Dickensian poverty, to be fair I think the workhouse system was at least an improvement on what was available before. My great grandmother was admitted to the workhouse to give birth, it was the best option for poor people who could not afford a doctor.

In some ways the NHS and the welfare state are the pinnacle of hundreds of years of gradual improvements and progress in social reform and poor relief. All imho

kylith · 18-03-2018 02:33PM

junk_sales_man wrote: »

the reason the man didnt marry until old was he did not receive the farm from his parents until he was perhaps sixty , thus ensuring he hung around to take care of the parents

it was not unusual fifty years ago for a farmer to be forty years older than his wife

How does that work? His eldest son would be then 10-20 when he died.

I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s At Home recently and it seems that multiple marriages after the death of a spouse was totally normal, with some men marrying 3 times. My own grandfather did it: wife dies in childbirth, man takes on young woman to look after the children, he marries her, repeat.

Graces7 · 18-03-2018 02:35PM

shaunr68 wrote: »

Similar story with my working class Liverpool ancestors. 12 children on one side, 5 made it to adulthood.

Though it has become a byword for Dickensian poverty, to be fair I think the workhouse system was at least an improvement on what was available before. My great grandmother was admitted to the workhouse to give birth, it was the best option for poor people who could not afford a doctor.

In some ways the NHS and the welfare state are the pinnacle of hundreds of years of gradual improvements and progress in social reform and poor relief. All imho

So much wrong with the workhouse but yet? They separated families but the kids did get some education. And at least a roof.

Much depended as always on the staff

Ireland is so different to us Brits... I arrived just before the NHS so grew up
with the service. Never knew any differently

sunbeam · 18-03-2018 02:39PM

My parents were born in the early 1930s. Both left school at 14 (no free secondary education unless you got a scholarship) and became economic migrants/emigrants to the UK sending most of their earnings back to support their families at home. This was the norm in my part of the west of Ireland.

Most fathers were also migrants for nine months of the year, leaving their wives to care for the young, the old, the disabled and run their small farms. Is it any wonder depression was so rampant here? Of course there wasn't much treatment for it in those days apart from incarcerating you permanently in the local psychiatric hospital, so people soldiered on as best they could, relying on the help of their families.

I was born in 72 and 'works in England' is listed as my father's occupation on my birth cert. Everyone knew that was shorthand for working in the construction trade. He got a job in Ireland in the late 70s and it was so fantastic that he could come home at weekends.

Visconti · 18-03-2018 02:55PM

junk_sales_man wrote: »

vast majority of travellers engage in criminality , painting the roof of a farmers hayshed with paint which is 90% diluted is fraud , ditto with dodgy tarmac jobs

Any proof to back up this wild sweeping statement ? Have you ever watched cowboy builders or programs like that ? Suppose they are all travellers too ? The builders who built dodgy apartment blocks with no fire regs etc were they travellers ? I guess the corrupt bankers are travellers too ?

Graces7 · 18-03-2018 03:01PM

mariaalice wrote: »

I had to study this, religious organizations and after the dissolution of the monasteries it was outdoor relief mostly in the winter given in each parish and the person has to be from the parish then it was the workhouses. The pension was introduced in 1909 they had to be over 70.

[/url] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_John_Barnardo

Orphans or sometimes children were put by parents were apprenticed out at a very young age.

The British army the poverty draft.

people went hungry and suffered from malnutrition.

At the bottom level, people weaved in and out from employment to low-level
crime and back again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Labour_and_the_London_Poor

Scrapping "outdoor relief" and forcing the very poor into the workhouse was one of the cruellest measures ever taken. Families, especially the old who had been together all their lives,were split up

I did voluntary work in the 80s in the UK in an old folks hospital in the UK and even then the couples were split up

It is dehumanising

Harry Palmr · 18-03-2018 03:02PM

Life was nasty brutish and short

If you were poor and workless, you joined the army/navy, you emigrated, you lived rough and died young (now in 2018 the average death is 47 for rough sleepers in the UK so little has changed in that regard). Women had the added option of whoring and catching disease and then dying.

We should all thank our lucky stars that three-four generations ago so much changed.

Graces7 · 18-03-2018 03:03PM

mariaalice wrote: »

In Ireland, they had community welfare officers and people were expected to sell their possession before they got help.

Ireland largely followed the Brittish system.

Even the sheets off their beds...

Graces7 · 18-03-2018 03:06PM

mariaalice wrote: »

Basically, people lived one step above starvation a lot of the time.

And they helped each other and had more sense of community than we have today. I grew up in the back streets of a Lancashire town just after the war. There was still dire poverty.

Annasopra · 18-03-2018 03:09PM

facehugger99 wrote: »

Charities and relatives mainly.

Or chucked into workhouses, laundries etc etc

Richard Hillman · 18-03-2018 03:11PM

Visconti wrote: »

Any proof to back up this wild sweeping statement ? Have you ever watched cowboy builders or programs like that ? Suppose they are all travellers too ? The builders who built dodgy apartment blocks with no fire regs etc were they travellers ? I guess the corrupt bankers are travellers too ?

LOLZ

Annasopra · 18-03-2018 03:13PM

timthumbni wrote: »

The reason I started the thread was that I was watching a tv show set in Victorian times and it struck me how did those that did not or could not get a job actually survived.

Contrasts greatly to those housed/fed/ entertained with a massive tv nowadays. All at public expense.

They were basically thrown into workhouses, poorhouses, laundries, orphanages, mental hospitals - Ireland had the highest level of institutionalisation in the world in the 1950s - when they were not institutionalised they lived in tenement and slum housing.

There was also quite a lot of philanthropy towards workers (education, housing) from the likes of Guinnesses and Rowntrees

sunbeam · 18-03-2018 03:15PM

My grandmother, born in 1895, always referred to the county home as the workhouse. She was terrified of ending up there, even though she lived with us until her death.

Guy:Incognito · 18-03-2018 03:23PM

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Prostitution, theft, death. Joining the army was a great source of income for a host of people, including the Irish within the BA.

Great times really.

Joining the army wouldn't fall in to the category of "those who can't get work" . That's a job.

Visconti · 18-03-2018 03:23PM

Richard Hillman wrote: »

LOLZ

Lol pmsl

Avatar MIA · 18-03-2018 03:25PM

Visconti wrote: »

Lol pmsl

ROTFPMSLOL

Avatar MIA · 18-03-2018 03:30PM

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Joining the army wouldn't fall in to the category of "those who can't get work" . That's a job.

It was, of last resort for some. And it was done because there was no other jobs or welfare. There was a time when nearly half the British army was made up of Irish. Some did of for the career, to see the world, but most Irish did it out of necessity.

Guy:Incognito · 18-03-2018 03:41PM

Avatar MIA wrote: »

, but most Irish did it out of necessity.

Isn't that why any of us work? I know I'd much rather be a millionaire that didn't have to go to work.

doolox · 18-03-2018 03:54PM

In Victorian times more than half the British Army was made up of people from outside England. They were from Ireland, Scotland and Wales which is why it was called the British Army to emphasise the non-Englishness of the organisation.

Other service branches are called the Royal Navy and the Royal Airforce and are more balanced reflecting the respective populations of the constituent countries of the UK, England having almost 80% of the population one would expect to have 80% of the army membership.

The army was not easy to get into for the poor in that there were fitness, size and ability restrictions which many poor people of the time could not meet.
This was a source of major concern in the first world war and an even bigger concern in the second world war when evacuation of the cities, mass recruitment from all classes etc forced the poverty issue and lack of development and educational opportunities for the poor out into the open where it could no longer be cast aside and ignored.

This resulted in a postwar victory for Labour and in the foundation of the NHS and the welfare state as we know them today. Most of Irelands welfare provisions came somewhat later and were also a result of classes of people thrown together in a crisis situation, The economic war of 1932, the emergency and post war poverty in the 50's etc.

My parents recalled that the opportunities and benefits available to Irish citizens were somewhat worse than those in Britain postwar but the people were better fed, many being small farmers with available land and skills.
Many marginalised people mostly orphans or unmarried mothers, arrived in England for work with little or no relevant education and ended up destitute and homeless at the end of their working lives as a result. Too much emphasis was being placed on Irish language and religion in school, according to my Dad. Not enough on technical or science knowledge needed by industry.

sunbeam · 18-03-2018 04:09PM

Just after the end of WW2 my mother joined her older sister as an assistant housekeeper/nanny for a wealthy family in London. She was very naive and believed that everyone in London led similar lifestyles to her employers. She was horrified when she visited one of her friends living in a dingy bedsit in conditions that were worse than what she came from at home.

Billy86 · 18-03-2018 04:14PM

Quick answer to how people survived before the welfare state:

UK life expectancy, 1891: 44.1 years (male), 47.8 years (female)
UK life expectancy, 2011: 79 years (male), 82.8 years (female)

Visconti · 18-03-2018 04:26PM

Avatar MIA wrote: »

ROTFPMSLOL

Tltr
Ttfn
Raotfl
Lolz
Ha ha

mynamejeff · 18-03-2018 05:01PM

Avatar MIA wrote: »

It was, of last resort for some. And it was done because there was no other jobs or welfare. There was a time when nearly half the British army was made up of Irish. Some did of for the career, to see the world, but most Irish did it out of necessity.

? half the british army made up of irish ? when abouts was this ? mush have been tiny at the time

shaunr68 · 18-03-2018 05:27PM

mynamejeff wrote: »

? half the british army made up of irish ? when abouts was this ? mush have been tiny at the time

The proportion of Irish in the British Army was about a third during the Napoleonic wars, might have been higher in the Mutiny and Crimea era - immediately post famine - IIRC

Graces7 · 18-03-2018 06:22PM

Has anyone visited an old worknouse?

I used to pass the one at Bawnboy and stopped and explored.

http://www.abandonedireland.com/Workhouse_1.html

Still the old rare apple trees etc

Now they are renovating it as a museum.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 18-03-2018 06:35PM

Graces7 wrote: »

Has anyone visited an old worknouse?

I used to pass the one at Bawnboy and stopped and explored.

http://www.abandonedireland.com/Workhouse_1.html

Still the old rare apple trees etc

Now they are renovating it as a museum.

I used visit and help out in one here years ago. Horrible horrible place.

It, thankfully, closed down years ago and we go a lovely new nursing home in it's stead elsewhere in the town.
Some people wanted to keep the old workhouse for a museum but sense saw through and it was demolished and replaced with new workshops for day care and a plant nursery and park.

18-03-2018 06:57PM

At the time there were more than 20,000 patients confined behind mental hospital walls across the State, or 0.7 per cent of the general population.

In fact, Ireland led the world locking people up in institutions, with inpatient admission rates that were multiples of other countries – even ahead of the old Soviet Union.

“The high rate had nothing to do with mental illness,” says Dr Eoin O’Sullivan, associate professor in social policy at Trinity College Dublin. “They were used to dispose of people who society didn’t want . . . They were the single biggest part of our system of coercive confinement.”

That is talking about the 1970s

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/ireland-s-mental-hospitals-the-last-gap-in-our-history-of-coercive-confinement-1.1833379

Pre welfare state

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