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Wednesday 11 April 2012 11.00 - 13.00
U-2 SOC02 Collections for the Poor. Voluntary giving and the Finance of Poor Relief
Maths Building: 326
Network: Social Inequality Chair: Marco Van Leeuwen
Organizers: Daniëlle Teeuwen, Marco Van Leeuwen Discussant: Henk Looijesteijn
John McCallum : Collections for the Poor in the Post-reformation Church of Scotland
This paper will examine the charitable collections undertaken by the Protestant Church of Scotland during the century after the Reformation of 1560. Improving provision for the poor was one of the key goals of the Protestant reformers, yet there has been no detailed study of the progress made in meeting ... (Show more)
This paper will examine the charitable collections undertaken by the Protestant Church of Scotland during the century after the Reformation of 1560. Improving provision for the poor was one of the key goals of the Protestant reformers, yet there has been no detailed study of the progress made in meeting this goal, a gap which has serious implications for the economic history of early modern Scotland as well as that of its church. When historians have referred to poor relief in post-Reformation Scotland, it has normally been in the context of the failure to implement the poor-relief legislation which was copied from England in the 1570s. Thus historians have assumed that, in the absence of the compulsory contributions which characterised contemporary English society and more modern secular welfare systems, Scottish poor relief was ‘weak and inadequate’.

This paper seeks to challenge this interpretation, proceeding on the assumption that it is not self-evident that poor relief based primarily on voluntary contribution must necessarily be insubstantial and haphazard. It will do this through a detailed examination of evidence from various parish records across Scotland. The very detailed records kept by kirk sessions (parish-level church courts) provide rich, although varying evidence on the spread and chronological development of poor relief. The paper will pay due attention to variations between rural and urban settlements, and regional differences across Scotland. Nevertheless, it will be demonstrated that kirk sessions normally took particular efforts to raise money for the poor, both through routine weekly collections which raised significant sums of money, and also one-off fundraising campaigns, often encouraged by sermons, for individuals or groups of people in need through various catastrophes such as fire, flood or plague. There is no denying that in times of serious famine, there was little that kirk sessions could do to meet the dramatically increased levels of need, but this is true of almost any pre-industrial welfare system: under normal circumstances, the collections went a long way in relieving the needs of the poor and unfortunate.

It is important, however, to place collections for the poor in their full context, and the evidence from Scotland confirms historians’ recent emphasis on the ‘mixed economy’ of poor relief. As well as collections, which ranged from entirely voluntary offerings to semi-compulsory contributions into which individuals might be pressured by the church, the poor also benefitted from money raised from fines imposed by the kirk session for moral and religious transgressions like fornication, abuse of the sabbath or slander. Kirk sessions also administered testamentary bequests to the poor. Beyond the kirk session, poor relief could also come from town councils, wealthy philanthropists, and, less visibly to the historian, through entirely informal gifts of small sums of money, food, clothing and hospitality. The paper will acknowledge these various sources of support and consider their relationship with the activities of the church. Although British historians, unlike their continental counterparts, have tended to play down the role of ecclesiastical charity in favour of more secular developments which can be portrayed as forerunners of the modern welfare state, this paper will conclude that the role of the church in supporting the poor is deserving of much more serious consideration. (Show less)

Karen Sonnelitter : Financing Improvement: Philanthropy and Charity in Eighteenth-Century Ireland
The eighteenth-century saw significant changes in structures of charity in Early Modern Europe. In Ireland the development of voluntary societies to address rampant social problems had a significant impact on how social relief was carried out. In this period of relative political stability Irish Protestants became increasingly aware of the ... (Show more)
The eighteenth-century saw significant changes in structures of charity in Early Modern Europe. In Ireland the development of voluntary societies to address rampant social problems had a significant impact on how social relief was carried out. In this period of relative political stability Irish Protestants became increasingly aware of the threat that social problems, such as poverty, posed to their rule. One response to this newly recognized threat was a wave of reform movements and voluntary societies each of which sought to address some aspect of the social problems plaguing Ireland. The corporatization and institutionalization of philanthropy resulted in many profound changes in the way charity work was carried out. These improvement movements differed from earlier charity in organization, method, and aims.
This paper examines how those voluntary societies were funded, focusing on the activities of organizations such as the Incorporated Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools, Mercer’s Hospital, the Royal Dublin Society, and the Dublin Workhouse and Foundling Hospital. It will examine how these organizations used charity sermons and other methods to encourage private benefactions. As well as, the difficulties organizations faced in meeting their fund raising goals and how these routine shortfalls impacted their effectiveness.
It will also investigate public support and provisions for reform and improvement organizations. Both Ireland as a country and Dublin as a city faced enormous and growing social problems in the eighteenth century, many of which stemmed from poverty. Local governments, such as the Corporation of Dublin, and the national government, were forced to take active and interventionist stance in dealing with these issues. The eighteenth-century Irish state took an unusually active stance in supporting and funding charities and reform organizations that were designed to improve the nation and its people. The eighteenth-century culture of improvement was to an extraordinary extent made possible by government funding. Improvement was not just a concern of private individuals or independent voluntary society, but of the state. (Show less)

Daniëlle Teeuwen : Collections for the Poor. Charitable giving in the Dutch Republic
Both contemporaries and present-day historians have generally looked upon the system of poor relief in the Dutch Republic (1588-1795) as generous and relatively efficient. However, like in most countries in early modern Europe, national legislation did not yet exist. Welfare was a local matter. Each city and town, as well ... (Show more)
Both contemporaries and present-day historians have generally looked upon the system of poor relief in the Dutch Republic (1588-1795) as generous and relatively efficient. However, like in most countries in early modern Europe, national legislation did not yet exist. Welfare was a local matter. Each city and town, as well as many villages, had their own arrangements. Because of the absence of a compulsory poor tax, early modern social care was characterized by the predominantly voluntary nature of it. Dutch poor relief was partly funded with (incidental) public subsidies, rents from capital and property income, but in many cities charitable bequests, donations from the rich and small gifts donated to collections, formed the lion’s share of the total income of poor relief institutions. Hence, local poor relief agencies depended mainly on the generosity of its citizens for assisting the poor and needy in the cities.
Money collected in the churches and in the streets was often the most important source of income for the deacons and urban administrators, from which they could draw for their distributions of money, bread and peat. Each church held a collection during service, and frequent public door-to-door collections were made. Municipal poor relief organizations held collections too. In both cases the collections were authorized by the municipal council and subject to a collection roster. Small amounts were also donated to alms boxes which were situated at strategic locations frequented by large numbers of potential benefactors, such as inns, post offices, and ferries. In a lot of cities – like in Delft, Zwolle and Utrecht – collections funded 40 to 60 percent of poor relief. Thus, collections were vital for the survival of Dutch poor relief.
Still, there is little we know about early modern giving behaviour and the financing of poor relief in the Low Countries. This paper wants to fill this lacuna by examining how the Dutch managed to collect such large sums of money for the poor, without having to force the population by means of taxes. I will make a comparative analysis of financial data of charitable institutions in four cities over a period of two centuries, not only to compare the proceeds of collections to other sources of income and to analyze how stable the revenues from small gifts were over time, but also to investigate how the collections were organized and which factors influenced the generosity of the people (e.g. economic swings, social pressure, identification with the purpose collected for). Moreover, I will demonstrate how citizens were encouraged by the authorities to donate generously, for which I will examine ‘begging letters’ of charities and written sermons. In the end, I will explain why the Dutch Republic was so successful in collecting charitable gifts through small donations. (Show less)



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