................this is extracted from the "Harrogate Story" by W
Haythornthwaite, MA......published by the Dalesman Publiching Company, 1954

Tony Cheal
Harrogate Historical Society and re-Population Study Group
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A BUSY OFFICIAL
Workhouse Master and Vestry Clerk.

In an interesting article, one of an "Old Harrogate" series that appeared in
the Harrogate Herald during the winter of 1892-3, W. H. Breare mentions the
election, held some fifty years before, of the first Town Improvement
Commissioners. He is giving details about each of the candidates in turn when
he frankly confesses, "Henry Peacock I have not heard of." In a later article
he remarks, "I am wondering if Harrogate ever had a Poor House of its own."
As the township records were not available in Breare's time, he was unaware
of the connection that exists between his two comments. Harrogate had a
Workhouse of its own for nearly fifty years, and for thirteen of them Henry
Peacock was its capable and energetic Master. The records of the Workhouse
throw much light on life and conditions in the first half of the nineteenth
century, but the character of Peacock is a matter of more personal interest.
Like other people, he had his good and bad qualities, but he clearly had an
energy, a vitality, much above the ordinary. As is usual with such
characters, he aroused admiration, respect and, possibly, warm affection, in
some; in others, dislike and something not far from contempt. Starting in
poverty, he was determined to make life give him what he felt was his due and
as far as possible to control circumstances.
Under the date June 2nd, 1825, in the Overseer's expenses account is the
laconic entry: "collecting new Master and Mrs. for the Workhouse." The
persons thus collected were Henry Peacock and his wife Elizabeth. After three
years' service at the workhouse of "Aldborough and Boroughbridge" they had
come to the much larger one at Harrogate at the joint salary of £50 a year
and "all found." A flattering testimonial. signed by township officers and
"principal inhabitants," gives as their reason for the change "they consider
they can better themselves." In Henry's case, at any rate, this phrase was no
formal one thought up to suit the occasion. It was a concise expression of
his rule of life. Of Elizabeth we know nothing more than that she was a good
wife, being kept hard at work, and was always ailing. She died in January,
1827, not unexpectedly. In a letter she received some month before a woman
friend tells her-in a rather awkward attempt at sympathy-that at their last
meeting she had had the feeling they would never meet again. Henry's chief
concern seems to have been to collect a little money that was due to her.
In August, 1828, he married Jane Dodd, for the Workhouse had to have a
Mistress. She helped by her frugal management to keep down the cost of each
pauper to about half-a-crown a week, and she also added a little to the joint
income by extra duties. Besides supervising the washing and baking for the
whole "family" of fifty or so she probably had in her charge also the
brewing, for quantities of malt were bought, and the weekly item, "Jane
Peacock: yest, etc," crept up to 15s. a week. Jane had been maid to Sir
Charles des Voeux, of Woodhall, and had accumulated during her years of
service a balance of about £150 in the York Saving Bank. In November, 1828,
this account is put in her husband's name.
When Peacock had been appointed Workhouse Master in 1825, he had become
Vestry Clerk too. Overseers were nearly always busy men-here they were
innkeepers, farmers, tradesmen, even one manufacturer-and as township duties
increased they were ready to hand over all routine matters to a paid
official. This was the Vestry Clerk, and after 1832 it was the Assistant
Overseer. Peacock held the latter office as long as he remained Workhouse
Master, that is to 1838. Besides spending the township's money he had
therefore to collect it. and this involved making out the Rate Books, with
their assessments. Though he got help once or twice in collecting the Poor
Rate he, on the other hand, sometimes collected the Highways Rate for the
Surveyors, of course for a fee. In addition to these official activities he
be-came steward for some half-dozen property owners at a commission. Once he
received payment in kind-a salmon-for his "good services," the nature of
which is not stated.
He was an enthusiastic, though perhaps rather a "slapdash" public official.
Possibly, even for him, there were too many irons in the fire. He received
many letters from Overseers, for those were days when poor relief was an
exasperatingly complicated business. Each township acting independently and
being responsible for all paupers who could claim a settlement in it,
Overseers set themselves to disclaim responsibility whenever there was the
least chance of doing so. On occasions Peacock received abuse: on others,
compliments. "For God's sake don't waste our time-you know the man belongs
your township," wrote H. Frost, of Knaresborough. Another correspondent
wishes that "other overseers gave him as little trouble."
He and the Overseers received a host of letters - many pathetic, several
decidedly truculent-from those applying for relief. Incidentally, these do
not fit in with the popular idea that the poor at that time were usually
unable to read and write, or even to express themselves well and often
cogently. As Peacock quite often made copies of his own letters, his
correspondence may almost be described as voluminous. But in addition he had
the true collector's instinct. Mixed up with official papers are private'
letters and documents (such as the Bank Book!) some of which present him in a
favourable light, but there are others that a less self-confident man would
have been careful to destroy.
The poverty of his own family, and that of his first wife, is obvious enough.
A brother-in-law writes in 1831: "The landlord has been and he has sold all
that we have, he brought with him what we call an odds and ends man. and he
sold all there was for £3 19s. And I wanted to buy the Bed back again and he
would not let me have it under £2. My mother takes it as well as can be
expected for I have encouraged her by you." Peacock himself, apparently, is
the one hope of the family. Yet he allowed his own mother to receive poor
relief, at least from 1829 to 1834, and to be buried by the township in which
she died.
Possibly because he knew from the inside the life of the poor, he quite often
showed sympathy to those who. were down on their luck. At the same time he
was a keen detector of malingerers and charlatans. But, above all, his
experience made him determined to force or flatter people into giving him
what he wanted, and this was not little, for he had large ideas, spending
freely when he had either money or credit.
How to meet his private bills was his perpetual problem. In 1825 some follow
him from Boroughbridge, accompanied by dunning letters-but some honest folk
have a similar experience! It is from notes he left among the township papers
that we can piece together something rather more serious.
One of his financial transactions covers many years. In 1819 he had got a
loan of £20, at the then usual rate of 5 per cent., from a James Dickinson,
of Burley. This friend was either gullible or, as is more likely, generous
and long-suffering. The year following, instead of paying interest, Peacock
obtained from Dickinson a further loan of £5. giving him some twenty yards of
cloth. Interest was then allowed to accumulate. year after year, until the
marriage with Jane, when most of the debt was cleared. The payment of this
and other accounts, and certainly a bout of spending (as his private 'bills
show), explain the reduction of Jane's balance of £150 to a mere £20 in under
two years and its complete disappearance soon after. The curious item of
cloth is not explained till 1835. In that year, a Thomas Briggs returned from
abroad to reclaim 26 yds. of "Peleice cloth." worth 8s. 9d. a yd., that he
had left with Peacock in 1816 for safe keeping. When Briggs asked for his
cloth, Peacock refused to give it or its value in money "on account of What
he had to do for his own family," and went on to blame Dickinson for "helping
him into his present situation." Hearing later that Briggs had reported this
conversation. Peacock wrote hurriedly to Dickinson to assure him that he
could "fully explain." No doubt he did!
The taking-in of a newspaper is a minor matter. but just for that reason it
is 'likely to indicate a man's financial habits. From December. 1823, Peacock
took the Yorkshire Gazette, which cost him 7d. a copy, the usual price in
those days of taxed newspapers. At rare intervals he paid half of the overdue
account; but in June 1827 he still owed £3. By June, 1830 we find him taking
the Leeds Mercury.
The episode of a Robert Taylor of Leeds again shows the patience of his
creditors or his own plausibility. In January, 1828 this man requests the
immediate payment of an old debt of some pounds, with a pointed reference to
the respectable situations" that his debtor had "so long held," but in
February, 1831 he is still demanding the same sum. with the same pointed
reference. Peacock does not pay in the end, having, he says, "taken benefit
of the Insolvent Act." Taylor then asks for a personal interview, at which he
intends to take other measures. Peacock engages to meet him - "I have the
principal of a Man about me" - and if Taylor wants an assurance that the
promise will be kept, he can refer to - James Dickinson of Burley!
In August 1831, a certain "James Firth, late Overseer of Fewston." asked for
the immediate repayment of ten shillings. Peacock had obtained this from him,
he says. "on the pretext of it being usual for Out-Townships to make a
present" to the Harrogate Workhouse Master. Firth had discovered a little
late that" no such Gift had ever been made or even applied for" before, and
his township had disallowed the item.
There is little doubt that, some time in the early 1820's, Peacock "took
religion." His wife Jane was a devout Methodist, and it is probable that his
first wife Elizabeth had been one also. The evidence of his own attitude is
not so much his paying for " seats" in the local Chapel as the number of
letters he received, particularly from women, of a strongly religious tinge.
Among those for whom he managed property were John and Mary Pullan,
Knaresborough people who had moved to Bradford and, curiously enough, liked
the change. In a letter from Mary, mainly concerned with business details,
there is a passage showing how her particular group looked at things. "I have
got one of the best of Husbands and as far as Earthly comfort can go we are
happy indeed, but yet there is one thing lacking. my Husband tho an excellent
Moral Character is not a Religious Man, but yet he never throws any
hindrances in my way. We always go twice or three times to Chapel on the
Sunday and he is always ready to accompany me on a Week Night and he will
not engage himself or me on that Night because he knows I like to go. . . ."
The fact that Mrs. Pullan considers a "Religious Man" like Peacock to be in
some mysterious way superior to a "Moral Character." such as her positive
paragon of a husband. is one more confirmation of the Yorkshire saying:
"There's nought so queer as folk."
On a "yest" bill in August, 1828, the Leeds brewer has written, "Should it be
correct, I wish you every blessing connected with your honourable and happy
state." Presumably it was "correct," for the marriage with Jane must have
been a fairly happy one. She showed deference, apparently, to her more gifted
husband, 'but was hardly a nonentity. She played her part not only in the
work of the institution but in establishing human relations between the
members of what tèey all called the "family" within it. But, like her
predecessor Elizabeth. she was often ill- right from the time when, within
two months of the marriage, Peacock tells a friend that his "Dear Wife" is
very "poorly." But there is plenty of evidence that she did her many duties
till not long 'before she died.
Henry and Jane did more than their official duty towards some of the inmates.
There was, for example. a man called Franklin, a member of a good family that
tried to forget 'his existence. He was well educated, as his many letters
show, but he suffered from what is called to-day "nervous breakdown," during
one spell of which he had committed some minor crime that sent him to the
House of Correction at Ripon. When, afterwards, he came into the Workhouse,
the Peacocks treated him with understanding and sympathy and gave him,
obviously without any hope of reward, as much freedom as institutional
regulations would permit, and small luxuries such as tea and coffee. In the
ordinary way these were given to paupers only on a doctor's prescription.
There is a letter, too, from John Hagley, uneducated but hard-working and
honest, who finds himself in York Castle for debt. After asking for a loan to
be begged for him from any one of Peacock's well-to-do Harrogate friends,
whom he mentions by name, he adds, "You have both singular and plural eased
my troubled mind, for which I shall never never forget."
One of the few letters written by Jane-dated August 17th, 1833, and addressed
to her husband at Scarborough -gives in its naive way a feeling of the
atmosphere of the Workhouse community and a hint of its day-to-day activities:
I Take up my pen to wright to you according to your wish. I have not anything
particular to say. we are all very quiet and peasable as yet. we have got
Oddy's Children: Mr. W. and Mr. Allinson brought the few things yesterday.
Mr. W. had Mr. Pullon and Mr. Ripley with him yestarday to pay the Power, and
as you was not at home we had the Beason out. they drank your good health and
Safe Return. I hope you find yourself better but you cannot tell in so short
a time, but I cincearly hope it will do you good. I had Mr. Benn this Morning
to say Joseph Bramly is to go to Mr. Wright's on Munday Morning. he will giv
5 shillings per week with him. as I was wrighting Jane was Standing by. She
said who is that for Aunt. is it for uncel. giv my love to him. I shall be so
glad when he cums home again, we are both well and all the Family Except
Joseph belongs Spufforth. He waists fast. he looks at present as though you
would not see him any mor. and old William Sissens likewise. the other old
man is no worse. I Conclude with kindest love and' Effection ever.-Jane
Peacock.
The "Power" were those who received out-door relief each week and were known
as pensioners. "Mr. W." was probably Martin Wilson, then Churchwarden and a
prominent draper in the town. Joseph Bramly is an inmate who will work at a
coach-builder's during the day, and the township will benefit: on the credit
side of overseers' accounts there is sometimes the item,. Labourage. The
"Beason" (i.e. basin) appears to have been their private name for a bowl or
tankard. Jane, the niece, lived with the Peacocks for a number of years.
Peacock was very busy in the early 1830's with township business, for he had
an eye to the public profit as well as his own. He 'managed to reduce
expenses in the Workhouse by putting the paupers on an almost completely
vegetarian diet. He made the placing of poor children as apprentices very
lucrative for the township by imposing a fine of £10 on any who refused to
take one.
In 1834, the Poor Law Commissioners demanded elaborate reports, preparatory
to the passing of the new Poor Law, which was to make drastic changes in the
system. This work, in the township, was left largely to Peacock, and it was
done efficiently. Shortly after, he was given a "bonus" of £12 or so, a
private subscription by prominent townsmen.
This wind-fall, which he himself, as appears from his notes, had "shaken from
the tree," was not enough to save his desperate financial situation. A fresh
embarrassment is revealed in letters from John Ragg, Overseer of Pateley
Bridge. Peacock's mother had received poor relief in Holbeck for the previous
four years, and she had been given a pauper's funeral. Her "settlement" was
in Pateley Bridge, so' that township had to reimburse Holbeck. Pateley
Bridge, in its turn, naturally hoped to recover the money from her apparently
well-to-do son. A letter from Ragg. dated January, 1835-following lengthy
negotiations-makes clear the threat to Peacock's official position. "I am
again instructed to write to you respecting the expences of your mother's
order of suspension. The rate payers here don't feel inclin'd to pay the
whole without they cant help themselves, but they have order'd me to say that
they will sacrifice the £15 already paid if you will pay the remaining £20,
which I advise you to do, for you must own she was your mother and it will be
the last duty you have to perform..
In case of your refusal I shall have to lay the case before the Poor Law
Commissioners giving them to understand how the parties are situated. I think
your Salary is 50 or 60£ Per Ann. as head master of the Workhouse for Bilton
cam Harrogate and 8 or 10 adjoining Townships, with meat drink. etc., etc."
This further composition with his creditors-though, in this instance, rather
regrettable-is a tribute to his negotiating ability. His enforced
resignation, here hinted at, he managed somehow or other to put off for three
more years. When it came he had made due preparation for it.
In spite of her poor health, his wife continued her duties until 1837, but in
the summer of that year her illness became more severe. After her death, a
woman friend wrote, in a letter of condolence : "It was a happy change for
her, as her life in the state she had 'been in some time certainly was not
desirable. When in health 'she lived the life of a true Christian." It was in
the early autumn that Jane died.
Some months later, in February, 1838, the Workhouse Committee resolved "that
Mr. Henry Peacock shall be served with his notice to give up his situation as
Governor of Harrogate Work House on the twentieth Day of May next ensuing."
In the same month his successor as Assistant Overseer was also appointed.
His service as a public official was ended. but not his career. Since the
time when he had been "collected," thirteen years before, he had cultivated
influential friends and improved his social standing. Even the Committee in
its dismissal notice attached the then respectful title of Mr."~ and "Mr.
Peacock, Harrogate" was the only address on many of his letters. He had not
been an "Unjust Steward," but he had one point in common with the man in the
Parable: when he failed, he had a habitation into which he was received. The
Harrogate Advertiser in August, 1838, records his marriage to Mrs. Waudby, of
the Brunswick Hotel. This time he is married in the Knaresborough' Parish
Church by the Vicar (the Rev. Andrew Cheap). The following issue of the
Advertiser shows that he has become landlord of the Brunswick as successor to
the widow. This inn "by the Great Pillar" was not of the size that it has
since grown into as the Prince of Wales but it was already a "Posting House"
and rivalled the Swan of the period, though hardily the Granby.
For the next eleven years. Peacock was to belong to what was probably the
most influential group in Harrogate life at that time, the "innholders." If
he had left his public offices under a cloud this was forgotten, for the
township asked his advice on Rating. In 1841 he got many votes (though he
just failed of election), when the first Town Improvement Commissioners were
chosen, and the following year, through the resignation of some
Commissioners, he was actually called to office. As a reminder of how soon
men. even officials, are forgotten. it was this particular candidate of 1841
who. to a knowledgeable Harrogate man. only some fifty years later, had
become just a name.