The Board of Guardians of the Oakham Union came into being as a
result of the Poor Law Amendment Act, and held its first meeting
at Oakham Castle on 30th April 1836. One of the Board’s first
duties was to build a new workhouse for the whole Union to
replace those which had served individual parishes, and it
achieved this within about 18 months. The whole process is well
documented in the early minute books which survive in the
Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland. These
minute books form an extensive series but this one for 1864-68
has come to light only recently, so we have taken the opportunity
to make it available on-line, taking advantage of the clerk’s
partial indexing of the volume to make consultation easier.
If one thing is clear from the minute books, it is that to be one of the Guardians was by
no means a sinecure. Guardians were expected to be regular in attendance at the
fortnightly meetings – though on one occasion in this minute book only one turned up
and the meeting was cancelled. There was much routine business, and the Minutes
themselves are appropriately formulaic and repetitive. However, one soon begins to
appreciate how much local information is in fact to be unearthed from these seemingly
dry pages.
The minute book shows that the workhouse was indeed the focus of the Guardians’
activities, as well as the general administration of the Poor Law, but they had also
acquired responsibilities for the control of public nuisances and disease, which led
eventually to their becoming rural sanitary authorities. The workhouse itself was
subject to external inspection, and we see that in response to recommendations made
by the inspector a number of improvements were put in hand in January 1868, including
The OUMB files are low
resolution to make them
easily available to all -
for high resolution images
please contact Rutland CC
Library Services.
better furnishings such as rocking-chairs in lying-in wards, wooden floors instead of brick, new boys’ and girls’ wash houses,
and dayroom ventilation. It was decided, however, that bathrooms for the children were not requisite.
Much of the business was concerned with regulating and approving the finances of the Board and of the workhouse –
managing parish contributions, paying bills, seeking tenders for supplies such as candles, coal or coffins, monitoring the
expenses of the Master of the workhouse, agreeing or contesting payments of relief for paupers in or from parishes in other
unions. From the details of invoices and tenders we learn, for example, the names of many local tradesmen who had
dealings with the workhouse, some with businesses that would withstand the test of time such as Wellington the chemist or
Crowson the brewer, others less familiar such as Haddon the barber or Sewell the tinman. We also see the difficulty the
Board had in obtaining tenders for supplying flour, one of the staple commodities needed for feeding the inmates.
The accounts show how much was expended on the maintenance of paupers in residence or on out-relief, on medical fees
and contracts including those for vaccinations, and on maintaining lunatics in the asylum in Leicester, not to mention the
salaries of workhouse staff and the clerk to the Board, who was granted a pay rise in recognition of the growing burden of
paperwork. Medical certificates led to the payment of out-relief of paupers for illnesses or ailments ranging from Grace
Neals’ ‘piles’ to John Wade’s ‘disease of feet’.
As to nuisances, we find for example that Jno Barlow’s privy on Cold Overton Road, Oakham, was ‘injurious to the health of
the inhabitants of the adjoining house’, and he was instructed to abate the nuisance, and that legal action was threatened
against Mr E G Baker for allowing the discharge of industrial effluent from the Langham brewery into the stream there.
There were also complaints about the unpleasant state of another stream, that running past Oakham from the Braunston
road to the Uppingham road, but these were dismissed as unfounded by the Board.
Now that this hitherto missing volume has been brought to light and made available here, there is good opportunity to
explore it in detail in conjunction with other contemporary sources such as census records, parish registers and local
directories, and to throw light on local families and their way of life. This will all add to our picture of social conditions in
this part of Rutland in the mid nineteenth century.
The workhouse built by the Board in 1836-7 on Ashwell Road survives to this day, as does its longcase clock, in the Rutland
County Museum (see Rutland Record no 2 (1981)). This is more than can be said for the Master’s worn-out carpet – which, as
these minutes show and despite the inspector’s recommendation, the Guardians felt could last another few months before
needing to be replaced ... nothing changes!
