“Local farmers expressed support for the new Poor Law Bill (passed in 1835). Under the new system Parish Relief in the form of donations of food, clothing, fuel, etc. was abolished and any poor relief could only be given in workhouses; where conditions were such as to deter any but the truly destitute from applying. In desperation, many of the rural poor ventured to the new manufacturing towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. On December 26th, 1835, The Suffolk Chronicle published a long letter on this subject from a Stoke Ferry farmer who signed himself as ‘T’, he wrote, “…. I am assured by those who have lately visited our great manufacturing towns in the North, and on whose testimony the most implicit reliance may be placed… that the masters are willing engage new comers for three years certain…. But what wages do they give? If the man has a family partly grown up, he will make at least three or four times the amount he could earn by farm labour… Of thus much we may quite sure, that the old [Relief] system was fast ruining the farmers and labourers, the former in purse, the latter in morals; and, therefore, any change from such state of things, must be for the better. I am. Sir, ‘T’, your obedient Servant, Stoke Ferry, Dec. 22, 1835.” “
New Poor Law
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