Workhouse in Devon, Exeter, England, c. 1670
George Boone II was born near Exeter (Stoke Canon Church)
in 1666.
This story tells what life was like at
that time.
An early workhouse was
erected in Exeter in the 1670s as a result of a bequest of the Canon John Bury.
Who left the sum of forty pounds per annum so that All ye poore people of the
Parish that should be able to work should be maintained therein and kept to
work.
In 1697, Exeter was one
of the first places in England to be incorporated under a special Act of
Parliament to administer to its own poor relief.
The Act created a
Corporation to continue forever to consist of the Mayor and Alderman and of
forty other persons to be chosen out of the honestest and the discreetest
inhabitants of the four Wards or Quarters to be elected by the votes of the
Inhabitants paying twopence per week, or more, in his own right, for and towards
the relief of the Poor.
The preamble to the
Act reads:
Whereas it is
found by experience, that the Poor in the City of Exon do daily multiply, and
Idleness and Debauchery amongst the meaner sort doth greatly increase for the
want of Workhouses to set them to work, and a sufficient Authority to compel
them thereto, as well to the charge of the charitable and honest citizens of the
City, as the great distress of the poor themselves; for which sufficient redress hath not
yet been provided.
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Members may also
purchase copies of Olde English documents that the Boone Society
has accumulated showing
dates of his baptism, marriage, burial of his parents and baptism of
some of his children by
contacting Rochelle@cablelynx.com.
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