14th Annual Report of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland, 1861

What is inside?

Republished here as a downloadable digital file is the 14th Annual Report of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland with Appendices, 1861, as it was presented to both Houses of Parliament. As one might expect from Victorian Official Publications, the Annual Reports are replete with statistical information presented in both printed and tabular formats. Each Annual Report is introduced by the Commissioners breviate of the Annual Report in question and are addressed to His Excellency, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. These invariably include tables of the total number of individuals who received indoor and outdoor relief in each of the twelve months over the previous year, tables of morbidity and sickness of inmates, expenditure and wages. The majority of the Annual Reports, however, are made-up of the numerous appendices that are contained within each; these are divided into two main categories: Appendix A 'Circulars of Instruction Issued by the Commissioners and Correspondence to and from the Commissioners' and Appendix B 'Tables. The 14th annual report, that for 1861, contains some 230 printed pages. The most striking edition to this Report are the communications to and from the Commissioners and the Board of Guardians for the Erris Union concerning the distress experienced in the district in 1860 resulting from the loss of half of the oat crop and three-quarters of the potato crop from damage caused by a violent wind storm. These reports consist of some 48 separate items spelling out the dire situation faced by the inhabitants of the area and the requests of the Guardians to increase the Poor Rate to meet the dramatic increase in pauper inmates. These are a must for any social or local historian providing as they do a multitude of statistical detail on the administration of the Poor Laws and the poor themselves, a great deal of which is presented in the form of correspondence and personal testimony.

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