Aylesbury Union Board of Guardians

HEH STG Correspondence Box 83 (30). Extract of letter from George Grenville Wandersford Pigott at Doddershall (Quainton) to Richard Temple. 20 July 1835. 

The Aylesbury Poor Law Union was formed on 6th July 1835. It  was overseen by an elected Board of Guardians. (More information.)

[…] Your Grace has no doubt seen that I have had the misfortune, for such I really consider it, to have been elected Chairman of the Board of Guardians for the Aylesbury Union. I had been sounded by some of my friends as to my own wishes, I had so distinctly stated my dislike to such an office that I was completely taken by surprise when, without any previous communicatio|n with me I was elected chiefly by Rickford’s party. I did not think, however, nor on reflection do I now that I could with propriety have refused an Office which might give me the opportunity of investigating or at least delaying some of the more obnoxious provisions of the Poor Law and on many occasions interfering effectively in favor of the really industrious Poor. M^r Gilbert seems disposed to defer a good deal to the sense of the Board. Already he has yielded without difficulty what I consider an essential point. He wanted to have only 3 Relieving Officers with Salaries of £80 each. I pressed for 4 with £100 and carried the point. The whole working of the Bill rests with the Relieving Officers. The Poor will be virtually at their mercy and it is therefore of the last importance that they should be men of intelligence and hospitality, but also that their new duties should not be so laborious as to hold out too strong a temptation to neglect them. The Aylesbury Union includes a population of 22,000 souls and the annual amount of its Poor Rate on the average of the last 3 years exceeds £25,000. The Guardians returned are for the most part efficient and respectable me and altho’ we have had a fair proportion of party excitement in the Election of our Officers, I do not apprehend that when these are over we shall be much troubled with a similar feeling. No man however can be more strongly impressed with the labour, the responsibility and the unpopularity of the duties of the Office which I have undertaken and which I should have unquestionably declined if I thought I could have done so consistently with a sense of my duty. I am not without hope that we shall be able so to take out measures as to obviate the necessity of moving and of the able-bodied to the Workhouse, as least during this Winter with the exception of the idle and dissolute. With this new directions have been sent to the Overseers of each parish to give in a return of the number of able-bodied Labourers in each Parish, likely to be out of Employ during the next winter, and this know we can proceed to take steps to procure out of doors employment for them. When once the machine is set at work, there will not be much to do until the Harvest is over […]