Publications
Sweet Bells Jangled Out of Tune: A History of the Sussex Lunatic Asylum (St. Francis Hospital) Haywards Heath, by James Gardner, published August 1999 (321 pp., published by the author, ISBN-10: 0953610101 & ISBN-13: 9780953610105) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 18269] & The Keep [LIB/502169] & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
The Trail of the Serpent: The True Story of a Victorian Murder on the London-to-Brighton Railway Line, by James Gardner, published 18 November 2004 (192 pp., Pomegranate Press, ISBN-10: 0954258762 & ISBN-13: 9780954258764) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/502147] & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
A History of the Brighton Workhouses, by James Gardner, published 1 May 2012 (460 pp., published by the author, ISBN-10: 095361011X & ISBN-13: 9780953610112) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/501559] & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
Review by Sue Berry in Sussex Past & Present no. 128, December 2012:This book deals with an issue which is timely, for we are again debating what we can afford to spend on benefits, how they can be fairly distributed and monitored so those who can work are encouraged to do so and how to provide for children, disabled and elderly people who need care. This book demonstrates that in the past many people lacked families who could afford to care for them or who would seek do so and that then as now, a system of basic support of some form was needed. The big difference between the debates from the Tudor period until the mid-1940s and nowadays is that all expenditure was met directly by local ratepayers.
Thus this book is a study of the issues of local management and accountability in the context of 'the poor' - 'localism' in action. Rates (now called Council Tax) were collected locally as they are today but the state did not recycle money from income tax and business rates in to local government as it does now, currently forming the greater part of the money spent locally. Local taxpayers, quite a small part of the local community, paid for everything that was either a legal requirement such as care of the poor, or desirable such as running the public gardens. Local meetings about expenditure were often lively. Ratepayers wanted cheating stopped and accountability. In this book there are examples of governors of the workhouse, staff, inmates and those on weekly pay abusing the system.
The parish of Brighton was only responsible for its own poor; the three workhouses (of 1727, 1822 and 1860s) were funded by its residents and did not take in poor from other parishes that are now within the City. These had to go to other workhouses. By the early 18th century it also paid a weekly amount to poor people who, in the view of the overseers, might find work or for other reasons were best left in their own home, a practice which continued into the 1940s and was the precursor to the benefits system. The preference was to keep people employed, both within the workhouse and also by keeping weekly income tightly controlled. The strength of the book is the detailed study of the period between the 1850s and the end of the Poor Law in the mid 1940s. The lives of inmates and of employees of the workhouse and the Industrial School at Warren Road reflect how hard it must have been to be poor and also how to manage a fair and effective means of supporting those in need. We have perhaps had our attitudes to the Workhouse overly strongly affected by the novels of Dickens and others who depicted them as a nightmare. But few of the critics even tried to find a more effective solution to a system of care which would not totally absorb local revenues or result in one town or parish becoming a target due to the quality of treatment offered by many people who did not live locally.
There are a couple of errors in the early section; for example the 'Great Storm' of 1703 did not destroy many fishermen's dwellings below the cliff (there is plenty of archival evidence to disprove this wonderful piece of 18th century journalism) and, when Brighton's fortunes declined, many of the young people did as they would today and 'upped sticks'.
Mr Gardner is to be applauded for wading through many sources and bringing to our attention the great dilemma of the 19th century - how does one deal with the care of the poor in rapidly expanding towns where employment was so cyclical as in Brighton. What we have to remember is that with the workhouses, weekly pay, soup kitchens, mendacity charities, dispensaries and hospitals all aimed at helping the poor, local people tried hard to help. This book reveals how difficult it was to ensure that treatment was reasonable and fair and not subject to exploitation. The debate how best to do this continues
Thus this book is a study of the issues of local management and accountability in the context of 'the poor' - 'localism' in action. Rates (now called Council Tax) were collected locally as they are today but the state did not recycle money from income tax and business rates in to local government as it does now, currently forming the greater part of the money spent locally. Local taxpayers, quite a small part of the local community, paid for everything that was either a legal requirement such as care of the poor, or desirable such as running the public gardens. Local meetings about expenditure were often lively. Ratepayers wanted cheating stopped and accountability. In this book there are examples of governors of the workhouse, staff, inmates and those on weekly pay abusing the system.
The parish of Brighton was only responsible for its own poor; the three workhouses (of 1727, 1822 and 1860s) were funded by its residents and did not take in poor from other parishes that are now within the City. These had to go to other workhouses. By the early 18th century it also paid a weekly amount to poor people who, in the view of the overseers, might find work or for other reasons were best left in their own home, a practice which continued into the 1940s and was the precursor to the benefits system. The preference was to keep people employed, both within the workhouse and also by keeping weekly income tightly controlled. The strength of the book is the detailed study of the period between the 1850s and the end of the Poor Law in the mid 1940s. The lives of inmates and of employees of the workhouse and the Industrial School at Warren Road reflect how hard it must have been to be poor and also how to manage a fair and effective means of supporting those in need. We have perhaps had our attitudes to the Workhouse overly strongly affected by the novels of Dickens and others who depicted them as a nightmare. But few of the critics even tried to find a more effective solution to a system of care which would not totally absorb local revenues or result in one town or parish becoming a target due to the quality of treatment offered by many people who did not live locally.
There are a couple of errors in the early section; for example the 'Great Storm' of 1703 did not destroy many fishermen's dwellings below the cliff (there is plenty of archival evidence to disprove this wonderful piece of 18th century journalism) and, when Brighton's fortunes declined, many of the young people did as they would today and 'upped sticks'.
Mr Gardner is to be applauded for wading through many sources and bringing to our attention the great dilemma of the 19th century - how does one deal with the care of the poor in rapidly expanding towns where employment was so cyclical as in Brighton. What we have to remember is that with the workhouses, weekly pay, soup kitchens, mendacity charities, dispensaries and hospitals all aimed at helping the poor, local people tried hard to help. This book reveals how difficult it was to ensure that treatment was reasonable and fair and not subject to exploitation. The debate how best to do this continues
The First British Railway Murder, by James Gardner, published 1 April 2013 (162 pp., published by the author, ISBN-10: 0953610128 & ISBN-13: 9780953610129) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/507816]