Report from Alan Mills - December 2010

Earlier in the year, the Reeth Poor Law Group finished cataloguing the correspondence between the Reeth Poor Law Union and the Poor Law Commission / Board in the period 1834 - 1871. This amounted to over 1700 items and some 5000 pages in four volumes. The catalogue entries may be searched on the National Archives website http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/ and the original items are downloadable at no cost. There is some fascinating material there. Read about what life could really be like for the lead miners of Swaledale; look at the distressing case of Thomas Simpson who would rather starve than enter the Workhouse. This material gives a unique insight into life here for the poor in the 19th century. I hope you find it interesting and perhaps eye-opening.