The Poor Law was never the only source of help for people in Armitage and Handsacre. Alongside the legal responsibility of the parish to support those in hardship, local people also established charitable gifts intended to ease poverty. Some provided bread for hungry families, others supplied coal during the winter or small sums of money to those in need. A few were linked to the church, while others reflected the generosity of individual benefactors who wished their wealth to continue helping the village long after their deaths.
These charities spanned almost two centuries. Although their scale was modest, together they reveal another side of village life – one in which private generosity worked alongside official poor relief.
The earliest benefactions
The earliest known charity was established by John Bolton in 1720. Rather than providing direct relief to the poor, Bolton sought to support the life of the parish church. His will left £30 to purchase land, the income from which was to support the Curate of Armitage after his wife’s death. He also left a cottage, occupied at the time by James Lawton, for the benefit of the Parish Clerk.
The charity continued for well over a century. The land purchased with Bolton’s bequest became known as The Mires in Kings Bromley, while the cottage stood in Old Road until 1910, when Edward Johns & Co. exchanged it for another property in Boathouse Lane to allow the construction of the Potters’ Shops. The replacement cottage was eventually sold in 1951, bringing the charity to an end.
John Bolton’s gift illustrates that charitable giving was not always directed solely towards the poor. Supporting the church and those who served it was itself regarded as a benefit to the whole parish.
Bread for the poor
Only a decade later, Benjamin Bolton took a different approach. In his will of 1730 he left the interest from £20 to be distributed each year in the form of bread for the poor of Armitage. The bread was to be given away at the church door on four appointed days each year.
The bequest was carefully thought out. It was not the £20 itself that was to be spent, but only the annual interest, allowing the charity to continue indefinitely. By the nineteenth century the capital had disappeared from sight, but members of the Hitchcock family of Rugeley still honoured the annual payments, enabling threepenny loaves to be distributed to those most in need.
A generation later, William Oldacre established a similar but rather larger charity. In 1753 he conveyed approximately one acre of meadow and grazing rights in Broadmeadow to the Curate, Churchwardens and Overseers. The rent from this land was to be used to buy bread for the poor.
Oldacre’s instructions reveal much about contemporary attitudes to poverty. The bread was originally to be distributed after divine service on four specific Sundays each year. By the nineteenth century the trustees had decided that monthly distributions were more beneficial, but recipients were still carefully chosen. Preference was given to poor widows and other deserving people who had not received parish relief, and they continued to receive the bread only while their behaviour remained satisfactory.
These charities remind us that, before supermarkets and welfare payments, a loaf of bread represented a meaningful contribution towards a family’s weekly food. They also demonstrate the distinction often made between the “deserving” poor, who were considered worthy of help, and those who were expected to rely on the parish or support themselves.
New forms of charity
As the nineteenth century progressed, charitable giving evolved alongside changes in society.
Joseph Harvey of Tuppenhurst Farm was one of the parish’s leading public figures. During his lifetime he served as a Poor Law Guardian, churchwarden, trustee of local charities, and governor and treasurer of Armitage School. In 1904 he established a charitable trust based on land in Handsacre, with eight-thirtieths of its income devoted to buying coal for poor families in Armitage and Handsacre. The charity survived until 1965.
Coal represented a very different form of assistance from the bread charities of the eighteenth century. Warmth during the winter could be just as essential as food, particularly for elderly people and families living in poorly insulated cottages.
A few years later another well-known local benefactor added to this tradition. Edward Lewis Williamson Johns, whose family had transformed the Armitage pottery into one of Britain’s leading sanitary ware manufacturers, left £250 in his 1910 will for the Parish Council to use for the benefit of the poor of the parish. Much of the money was invested in Great Western Railway shares, and for many years small payments were distributed to local people. Eventually, however, inflation overtook the charity. By the 1970s the annual payment had dwindled to just 50 pence per recipient, and the charity was discontinued because it could no longer meaningfully relieve need.
Changing attitudes
These charities spanned more than 250 years and reflected changing ideas about helping those in need. In the eighteenth century benefactors commonly provided bread through gifts of land or invested capital. By the twentieth century the emphasis had shifted towards fuel and small cash grants, while the expanding welfare state increasingly assumed responsibilities once carried by local charities.
Although individually modest, these benefactions formed an important part of village life. They complemented parish relief, survived the introduction of the New Poor Law, and continued well into the twentieth century. Together they illustrate a long tradition of local people accepting responsibility for the welfare of their neighbours—a tradition that sat alongside, and sometimes softened, the harsher realities of the Poor Law.