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15/08/1850
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01/11/2016
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15/08/1850
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17/07/1921
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Abernyte Paupers and the Heritors

Abernyte, as did all Parishes in Scotland, struggled with the relief of the poor and needy throughout the centuries.  

Those receiving poor relief were unable to support themselves, either through age or incapacity. They included orphans, the sick or disabled and the insane. The 'sturdy beggar' or the able-bodied poor were not generally entitled to support, although in practice many did receive some degree of assistance. Each Parish was responsible for those born in the parish or who had lived there over 6 years. If you fell upon hard times in another town and had lived there for less than six years then you became chargeable to your birth parish.

In 1579 the Scottish Parliament passed an act making individual parishes responsible for enumerating their poor. More than just counting them however, the purpose of the Act was to introduce an “inquisition” into the circumstances of the poverty to determine if they were able to work or had any other means of subsistence. This duty fell mostly upon the Church until 1672 when the duty was imposed on the landowners of the parish along with the Church which gave rise to the Heritors. Post the Reformation the Heritors contributed voluntarily to the Kirk Session poor fund to avoid a compulsory assessment or Tax upon them.  This also gave the Magistrates the duty to erect workhouses to take the “sturdy beggar”.  Unlike England where the norm was  “inrelief” or the Workhouse, in Scotland there was a network of Poorhouses. The one serving Abernyte was the Perth Poorhouse in Glasgow Road, Perth, in the building formerly used by Perth and Kinross Council offices. In the rural parishes “outrelief” was preferred where the costs of maintaining  paupers in the community was the most likely disposal. In fact, for a period Abernyte had it's own Poorhouse with the use of two cottages,granted by Lord Kinnaird, at Newton Bank, where the Parochial Board accommodated pauper widowed families with small children.  

Records of the Heritors meetings or the Parochial Board are very rare before 1845 until the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed setting out a structure and administration for dealing with the poor and the setting up of a Board of Supervision in Edinburgh to oversee the relief of the poor. At first little changed as the Parochial Council, the Heritors and Kirk Session generally consisted of the same members.  In Abernyte it was not until 15th August 1850 that we have the first recorded meeting of the Heritors, meeting to consider the poor.  It was held in the Manse and the meeting was chaired by James Playfair of Whitehills.  At this meeting the Poor’s Roll was considered and relief of 10/- (shillings) per month was awarded to three individuals.  The clerk was also authorised to procure a Minute Book and Poor Roll Book.   It was estimated at this meeting that £26.5/- would be required for the next six months for poor relief and they agreed to assess themselves for that amount.  This would be in addition to any money raised at the Sunday collection at the Church.

The Heritors at this meeting were:  The Right Hon. Lord Kinnaird, Alexander Geekie of Pitkindie and James Playfair of Whitehills.

By 1852 a greater number of Heritors attended and the pattern was set for the next 70 years. Rank preceded, with the Chair being taken by the Hon Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird, later Lord Kinnaird, the Trustees of Capt. Robert Trotter of Ballindean, Rev Dr James Bannerman of Abernyte, Alexander Geekie of Pitkindie, James Brown of Lochton, Sir James Nairne of Dunsinane,  Rev Robert Graham as sitting minister of the established church. This continued until 1890 when the burden of paying for the poor was shared with the main tenant farmers of the area was introduced with members elected to the Parochial Board. This also saw the landowners largely disappear from the minutes. After this time the meetings were all held in the Abernyte Schoolmaster's House.

In Abernyte the key person in delivering poor relief was the local Schoolmaster, Alexander Tweedie,  until he was succeeded by John Falconer.   The schoolmaster was appointed and paid by the Heritors and in addition to his position as schoolmaster he held the additional posts of:

Inspector of Poor

Clerk to the Parochial Board

Session Clerk

Inspector of Nuisances (sanitary inspector)

Collector of the Poor Assessment

Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages

These posts were all carried out from his office in the Schoolhouse and all attracted a salary. In the case of Collector of the Poor Assessment it was 5% of whatever the Heritors assessed themselves.

Over the years until 1929 when the Parish Council was relieved of dealing with the poor, the number of paupers in Abernyte rarely varied much between 3 and 5 people, but it was in their dealings with pauper children and the lunatic paupers that the deficiencies of the system was revealed.  In the case of May Weighton Robertson she was deemed a lunatic pauper and there being no local place of care she was sent to John Scott’s Lunatic Asylum, Musselburgh. This place was picked by the Heritors as it was the cheapest care they could source. May Robertson committed suicide shorty after being sent there and the subsequent enquiry found the inmates being kept in the most appalling conditions, even by the standards of the time.

The cost of care or support of paupers is a common theme throughout the life of the Parochial Board as they constantly sought to minimise the amount they would have to pay out.  It was only with the opening of the Perthshire Lunatic Asylum at Murthly in 1864 that good quality care was available to the Parochial Board charged at the rate of 12/- per month.

The Heritors also dealt with the relationships with the neighbouring Parishes.  The minutes show that the relationship with Inchture was not very cordial at times. During the 1880’s Abernyte was troubled with infectious disease and many steps were taken to improve the sanitation of the village to combat cholera. The Heritors engaged the policeman from Inchture to inspect all the dwellings in the Balfour of Abernyte and to report to the Board.

His report condemned nearly all of the houses in the village as insanitary hovels with privies and dungstands in close proximity to the doors of the buildings and also condemned the School privies as unwholesome and too close to the school door.

An extensive programme of rebuilding and refurbishment was done and a medical officer was retained to vaccinate the paupers of Abernyte and deal with all cases of disease.  Whatever work was done to dispose of Abernyte’s effluent, it resulted in Inchture raising an action in court against the Abernyte Heritors for the pollution of the Abernyte Burn which was a primary water supply for many in their Parish.

The Heritors continued to meet regularly through the First War where they were instrumental in ensuring that all available land was used for the production of food.  In 1917 they were required to survey the population of the Parish for National War Service and from a population of 209 identified 60 men who met the conscription criteria by age. Of those, all bar 3 were exempt,  being employed in agriculture.  The three, John Millar the coachman/gardener at Abernyte House, Donald Shaw a substitute worker and Rev W Milroy went to France as part of the war effort.

The Parochial Boards were all abolished in 1929 and the Abernyte records go up to 14th July 1921.

All of the available minutes of the meetings of the Abernyte Heritors and Parochial Board are available in the Abernyte Digital Archive here.

 

 

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