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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.