Where should I look for information on poorhouses?

If you are interested in looking for the records of a particular poorhouse, you should contact each of the following, who might hold the records:

your local authority archives service,
your local health board archives (possibly within a university archives)

Bear in mind that substantial records do not survive for most poorhouses

A useful website is <http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Scotland/> [accessed 26 April 2024]. This website focuses mainly on poor relief in England but has helpful information about the Scottish law and systems.

If poor relief registers do not survive for a parish, is it worthwhile looking in parochial board/parish council minutes for information on a pauper?

The amount of information in parochial board or parish council minutes relating to individual applicants varies from parish to parish. The minutes for some parishes, particularly rural parishes, contain a lot of information, including the residence of the applicant and their living conditions, the reason for application, reasons for the application being accepted or rejected, other members of the applicant’s family and their earnings, and other comments by the Inspector of the Poor. However, for many parishes the minutes include very little information on each applicant, often containing the name and the decision of the board or council and little else. After the 1920s the minute entries may be anonymised by referring to case numbers and not to surnames. In addition, remember that searching through minute books can be very time-consuming.

I have seen the term ‘General Register of the Poor’ used. Does this refer to a central register of the poor, kept nationally for the whole of Scotland?

No, the term ‘general register of the poor’ refers to a type of poor relief register kept by individual parishes. In 1865 the Board of Supervision introduced new General Registers of Poor and Children’s Separate Registers. Where poor relief registers survive they generally are found among county council and civil parish records in local authority archives and libraries.

Why might the information in a register of the poor contradict information in other records?

There are several reasons why this may be so.

Where an individual was ill or elderly he or she might have been able to give only vague information to the Inspector of the Poor.

Some applicants gave false information in order to qualify for relief (for example someone born in Ardrossan parish but applying in Glasgow might state that he or she was born in Ireland, in order to obtain relief rather than being sent to Ardrossan or his or her application being referred to Ardrossan).

Clerical error might result in a place name being mis-spelt or located in the wrong parish or county.

Where can I find parochial board, parish council and poor relief records for a parish?

The records of most parochial boards and parish councils have passed to local authorities in Scotland. Many are now held by local authority archives, some are with local authority library services and a few are with the National Records of Scotland. In some areas (e.g. Aberdeenshire, Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire) the survival rate is very good. In other areas (e.g. Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire) very little survives. In general, very little survives for the parochial boards of the major cities, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee, except Glasgow, where huge runs of application registers survive for Glasgow City, Barony and Govan parishes (held by Glasgow City Archives). The National Records of Scotland hold parochial board and parish council records for some parishes in East Lothian (CO7/7, DC4/4-12, DC5/4-5, DC7/4), Midlothian (CO2/77-91), and Wigtownshire (CO4/30-47). For parochial board and parish council records for other parishes you should contact the appropriate local authority archive, in the first instance.

The responsibilities of heritors, kirk sessions and parochial boards overlapped to some extent, and this is reflected in the surviving records of many parishes. Some heritors’ records survive among kirk session records and vice versa. For example some kirk session minute books contain minutes of heritors’ meetings, and the minute books of some parochial boards predate 1845, and begin as the minute book of heritors’ meetings before becoming the minute book of the parochial boards. Many kirk sessions cointinued to provide for the poor out of church collections for several years after 1845. For example, the minutes of the kirk session of Greenlaw contain lists of poor who received contributions after communion services until 1881. The records of the heritors of Dirleton parish contain poor rolls from 1825 until 1847. For any given parish the researcher should check the catalogues to the kirk session, heritors’ and parochial board minutes.

What is meant by the terms ‘test case’ and ‘test ward’?

A ‘test case’ refers to an application for relief where the Inspector of the Poor suspected that the applicant could be supported by himself/herself or by his/her family. The applicant would be offered ‘indoor relief’ in the ‘test ward’ of a poorhouse. Those admitted to the test ward had to endure a tougher, more restrictive regime than those in other wards. The assumption was that many applicants would either refuse indoor relief in the test ward or, if admitted, would not endure the test ward for long: either discharging themselves or absconding.

What is the difference between a poorhouse and a workhouse?

There were some differences between Scottish and English legislation regarding the funding and appeal system of the Poor Law, but there does not appear to have been any tangible difference between English ‘workhouses’ and Scottish ‘poorhouses’. It is not clear why the English, by and large, preferred the term ‘workhouse’ and the Scots, by and large, preferred ‘poorhouse’.