What is inside?

Republished here as a downloadable digital file is the 7th Annual Report of the Commissioners for Administering the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland with Appendices, 1854, as it was presented to both Houses of Parliament. As one might expect from Victorian Official Publications, the Annual Reports are replete with statistical information presented in both printed and tabular formats. Each Annual Report is introduced by the Commissioners breviate of the Annual Report in question and are addressed to His Excellency, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. These invariably include tables of the total number of individuals who received indoor and outdoor relief in each of the twelve months over the previous year, tables of morbidity and sickness of inmates, expenditure and wages. The majority of the Annual Reports, however, are made-up of the numerous appendices that are contained within each; these are divided into two main categories: Appendix A 'Circulars of Instruction Issued by the Commissioners and Correspondence to and from the Commissioners' and Appendix B 'Tables. The Annual Report for 1854 contains some 99 pages of printed text and is dominated by the accounts and expenditure of the various Poor Law Unions in Ireland and the average weekly cost accrued to each of the Unions by every inmate, classification of the inmates and emigration assisted or otherwise indicting Union or origin and destination. These Reports are a must for any social or local historian providing as they do a multitude of statistical detail on the administration of the Poor Laws and the poor themselves, a great deal of which is presented in the form of correspondence and personal testimony.

• Parliamentary Reports / Papers

Related Products