When Victorian Poor Relief Helped Infirm Albury Widow and Vulnerable Daughter to Stay Together

Published on: 23 Mar, 2025
Updated on: 23 Mar, 2025

With the government announcing last week (March 15, 2025) cuts to its welfare budget, here is a story from the 19th century that’s an example of help in those times by providing food and rent money for those who were desperately poor and / or suffering ill health. It has been researched by Jo Patrick, a volunteer with Spike Lives, a heritage project by Guildford’s Spike Heritage Museum.

Emily Legg was born in 1814 with a condition which meant that she needed constant care throughout her life.

After her father died, her mother became Emily’s sole carer for over 15 years, despite her age and increasing infirmity.

Albury village in the latter part of the 19th century. Picture: David Rose collection.

Poor relief from the Guildford Union enabled them to stay in their Albury family home, but when her mother died aged 83, it seemed there was no other option but for Emily, now in her 60s, to enter the Guildford Union Workhouse.

St Mary’s Church, Send. Picture: David Rose collection.

Emily was born on February 24, 1814 and baptised as ‘Amelia Lagg’ at St Mary’s Church in Send with Ripley, the following month.

Her parents were James, a labourer, and Elizabeth née Dyer. Emily was the eldest of nine children.

Soon after Emily’s birth, the family moved to Worplesdon where five siblings were born by 1825. Two more siblings, George and Frederick, were born in Guildford, with Thomas lastly in Albury Heath as their father moved around to find employment.

Albury Heath and its post office. Picture: David Rose collection.

In 1841, James, Elizabeth and their children ‘Amelia’ (Emily), Daniel, Susannah, George, Frederick and Thomas were still in Albury Heath. Robert, Maria and Jane had all left home.

Most unusually for that era, all the children survived their childhood. Until the mid-1870s, over a quarter of children born in the UK did not reach the age of five.

The 1851 census recorded ‘Emaley’, 37, in Albury with her parents, brother Frederick and her 11-month-old nephew George, son of sister Susannah, plus two lodgers.

Emily’s father James, a ‘farm labourer’, died at Albury Heath in late December 1860, aged 71.

Albury’s original St Peter & St Paul’s Church. Picture: David Rose collection.

He was buried at Albury’s St Peter & St Paul’s Church, where he had been baptised in 1790. Three months later, the census recorded that 47-year-old Emily was living at Farm Hill Lodge, Albury, where her mother Elizabeth was ‘lodge keeper’.

The Guildford Union Poor Law Accounts Book for 1864-1871, the only years still in existence, show that both Elizabeth and Emily were receiving quite considerable amounts of outdoor poor relief from Union funds in terms of money (probably rent) and ‘in kind’ (mainly food, eg bread) for that period.

Victorian illustration that shows a destitute family being visited by a relieving officer, who is assessing them for medical or poor relief (for example food or to pay their rent) or to authorise entry to the workhouse.

The reason for this poor relief was that Elizabeth, now in her 70s, was ‘infirm’, and Emily was an ‘imbecile’.

This latter term was widely used by Victorians, referring to people whose mental age did not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years old.

Emily’s disability was not recorded on the 1871 census, the first time this type of information had been included.

It was probably not disclosed to the census enumerator as her mother Elizabeth may well have seen as it as a ‘shameful’ condition.

Google picture of Farm Hill Cottage, Albury Park, photographed in 2024.

This census did, however, confirm that mother and daughter were still living at Farm Hill Lodge on the Albury Park Estate.

Emily’s mother Elizabeth died in October 1877 at the age of 83, and was buried at Albury’s St Peter & St Paul Church, like her husband nearly 27 years earlier.

Albury Park mansion. Picture: David Rose collection.

Her death certificate states she was the widow of James Legg, a ‘gardener’, so it is probable that James had been working on the Albury Park Estate when he died.

Four years later, in 1881, 66-year-old Emily was an inmate of the Guildford Union Workhouse, now officially recorded as an ‘Imbecile from Birth’.

Illustration of the Guildford Union Workhouse, off Warren Road.

There are no remaining admission records, but it seems likely that Emily was moved to the workhouse around the time of her mother’s death. After having been looked after by her family her whole life, it must have been a wrench and a frightening experience at least initially for Emily.

Emily passed away in the Guildford Union Workhouse on March 18, 1889, aged 75, and was buried two days later at St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Albury, the same village church as her parents.

Spike Lives is a Heritage project that chronicles the lives of inmates, staff and the Board of Guardians of the Guildford Union Workhouse at the time of the 1881 census. The Spike Heritage Museum, Warren Road, Guildford offers guided tours which present a unique opportunity to discover what life was like in the casual / vagrant ward of a workhouse. More information can be found here.