Whatmore Family History

Robert Watmore is of interest because he was Clerk to the Board of Guardians of Lambeth Workhouse at the time of a major scandal in 1838.

Robert was born about 1784 but his birthplace is unknown apart from the fact that it was not in the county of Surrey. There had been a Watmore family of ropemakers living in Lambeth much earlier, but we have no evidence of a connection to Robert.

Pallot’s Marriage Index tells us that Robert Watmore married Jemima Mary Leavers in 1808 at Christchurch, Newgate, London. Mary had been born in about 1792, at Newington, Surrey (south London).

From at least 1824, Robert Watmore was Vestry Clerk at St Mary’s Lambeth for in April of that year he placed a notice in ‘The Times’ calling for tenders for articles to be supplied to the Lambeth Workhouse.

By 1831 he was being paid an annual salary of 500 guineas a year.. That  Robert and his family were well off is clear from the fact that after his death his wife and his several unmarried daughters are referred to in successive censuses as ‘annuitants’ (i.e. living on own income). The amount of Robert’s salary was in fact disputed according to a report in ‘The Times’ of 6 April 1831.  At a meeting on 5 April in the public vestry at Lambeth, a Mr O’Grady proposed that Robert Watmore’s salary be cut to 200 guineas. There was so much opposition to his existing salary that Robert’s friends demanded a poll. A proposal that Robert’s salary should  continue to be 500 guineas was ultimately carried by a very large majority ‘amidst one of the greatest uproars we ever heard’

Refuge - Applying for Admission   Print by Gustave Dore  From ‘Dore’s London: A Pilgrimage’  Published 1872

It was about 1831 that Mr Mott, a Lambeth shopkeeper, secured the contract for the maintenance of the poor of Lambeth at 3s 11d per head – men, woman and a few children, - abled bodied, decrepid, impotent, all included. There were about 7000 indoor paupers in Lambeth and the Lambeth vestry calculated that the contract with Mr Mott had saved them £3000 a year. Mott’s establishments were however seriously overcrowded with poor equipment and facilities. Staff were poorly trained and managed, death rates were high and there were reports of physical abuse. Eventually there was a scandal in relation to Haycock Lodge which was managed by Mr Mott and he was sacked in 1842.

(From www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk  )

In 1834 Robert Watmore gave the following evidence to the Poor Law Commissioners:

‘Each overseer relieves the casual poor in cases within his district, which are cases of necessity; and this relief is by a little printed ticket on the clerk of the workhouse. The overseer relieving signs his name and the amount on the ticket and this serves as a voucher for every one, the smallest item.

Before the establishment of the checks, I have known casual poor obtain relief from the whole eight overseers. Frauds have been committed with the tickets; one woman was prosecuted for increasing the amount of the ticket, but frauds in this way cannot be very extensive. I see every day the benefits of this check as regards officers as well as the applicants,  and I can see no reason why it should not be adopted in other parishes. In my own parish the overseers neither receive nor pay any money; the collectors are bound to pay in each week to the bankers the money collected; we have eight collectors, with securities of £1000 each’

(From ‘ Poor Law Commissioners Report 1834’)

Following the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834, Boards of Guardians were established replacing the parish overseers of the poor.  They administered workhouses within a defined Poor Law Union. For many years the existing parish workhouse on Princes Road (later Black Prince Road,) continued to be used.

There was now pressure for all paupers to be forced into the workhouse and for the end to the payment of outdoor relief.

Men in the St Marylebone Workhouse 1903  This image is in the public domain

In 1835 the Poor Law Commissioners said that the terms of the current contract, soon due to expire, for the Lambeth Workhouse were far too lavish. At a meeting, reported in ‘The Times’ in October 1835, held about the new contract, Robert Watmore was asked to read out details of the current diet table for the Workhouse. This was as follows:

Present Contract for able-bodied Men and Women

Monday – Breakfast and  supper – bread 13 oz; cheese 2oz or butter 1 oz. Dinner – 1 pint of leg of beef soup

Tuesday – Breakfast and Supper – bread 13 oz and 1 pint of porridge. Dinner – 1lb rice pudding

Wednesday – Breakfast and supper – bread 13 oz  and 2 oz cheese. Dinner – 7 oz boiled beef and vegetables

Thursday – Breakfast and Supper – bread 13 oz and 1 pint of porridge. Dinner – 1 pint soup.

Friday  – Breakfast and supper – bread 13 oz  and 2 oz cheese. Dinner – 7 oz beef and vegetables

Saturday – Breakfast and Supper – bread 13 oz and 1 pint of porridge. Dinner – 1 pint soup.

Sunday – Breakfast and Supper – Bread 10oz and 1 oz butter.  Dinner  - 7 oz boiled beef and vegetables

Men allowed a quart of table beer a day, and women one pint and a half. A reduced scale for children.

The meeting was told the details of the contract for the Workhouse for St George’s Hanover Square which the Commissioners thought was excellent, but which was  much more stringent that that for Lambeth. Mr Watmore said, ‘Why, gentleman, the diet of the poor of that parish would not keep a dog in Lambeth’. He further told the meeting that if they insisted on such a scale of diet for Lambeth he would at once resign his situation as Vestry Clerk, for he never would be party to such dreadful oppression. The meeting was in agreement with Robert Watmore and eventually it was resolved – ‘That it be referred to the parish officers to make such arrangements as they might think expedient for maintaining, clothing and implying the poor for the next six months’.

At a meeting of the parishioners of Lambeth, reported in the issue of ‘The Times’ for 6 February 1836  it was reported that Robert Watmore was to go out of office as Vestry Clerk at Easter  and become Clerk to the Board of Guardians  at a salary of £400  a year to commence in March. It was reported that this would be addition to the £500 which he was receiving as salary for his post at the General Post Office.

Among the duties of a Clerk to the Guardians were:

To attend all meetings of the Board of Guardians, and to keep punctually minutes of every meeting in a book, and to submit the same to the presiding Chairman at the succeeding meeting for  his signature.

To keep, check, and examine all accounts, books of accounts, minutes, books and other documents relating to the business of the Guardians, and from time to time to producer all such books and documents to the Auditor of the Union.

To peruse and conduct the correspondence of the Guardians, and to preserve the same, as well as all orders of the Commissioners, and letters received, together with copies of all letters sent, and all letters, books, papers and documents belonging to the Union.

To prepare all written contracts and agreements to be entered into by any parties with the Guardians, and to see that the same are duly executed.

To prepare and transmit all reports, answers, or returns, as to any question or matter which are required by the Regulations of the Poor Law Commissioners

To conduct duly and impartially, the annual or any other Election of Guardians.

It was in January 1838 that the Lambeth Workhouse was involved in scandal. The story is told in the issue of ‘The Times’ for 27 January and in the issue of the London Medical Gazette’ for 3 February:

A young boy called Henry Bailey had been received from Lambeth Workhouse into the House of Industry of Norwood for the infant poor of Lambeth on 13 January 1838. When he was examined his back, thighs, legs and arms were nearly covered by black marks and he had a bruise on his forehead. When he was asked who had beaten him he said that Mr Rowe and a nurse of Lambeth Workhouse had beaten him with a whip for talking a drop of beer. Henry died at Norwood on 19 January and a post mortem was held. At the inquest on his death, Mr W. Street of Norwood, the House Surgeon, reported that the post mortem had shown that the boy was much reduced and wasted. A disease of the lungs had been found sufficient to cause death within a short period. He had also observed marks of blows on the back, the thighs and the legs, inflicted by some mechanical instrument. There were also marks of a buckle on the hip as though the boy had been struck with a strap which had a buckle at the end of it.  Mr Street stated that the blows, in the state of health in which the deceased was, would have caused much constitutional disturbance, but would not of themselves caused death.  When asked if the blows would have produced death sooner than it would otherwise have taken place, Mr Street said that the blows might have hurried the boy into a fever and rendered him less able to hear up against the complaint under which he laboured. Mr Street, when pressed, was not willing to answer the question of whether the blows would have accelerated the boy’s death, nor was Mr T Bryant who had also examined the body. Mr Bryant observed that the disease of the lungs alone was sufficient to cause death.

Mr Watmore stated that the boy’s father had brought the boy to the Lambeth Workhouse and was not aware that he had sustained any personal injury. Mr Rowe had been a sort of schoolmaster at Lambeth Workhouses and had died on the day the boy was removed to Norwood (13 January) after being confined to bed for a fortnight.

The Jury at the inquest said that after the reports of the surgeons they could not go much further. They did not, however, appear quite satisfied. They at length returned a verdict, ‘ That the deceased died of disease of the lungs.’

Robert Watmore died aged 58 on 22 June 1842 at his home at Walcot Place, Lambeth. It is difficult some 150 years later to judge his character. Was he merely an administrator carrying out his role efficiently on behalf of his employers, yet  speaking up on behalf of the poor when he felt it was appropriate for him to do so, or was he a very highly paid collaborator in an evil and inhumane system, covering the backs of his employers at every turn?

Robert’s wife, Jemima Ann Watmore had  moved with her family to Surbiton by 1861 and was to live there until her  death  aged 85 on 5 January 1877.

 St Marys’s Lambeth           Print by Thomas Shephard

The known children of  Robert and Jemima were:

Jemima Mary Watmore born  about 1810 at Lambeth and who died   aged 73 in 1882 at Surbiton.

Emma  Watmore born at Lambeth on 2 February 1813 and  who died of apoplexy aged 78 in 15 April  1891 at Surbiton.

Robert Bygate Watmore born at Lambeth 18 February 1814 and who presumably died before 1829.

Matilda Ann Watmore born 23 December 1815 at Lambeth and died aged 80 in 1896 at Surbiton.

Isabella Watmore baptised at St Mary’s Lambeth on 16 June 1820 and who died in 1854 at Surbiton.

Rosa Watmore  baptised 19 May 1859 and who died on 30 July 1859 at Surbiton

Ellen Watmore baptised on 28 November 1824 at St Mary’s Lambeth

Robert Evans Watmore baptised 2 Feburuary 1829 at St Mary’s Lambeth, and who emigrated to China, returning to England sometime after the 1901 census and died aged 85 on 23 January 1914 at 4 Cavendish Mansions.

Edward Warmsley Watmore born 15 March 1833 at Lambeth.

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