Florence Nightingale | Autograph letter signed, to Stephen Hawtrey, on Poor Law reform and social justice, 1868

Florence Nightingale

Autograph letter signed, to the Reverend Stephen Hawtrey (1808-1886)

sending the address of William Rathbone in Liverpool, asking questions about charity and the new Poor Law reform ("...I scarcely ever have known an instance of an organised system of Charity giving relief in times of need that has not pauperized the recipients..."), discussing unemployment, criminal conduct, the situation of women in the workhouse, unhealthy housing, and sending a sketch (not included here) of Una, 12 pages, 8vo, headed stationery of 35 South Street, London, 7 November 1868

"...the new Poor Law is a vast improvement...Political Economy does not say:- Madmen shall be let loose on the streets & shall get their living as best they may..."

A substantial letter on Nightingale's hopes for the new Metropolitan Poor Law Act of 1867, on which she had advised, which outlines her commonsense and humane opinions on the treatment of the most unfortunate in society. She comments that the unemployed cannot be expected to work if there is not employment ("...The great mass of workmen are perfectly incapable, if work fails them...our precious laws, instead of presenting work as the greatest blessing of the human race, present it as a punishment..."), and expresses her distress at the poverty caused by unemployment and degradation of the workhouses, especially for women. There are, she maintains, alternatives to prison and the workhouse: loans for those in need, fines instead of imprisonment for theft, and the distribution of medicine to the poorly housed and homeless ("...The Poor Law Medical Officer can only give medicine to those who are already ill...") She also laments the death from fever of Una [Agnes Jones], who ran the Liverpool Workhouse infirmary.

PROVENANCE:

Christie's, London, 23 November 1994, lot 30