Government Relief Policy and
the Great Irish Famine
1845-51
Prof Peter Gray
Queen’s University Belfast
Key questions
• What was the governing context? Britain and Ireland
in 1845
• What could government have done?
• What expectations were there of government action?
• What did government do?
• What role did ideology play in shaping policy?
• What evidence is there for ‘genocide’?
• What responsibility did the state play for mass
mortality?
Governing Context
• A colonial context? A hybrid constitutional position
• From 1801 Ireland part of UK unitary state in theory
• Ireland represented in Westminster Parliament – 105
MPs and 32 peers
• Since 1829 Catholics admitted to Parliament; but
property qualifications for vote and seats
• Separate executive for Ireland at Dublin Castle under
Lord Lieutenant, Chief Secretary and Under-Secretary
• Separate legislation and legal structure for Ireland
• Nationalist movement (Repeal) active under Daniel
O’Connell from 1830
What could government have done?
• Contrast government action in 1740-1 and 1845-50
• Developing financial power of state, bureaucratic
organisation and reach of state agencies:
Commissariat (1809)
Census of Ireland (1821) / Ordnance Survey (1824)
Irish Board of Works (1831) / National Education Board
(1831)
Irish Constabulary (1836)
Irish Poor Law (1838) / Dispensaries and fever hospital
network
• But no separate Irish Treasury: financial power in London
Expectations of state action
• Little expectation of central state intervention in 18th
century
• Government intervention in crises from 1816-17
creates expectations
• Robert Peel’s experience as CSI 1816-17, Home
Secretary 1822
• Whig experience of regional crises 1831, 1835, 1839
• Small-scale intervention in west to keep down prices,
provide employment
• Relief directed from Dublin Castle
• Debate about relationship between poor law to relief
Areas of possible state intervention
(1) Food availability / price
- export/import policy
- price control policy
(2) Employment
- public employment
(3) Direct aid
- food rationing
- provision of shelter
- provision of medical aid
(4) Assisted emigration
Soup ration
tickets, 1847
Peel’s government (1841-July 1846)
•
•
•
•
Conservative Party administration 1841-6
Faces limited crisis of 1845-6
Experienced in dealing with Irish famine
Anxious not to concede political ground
to Daniel O’Connell
Sir Robert Peel
(1788-1850)
• Response to Irish crisis interconnected
with repeal of UK Corn Laws
• Political constraints: split in Conservative party
early 1846 and denial of Irish crisis by
‘Protectionists’
• Charles Trevelyan (Assistant Secretary to Treasury,
1839-58 – civil servant)
Peel’s policy
Organisation: Relief Commission established to coordinate response 1846, chaired by Sir
Randolph Routh
(1) Food policy
- Secret purchase of £100,000 of maize from US
- Lodged in Irish depots run by Army
Commissariat for release to depress grain prices
- No other interference with grain trade
- Hoped repeal of Corn Laws 1846 would
stimulate ‘natural’ trade in maize to Ireland
(2) Employment:
Food riot at
Dungarvan,
ILN, 1846
- Public Works legislation 1846 allocates funds for
employment on roads and drainage works
- Terms were relatively favourable to Irish landowners;
half of costs of road works granted in aid
- Works put into operation spring 1846 under Irish
Board of Works
- Pressured by food riots and disturbances; Irish
political pressure
(3) Direct aid:
- Government prefers to co-operate with local
‘Relief Committees’ (c.650) of private individuals
and clergy
- Aids local subscriptions with grants in aid
- Relief committees expected to buy grain and sell
at cost price; & select persons deserving relief
- Govt attempts to keep relief separate from poor
law (fears of outdoor relief becoming permanent)
Success of Peel’s policy?
• Relatively low excess mortality
1845-6
• Contains political or peasant
insurgency backlash in Ireland
• But calculated on basis of single
year of famine; no contingency
plan for 1846-7
• Provoked a political backlash in GB
against ‘over-generosity’ to Irish
landlords and peasants
• Government falls end June 1846
on revolt against Irish Coercion Bill
(Whig-Protectionist- O’Connellite
alliance vs Peel)
Punch on Peel’s Coercion
Bill, Apr. 1846
Russell’s government (July 1846-52)
• Whig-Liberal Party administration
• Faces much more serious and prolonged
crisis in Ireland 1846-51
• Has to deal with banking crash and recession
in Great Britain, 1847-9; revolution in Europe
Lord John
Russell (17921848-9
1878)
• A minority government 1846-7; party divided
after 1847 election – Radical revolt over taxes
• Weak leadership from Lord John Russell (PM);
factionalism in government
• Charles Trevelyan (Asst Sec to Treasury – civil servant)
3 phases in relief policy:
Policy phase 1: Aug 1846-Mar 1847
Organisation: Drops Relief Commission; policy
conflict between Dublin Castle and Treasury
Food policy:
- Abandons any new interference in food trade or
pricing policy – minimal new purchases of grain
- Residual use of remaining food depots in west
until stocks run out
- Reliance on ‘market forces’ for private imports of
grain
- Context of international shortages of grain 18467 (bad harvests and lack of imports)
- Contributes to ‘hunger winter’ in Ireland 1846-7
- But has the role of food policy been exaggerated
in causing famine?
Charles Trevelyan
(1807-86). Assistant
Secretary to the
Treasury
Irish grain exports/imports
(000s of tons grain equivalent) -
after Bourke (1976)
.exports
600
400
200
wheat
0
-200
-400
-600
-800
-1000
imports
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
oats
maize
all grains
(2) Employment:
- Revives public works employment under
‘Labour Rate Act’ August 1846
- Insists on greater Treasury control over
Board of Works
works projects and reduces ‘grant in aid’
tools, 1846
- Vetoes works of ‘permanent improvement’
- Sets public works wages below level for private
employment; later adopts ‘piece work’ scale of
payments to labourers
- Introduces ‘half-day’ wages in harsh winter of
1846-7 when work impossible
- Wages did not keep pace with food price increases
- Over 700,000 workers on public works by March
1847
.
.
(3) Direct relief:
- Cuts grants in aid to relief
Relief Committee ticket for relief,
committees
c.1846 (NMI)
- Numbers of inmates in workhouses rise – many
full and turning people away by late 1846
- Emphasis on private charity – promoted by
government (British Association)
- Limited response to medical crisis
(4) No assisted emigration or interference with
Canadian passenger trade despite high mortality
Policy phase 2: Apr-Sept 1847
Organisation: Relief Commission
re-established under Sir John
Burgoyne
(1) Food policy:
- No dramatic change, but food
Gen. Sir John
Burgoyne
prices falling by early summer
- US maize surplus reached Europe
- Imports outstrip exports from late spring 1847
(2) Employment:
.
- Public works rapidly phased out from
March 1847
- Absence of private employment or
other forms of relief in many areas
- Some very limited state employment on
railway and drainage schemes
- Half of public works debt commuted to
grant
- Thousands left destitute during
‘transition’; some rioting against closure
of works
Proportion of
population
supported by public
works March 1847
.
(3) Direct relief:
- Government follows Quakers in establishing extensive
network of soup kitchens providing free rations under
‘Temporary Relief Act’ of Feb. 1847
- Lengthy bureaucratic and financial delays in setting up
system – govt insists on local financial responsibility
- At peak in July 1847 more than 3m daily rations doled out
- Funded by loans; comes in under budget
- Weak soup later replaced by ‘stirabout’ porridge
- Minimum nutrition given, but has effect in lowering
famine mortality in summer 1847
- Temporary fever act April 1847 allows for temporary
hospitals
Soup Kitchens
Soyer’s model soup kitchen, Dublin (ILN, 1847)
% of population on soup
rations, July 1847
Drawing of soup queue, 1847
Policy phase 3: Sept 1847-1851
Organisation: Relief Commission wound up; responsibility
passed to Irish Poor Law Commission, Sept 1847
(1) Food policy:
- All remaining food depots wound up by 1848
- Imports continue to outstrip exports; prices remain
relatively low
- But food distribution limited in west and many lack
ability to consume what food is available
(2) Employment:
- Despite debates on new public works, no serious
employment policy in 1848-51
(3) Direct aid:
- Soup kitchens wound up by Sept 1847
- Responsibility for relief placed on Poor Law
(Poor Law Extension Act introduced Aug. 1847)
- Some residual aid to ‘distressed unions’, but
this was exhausted by mid-1848
.
Notice of end of
Soup Kitchen
relief, Aug. 1847
- ‘Irish property must pay for Irish poverty’
- ‘Rate in Aid’ imposed on north and east, in spring
1849 – regional tax to pay for western distress
(4) Assisted emigration:
- Proposals 1848 and 1849 come to nothing
- Only small-scale assistance to workhouse inmates to
emigrate (Australian workhouse girls scheme)
Poor Law
Irish workhouse plan (1839)
The Irish Poor Law
• 1847-9 headed by Irish Chief Commissioner
Edward Twisleton
• 130 Unions each governed by part-elected
Board of Guardians
• Funded by rates on local property
• Half of rates to be paid by landowner; also all
for holdings valued under £4 pa
• Quarter-acre clause of 1847 facilitates
evictions
• Crisis of union bankruptcy, workhouse
overcrowding and disease in west
• Corruption a significant problem in many
unions late 1840s
• Inspection regime fails to stop this
• Twisleton resigns as Commissioner Mar. 1849
Londonderry Union workhouse
(now museum)
Dublin workhouse scene, c.1895
Failure of Russell’s policy
• Mass famine mortality 1846-51 (c 1.1m excess deaths)
• Failure to ensure adequate food supplies and equitable
distribution to those who needed food
• But capacity of state to act demonstrated under soup
kitchen regime of summer 1847
• False belief that famine was ‘over’ by autumn
1847
• Withdrawal from state responsibility with
reliance on locally-funded poor law relief only
in 1847-51
Punch imagines the
Famine over, 1847
• Failure to introduce ‘comprehensive measures’
(development works, emigration) to relieve pressure
on the poor law
Reasons for failure?
1. Constraints on government:
- Scale of food crisis, especially in 1846-7
- International food shortage in 1846-7
- Political weakness in parliament and internal
divisions within government
- British recession 1847-9 and financial difficulties;
growing public opposition to Irish aid
- Problems of agency in Ireland (corruption,
administrative inefficiency)
- Lack of co-operation from local elites in Ireland
2. Ideology
• No evidence for genocide (deliberate killing)
• But considerable evidence of responsibility by
omission and neglect. Shaped by:
- Laissez-faire – reliance on market forces
- Providentialism – belief that famine divinelyordained for good
- Moralism – concern to force the Irish (landlords and
peasants) to help themselves
- Racism? – evident in some press coverage; less so in
government – but concern with English opinion
- Pre-occupation with permanent ‘improvement’ over
immediate aid: e.g. Encumbered Estates Act 1849
Punch, 1849
‘Moralism’ represented in visual form.