Gentleman,
I beg leave most humbly to submit my case to you for your consideration and pray that you will afford me that redress in my most distressing case – I am a poor Man by trade A Frame worknitter and have been for A length of time nearly out of employment and now entirely so, – I have A wife and 3 children and we have been completely destitute of food since February the 1st to the present time – I applied on the 3rd to the relieving officer, ^Mr Stotten^ for relief or an order to the union workhouse and he refused to do either – I then aplied to Mr Bennett assistant overseer and he refused likewise. I then applied to Mr Radford, A Magistrate at Smalley who sent A positive order to Mr Bennett ^to^ see to my case as I was destitute, according to the 54 clause in the poor law amendment Bill, but still he refuses to allow me anything so that we may live and die in A land of plenty – tho I saw A circular sometime ago from Mr Chadwick clark to the poor law commissioners stating you would hold officers responsible for any bad[?] consequence arising out of such neglect – Gentlemen I submit my case to you and hope you will aford me that asistance as Speedy as possible my case needs wich will oblige your Humble Servant
Thomas Henshaw.
Questions to consider
- Who else in the community is mentioned? What might this suggest?
- Are there any similarities in the sources you are studying?
- Do we think the comments in this would be typical? How might we be able to tell this?
- What does this suggest about the connections to the wider community for the poor?