3-011-524 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cotton Famine: provision-shop where goods are obtained for tickets issued by the Manchester and Salford Provident Society, 1862. Unemployment in Lancashire. 'Tickets for relief, according to the quantities ordered, are delivered by the secretary to the visitors, who carry them to the houses of the recipients, who are thus regularly revisited once a week. The number of cases, persons, and quantities of relief are added up, and the secretary of each ward reports the totals to the general committee at the next meeting, with the equivalent sum of money which he requires for the ensuing week. Relief from the general fund is at present granted only in the shape of bread, soup, coffee, and clothes. The number of visitors is 120. Their services are entirely gratuitous...they consist of the higher class of operatives, tradesmen, and mill overlookers, and are, therefore, men possessed of a good knowledge of the claimants of charity. The objects contemplated by the committee in the application of the funds are to assist those who are struggling to keep themselves from becoming paupers or who have no claim on the parish without being removed, and to afford additional relief beyond the parish allowance in cases which seem to require it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.