Early 19Thc Painted Metal Alms Cabinet; "Directors & Guardians Of The Poor"

The unique and wonderfully decorative metal alms chest or cabinet, once bearing black paint now largely worn thoroughly with age, the frontage showing the original stencilled legend in gold reading “Directors & Guardians Of The Poor Of The Parish Of Brighthelmston”, the panelled doors opening to reveal a black painted and quartered shelved interior, the lower door to reveal a vacant interior on lowering chains, the flanks with campaign type carrying handles sitting on pressed cup feet and the whole surviving from the first quarter of nineteenth century England.

The cabinet is in decorative as found and totally original condition with no major flaws or deficiencies to note. The original paintwork has not been meddled with. The doors are slightly mis-shapen so, although they open and close, they do not currently close flush. The lower lock is absent. The cabinet was previously acquired by the current owner from the basement of the Brighton solicitors Howlett Clark back in the 1980's.

The Directors & Guardians of the Poor of the Parish of Brighthelmston were a body established to manage the workhouse and poor relief in Brighton (formerly known as Brighthelmstone). In 1810, Brighton became incorporated under a local act, leading to the creation of this board of thirty Directors and Guardians. The 1810 Brighton Town Act meant that after thirty years the commissioners found their powers limited and unsuitable for the proper regulation of the growing town, and a new Act agreed with the vestry was passed in 1810. The Act additionally empowered the commissioners to appoint watchmen, beadles and constables; to widen and improve streets by compulsory purchase; to name and number streets; to regulate sewers; to inspect weights and measures; to license hackney-carriages, sedan-chairs and bathing-machines; and to build a new town hall. It also transferred the responsibility for the poor of the town from the parochial authorities to thirty ‘Directors and Guardians of the Poor’ who were to be appointed by the commissioners. Among other additional clauses were the requirements that new pavements should be provided at the expense of the owner of a newly-built house; no new buildings other than shops should project over pavements; no new buildings were to be thatched; no rubbish should be dumped in the streets, on the beaches, or over the cliffs; no night soil was to be tipped into the streets or sewers; and no games or other nuisances were allowed in the streets.

In 1818, the Guardians decided a new workhouse was needed due to increasing numbers. A site was purchased in 1820, and a new building was constructed, designed by architect William Mackie. Initially meeting in one of several inns in the town, the guardians moved to offices in the new Town Hall in about 1832 which is possibly when this cabinet was painted, and from 1856 occupied the present public library building. From 18 March 1871 however, the Brighton Directors and Guardians were replaced by a board of ‘Guardians of the Poor’ responsible to the Local Government Board (replaced in 1919 by the Ministry of Health), and were required to care for both the ‘outdoor’ poor and those in the workhouse; conditions in the workhouse were made deliberately unpleasant to encourage inmates to go out and find work.

The layout of the 1822 workhouse had apparently not changed appreciably from the time of building. There was accommodation for 600 inmates, and the accommodation was divided into four accommodation sections, each with its own yard, plus the central section. The Northern wing housed wards fifty feet measuring by twenty five feet, for males not capable of hard work, with sleeping rooms, eating rooms, sick rooms, and a boy's school. Next were apartments for females, including the sick, lying-in women (following childbirth), children, and all females not capable of hard work. The central section housed the entrance hall, and administrative area and behind it were the kitchen, wash house, brew house, bake house, and laundry.

A unique and important piece of social history that has not been on the open market for fifty years, and with the added ingredient of being hugely decorative, this glorious piece has it all.