When the potato crop failed due to blight in 1846 it was obvious, in Ireland at any rate, that a major catastrophe was about to occur. The first failure in 1845 had been partial but it left the country debilitated with reserves run down, while individuals had few possessions left to sell or pawn.
Few Quakers in worst affected areas
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| A soup kitchen run by the Society of Friends in Cork, 1846-47 |
The Society of Friends had certain advantages, though, if the right
method of providing relief could be found. Quakers had a well-developed
network of committees which operated on a nation-wide basis to organise
their own society. Through these committees and through family ties
Quakers throughout Ireland were in close contact with each other and
with those in Britain. Many Irish Quakers were merchants and would have
had the organisational capacity to purchase goods and move them
efficiently to other parts of the country. Above all, Quakers believed
that God was present in everyone and this gave an understanding that the
individual in distress should be helped if at all possible.
Relief committees established
It was with this in mind that a number of Quakers, led by Joseph
Bewley, organised a meeting in November 1846. The outcome was the
establishment of a twenty-one member ‘central relief committee’. To
facilitate frequent meetings membership was confined to the Dublin area,
while a further group of twenty-one would be nominated as
‘corresponding members’ and from the Quaker community outside Dublin.
Following discussions with their Irish counterparts Quakers in London
also established a relief committee.
Throughout the Famine these two committees worked closely together, with
the Dublin committee looking after grants of food and clothing while
the London committee raised funds. The division of labour was not
strict, however, and many English Quakers came to Ireland to see for
themselves just how bad the situation was and to become involved
directly with the giving of relief. As the work of these committees
progressed they set up various subcommittees to handle specific tasks
and amongst these were local committees in Waterford, Cork, Limerick and
Clonmel which looked after relief operations in the south and
south-west.
Food and clothing
The first and most obvious means of assisting the hungry was through
direct grants of food or the money with which food could be purchased.
Some of this went to Quaker relief workers in the field but the scope
for this kind of aid was limited by the size and distribution of the
Quaker community. A great deal more was done through assistance to
non-Quakers who were running local relief efforts and through Quaker
workers identifying local people who were capable of operating soup
kitchens and encouraging them to become involved. In essence, the relief
committees of the Society of Friends acted as intermediaries who
encouraged those who had something to offer to donate it and then made
these donations available to local activists. In their own words the
Quaker workers provided a ‘suitable channel’ through which aid was
brought from the donors to the recipients.
Before long the committees became involved in the distribution of
clothing. In the winter of 1846/47 a large proportion of the clothing
donations came from English committees, mostly consisting of women. Some
clothes were made by the donors and others came from factories as a
result of pressure from the women’s committees. A warehouse was taken in
Dublin to receive donations and sort them into bundles for passing on
to the destitute. In the following winter American donations were
predominant and this was mostly in the form of fabrics so that
employment could be generated in making clothing.
In the summer of 1847 there was a major change of direction in the type
of relief offered by the Quaker committees. The emphasis on grants of
food and clothing was greatly reduced in favour of longer term means of
assistance. There were many reasons for this. First, there was a change
in the type of relief offered by the government: soup kitchens were
established by the poor law unions to feed the destitute without
admitting them to the poor house. The Quakers recognised that there was
going to be a hiatus following the closure of the public works schemes
and before the poor law unions could set up the soup kitchens. They
ensured that their own relief efforts were kept going to bridge that gap
as far as they could manage but once the government soup kitchens were
established they saw no point in duplicating them.
Second, the Quaker relief committees were suffering from both donor
fatigue and physical fatigue. In essence, their operations had been
established to meet the shortages expected in 1846/47 and many of the
donors had given all that they could afford. The resources of the relief
committees had been carefully managed over the year but there was a
comparatively small amount left by the summer of 1847. With the
co-operation of the government a survey was carried out among the
officials who ran the poor law unions which showed that the magnitude of
the destitution was so great that the resources of the Quaker
committees could not even scratch the surface. Their original assertion
was that ‘if there be one thousand of our fellow-men who would perish if
nothing be done, our rescue of one hundred from destruction is surely
not the less a duty and a privilege, because there are another nine
hundred whom we cannot save’. In theory this maxim should remain valid
if the proportion was one hundred out of hundreds of thousands, but in
practice the resources available might not have saved anyone at all
given the scale of the destitution.
Instead, it was felt that meagre resources should be kept only for those
who were not eligible for government assistance and for longer term
projects. Members of the Society of Friends had always felt that the
only way to make a lasting contribution to help solve the problem was by
means other than short-term distribution of food. The first moves
towards this type of aid came in the early days of the Quaker
involvement when cash donations were given to people in Galway and Mayo
who had set up local employment schemes, mainly involved with weaving
and other textile production. As time went on, however, a greater
variety of projects were undertaken or supported.
Fisheries
In a famine it is a natural reaction to seek alternative ways of
producing food and Quaker workers sought to do this through assistance
to fisheries. In the early stages of the relief efforts Quaker
travellers in Galway discovered that the fishermen of the Claddagh had
pawned their nets and other equipment during the previous year and were
destitute. Through cash loans the tackle was redeemed and the fishing
community became self-sufficient again. Similar aid was given to
fishermen in such centres as Kingstown, Arklow and Ballycotton and for a
small initial input poverty-stricken communities were given back the
means of supporting themselves. In the main the loans were repaid within
a short time and the funds became available again for other purposes.
Not content with helping existing fishing communities the Quaker
committees became involved in projects to foster new fisheries. For a
variety of reasons these were not successful—distance from markets and
the lack of bait due to the destruction of shellfish beds by the
starving population.
Fishery projects at Achill and Ballinakill Bay,
near Clifden, did not last long. Another, at Belmullet, kept going for
two years from the end of 1847 and some fifteen fishing boats and ten
curraghs were fitted out. Ultimately this project failed through bad
management by the proprietor. A fourth project was undertaken at
Castletownbere in west Cork from the autumn of 1847, lasting for nearly
five years and employing fifty-four men and boys. Eventually this, too,
failed through bad management.
Probably the most worthwhile fishery project was that which was
established at Ring through the initiative of the local Church of
Ireland vicar and which was given financial support by the Quaker relief
committee based in Waterford. This provided work and food for a number
of families and for a time a fish-curing plant was operated here with
Quaker funding.
Seed distribution
In the spring of 1847 an English Quaker, William Bennett, arrived in
Ireland with the intention of touring the worst-hit areas. He believed
that as the potato had proved to be an unreliable source of food there
was a need to encourage a greater diversity of crops. To this end he and
his son acquired seed from W. Drummond and Sons in Dawson Street. His
main choice was turnip seed together with carrots and mangelwurzel and
later he included cabbage, parsnip and flax.
William Bennett distributed most of his seed in Mayo and Donegal and
while he was there he also made cash grants to local craft industries
that had been set up to provide employment. After six weeks he returned
to England where he published a book entitled Six Weeks in Ireland and
this was influential in encouraging the flow of donations.
Some of the local Quaker committees became involved in the distribution
of seed but the central committee in Dublin was hesitant, believing that
any crops grown would be distrained by the landlords in lieu of rent
owed. However, in May 1847, Sir Randolph Routh, the government’s
Commissary-General, gave some eighteen tons of seed to the committee for
distribution. The task of organising distribution was given to William
Todhunter, who managed to do so by means of the postal system together
with free carriage donated by a coach company and a steampacket company.
Some 40,000 smallholders received grants of seed and it is estimated
that 9,600 acres of crops were sown.
Following the success of this operation the Quaker central relief
committee repeated the exercise in the spring of 1848, laying out an
initial sum of £5,000 to purchase and distribute almost sixty tons of
seed. It is estimated that 32,000 acres of crops were grown as a result
and that about 150,000 people would have been supplied with food as a
result.
Agricultural improvement
The next logical step after the distribution of seed was to become
directly involved in agriculture. Members of the Society of Friends who
were involved in the relief operations could see that the government
relief works did nothing to improve the long term prospects of the
country as they were mostly concentrated on non-productive tasks. In
1848 the idea of undertaking agricultural reclamation works was put
forward as a more useful operation.
The initiative came from a group of landowners on the borders of Mayo
and Sligo, near Ballina, who approached the central relief committee in
the spring of 1848 with an offer of the free use of land for a season.
The offer was taken up, some 550 Irish acres, equivalent to about 360
hectares, were selected for the scheme and more than a thousand people
were taken on to prepare the land for crops using spade labour. The
workers were paid by the task, but unlike the government works of the
previous season, the rates of pay were higher than normal to allow for
the lower productivity to be expected from people debilitated by the
effects of famine and disease. The cost of this project was about £300
in a normal week but reached £500 a week from time to time. Part of the
cost was laid out in the purchase of fertiliser and care was taken to
use only imported fertiliser to avoid distorting the local market and
pricing it out of the reach of other farmers.
A variety of crops was sown and again the turnip formed a large part of
the operation, while for obvious reasons no potatoes were sown. In order
to bring some diversity of employment a certain quantity of flax was
also introduced. However, when the harvest came this spade-cultivation
experiment proved very disappointing in its yield. Various reasons were
advanced for this, including the previous condition of the land, a
factor which seemed to be borne out when the landowners managed a far
better yield in the following season. In all, however, the project was a
success in its main two aims to provide employment and to teach
small-holders how to manage alternative varieties of crops.
The central relief committee was also involved in a number of similar
projects on smaller scales through the giving of loans for spade
cultivation to local landowners. The success of these was often better
than that of the Ballina project and in general the loans were repaid.
A further benefit of the various agricultural schemes was the effect on
the local economies. Some of the landowners involved in these projects
commented that the numbers of people dependant on the local poor law
unions had greatly decreased with a consequent reduction in the rates.
One commentator in Fermanagh estimated that the poor law rate in the
district where his spade cultivation scheme had operated was as little
as 12 per cent of the local average.
Following the experience in Ballina a proposal was put forward to the
central relief committee that it should establish a model farm for the
more effective teaching of methods of growing crops and to act as an
example of how a well-run farm should operate. A suitable property was
found at Colmanstown in east Galway in the spring of 1849 and an
extensive range of farm buildings was constructed.
Before the farm could
become fully operational a considerable amount of land reclamation was
required and this involved the removal of ditches to create larger
fields and the laying of land drains. A stream was diverted to supply
water to a mill which would carry out the threshing and milling of the
grain crops.
Some 228 people were employed on the Colmanstown model farm and a
variety of crops was grown
including grain and green crops, while there
was also a wide range of farm animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs.
This project was continued long after the end of the famine, only coming
to an end in the early 1860’s when the property was sold.
Industry
In line with the belief that longer-term changes were needed the
Quaker relief operation sought to encourage the diversification of the
economy and this included various industrial projects. An attempt was
made in 1848 to become directly involved through the establishment of a
flannel manufacturing operation in Connaught. While the project was
considered to be worthwhile and machinery was found for the task, at a
late stage the committee shied away from direct involvement, deciding
instead to offer financial backing to any suitable person who wished to
take on the enterprise. Unfortunately, no one came forward.
A number of loans and grants were given to others who were providing
industrial employment, ranging from small scale cottage industries to
factory or mill-based enterprises. Amongst the latter were flax mills
set up in the Ballina area as a direct result of the Quaker
spade-cultivation exercise in 1848.
Campaigns
The Society of Friends was in frequent contact with the government
and in a number of ways these contacts were useful and successful. In
the early stages the London committee persuaded the government to make
available two steamships to bring supplies collected in Britain over to
the west coast of Ireland. A little later the government was prevailed
upon to pay the considerable cost of transporting American food across
the Atlantic. A major operational cost within Ireland could have been
the transport and storage of food but an agreement with the government
commissariat removed the cost and responsibility entirely. Under this
arrangement all food landed in Ireland for the Quaker relief operations
would be handed over directly to the commissariat in exchange for a
credit note. This note could be used at any commissariat depot
throughout Ireland to draw down supplies of food for distribution
locally.
The London relief committee succeeded in persuading the Admiralty to
update the charts of the west coast of Ireland as the existing charts
had proved to be extremely inaccurate and useless for fisheries. Other
campaigns undertaken included putting on pressure to have certain
controls on fishing relaxed to improve the amount of food available.
The greatest of these campaigns was the attempt to persuade the
government to make fundamental changes in the system of land tenure.
Much of this work was carried out by Jonathan Pim, one of the
secretaries of the Dublin committee. He published a book on the subject
in 1848 and he had a part in the final drafting of the Encumbered
Estates Act of 1849. Long after the famine was over Jonathan Pim
continued his campaign for land reform and in 1865 he entered parliament
as a member for Dublin.
It is likely that he was heavily involved in the drafting of later land acts, even after he had left parliament.
Assessment
When the central relief committee published its report in 1852 it
concluded that its famine operations had not been a success. In the
context of the time this was the only possible conclusion as no
organisation could celebrate the success of a relief operation in the
light of the massive toll of death and emigration.
Looked at another way, however, this cannot be deemed a failure. The
extent and variety of the Friends’ relief operations were out of
proportion to the mere 3,000 members of the Society in Ireland. The
total of £200,000 that was handled by the Quaker relief bodies was a
small part of the total from all sources but it nevertheless represents
about £11 million at today’s prices. Nearly 8,000 tons of food were
distributed along with almost 300 soup boilers and nearly 80 tons of
seed. Countless numbers of people were given employment in agriculture,
fisheries and industry and many more were taught how to grow crops which
had previously been unfamiliar to them. While the relief was organised
by a religious body there was a strict rule that there were to be no
religious strings attached.
The exercise was not without its toll among the Quaker relief workers.
The strain of intense involvement over a protracted period affected the
health of many workers and some died. Others contracted famine diseases
in the course of their relief works. It is not known how many died
either directly or indirectly as a result of their involvement but the
few who are known include Joseph Bewley, the leading light in the Dublin
operations, who died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-six through
over-work. Jacob Harvey, who was central to the operations in New York,
also died through over-exertion as did William Todhunter, who was aged
forty-six. Abraham Beale of the Cork committee contracted typhus and
died.
The selfless way in which these Quakers gave of their time, energies and
even their health made its impact on the Irish psyche and to this day
the famine relief efforts of the Society of Friends have not been
forgotten in folk memory.
Further reading:
R. Goodbody, A Suitable Channel: Quaker Relief in the Great Famine (Dublin 1995).
M.J. Wigham, The Irish Quakers: A Short History of the Society of Friends in Ireland (Dublin 1992).
http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/quakers-the-famine/
