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In the later 18th century, when the overseers each served in turn for six months, poor relief took the usual forms. Paupers were badged and some were employed to spin flax and make cloth, which was occasionally given to the needy. The parish subscribed to the Gloucester infirmary by 1770 and had several poorhouses. (fn. 2) Other cottages built at the parish's expense on waste land had been pulled down c. 1700. (fn. 3) A parish workhouse had been established by 1803, when it had 7 inmates and 21 children attended one or more schools of industry. (fn. 4) The workhouse was managed by a married couple in 1816. (fn. 5) In the late 18th century many people living in the extraparochial Forest of Dean had legal settlement in Ruardean (fn. 6) and among parishes adjoining the Forest the burden of relief was greater only in Newland. Ruardean's annual expenditure on the poor rose from £117 in 1776 to £377 in 1803, when 66 people were on relief, all of them permanently, (fn. 7) and to £699 in 1813, when the numbers receiving regular and occasional help were 50 and 25 respectively. (fn. 8) Much less was spent in the later 1820s. (fn. 9) In 1831 a local butcher agreed to administer relief and the following year an outsider farmed the poor for £310. (fn. 10) At that time the parish was responsible for c. 166 families in the Forest and continued to experience great difficulty in financing relief. (fn. 11) In 1837 Ruardean parish was added to the Herefordshire poor-law union of Ross (fn. 12) but following the implementation of the 1894 Local Government Act it became part of East Dean and United Parishes rural district. (fn. 13) East Dean rural district as constituted in 1935 included Ruardean except for the area transferred that year to the new civil parish of Lydbrook, which was part of West Dean rural district. (fn. 14) Both Ruardean and Lydbrook were included in the new Forest of Dean district in 1974.

From: 'Ruardean', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 231-247. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23261 Date accessed: 23 April 2009.

http://www.institutions.org.uk/workhouses/england/here/ross_workhouse.htm

Alton St Ross

http://www.ross-on-wye.com/index.php?page=ross_510-Alton_Street&pg=1

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Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster & Hereford Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>