If you are interested in history, you could spend a while at a website created by an outfit called Millbanksystems. It is basically an onlne register of what anyone has said in parliament in the last 200 years.
This may seem dull, but if you search for certain words- for example the name of your village or town- you can obtain some pretty illuminating information about what things were like in the good old days bad old days.
For example, you can search and find every time “Canewdon” has been mentioned in parliament since between 1803 and 2005. It’s actually been mentioned 21 times. It’s easy then to build up a picture of just how grim life used to be. For example from 1924:
20 February 1924 vol 169 c1765W 1765W
? Mr. HOFFMAN
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the villagers of Canewdon, Essex, have to pay per bucket for water; and if he will make representations to the Rochford Rural District Council to secure adequate facilities being provided?
? Mr. WHEATLEY
My attention has been drawn to this matter, but I will have inquiries made.
there was something irregular going on in 1897:
CANEWDON CHARITIES, ESSEX.
HC Deb 03 August 1897 vol 52 cc239-40 239MR. J. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts, Mansfield)
I beg to ask the hon. Member for Thirsk, as Charity Commissioner, whether it has been reported to the Charity Commissioners that the Trustees of the Canewdon, Essex, Charities, have for many years annually voted out of the charity funds a sum of money to the vicar of the parish for a treat to the children of the day schools, and that only part of that sum has been expended for that purpose, the rest being spent on hymn books and prayer books for the Church Sunday schools; whether such an appropriation of the charity funds is legal; and what action have the Charity Commissioners taken in the matter?
? MR. HANBURY
My hon. Friend has asked me to say that the Charity Commissioners understand that the Trustees of this charity have intrusted the vicar every year with the expenditure of a sum of ?5 part of the funds in their hands applicable for the benefit of the poor of the parish. It is alleged that this sum or part of it has been expended in the manner stated. The action of the Trustees in this respect is irregular. A new scheme for the regulation of this charity is in draft and will shortly be established. That scheme contains a clause expressly prohibiting the practice in question.
and agricultural workers faced poverty:
1889
MAJOR RASCH (Essex, S.E.)
I am sorry to trouble the Committee by moving a reduction of the Vote, but the point I desire to raise is of considerable interest to agricultural labourers in my constituency, and it affords a typical instance of the diversion of a fund. towards objects in which this class have no interest. It concerns the agricultural labourers of Canewdon, in the South-East Division Essex. Application was made under the Act of 1887 for allotments, and not successfully, for the land was offered at ?4 an acre. Now, the claim is that as there is a certain fund left for the benefit of agricultural labourers, they have a right that a certain portion of the money should be devoted to reducing the expenses connected with allotment, and they applied through me to the Charity Commissioners with that object; but the Commissioners said they could do nothing in the matter, and met me with a non possumus.
Money which used to be spent upon doles, coals, bread, &c., for the poor is now spent in payment of salaries, the purchase of books, and for other purposes in which the labourers have not the faintest interest. Under a scheme sanctioned by the Court of Chancery, the residue of the fund is to be spent upon the agricultural labourers; but I suppose I shall be reminded that, owing to the decline in the value of land in Essex, there is no residue, and also that the money is spent under an Act sanctioned by Parliament in 1852, and with which the Commissioners have nothing to do. But I venture to think we sit here to rescind and abrogate such obsolete schemes as have been passed almost entirely in the interests of the rich, and certainly to the prejudice of my poorer constituents. I venture to carry out my notice, and move the reduction of the Vote by ?100.
Here’s the same MP for SE Essex, Major Rasch again in 1893:
MAJOR RASCH (Essex, S.E.)
I beg to ask the Charity Commissioner whether he is aware that J. Whitwell, labourer, 75 years old, had notice to quit a cottage the property of the Canewdon Charities, and was subsequently fined for refusing to give up possession; and if the property of those Charities could be dispensed, as intended by the donors, for the relief of the deserving poor, and not devoted to other and totally different purposes?
Incidentally Major Rasch was certainly no left-winger – in fact Major Sir Frederick Carne Rasch was Tory. We’ll be writing about him again closer to Christmas.
Hat-tip: Liberal England: House Points: Search Hansard from 1803