Remembering

1846 should have been a year of celebration for the Lamont family of Ballymoney, county Antrim. The family had been blessed with a new son, a certain William John Lamont. Although the small family had much to celebrate, their nation had just fallen into a devastating famine.

Although I know little of William’s life, I know a few years before his birth a “poor house” was built in Ballymoney, to aid those who had lost everything and were on the verge of starvation. If William was born to one of the families in this “poor house” or not, I do not know. Either way, he would of witnessed first hand and almost certainly suffered in the Great Famine. At some point he left Ireland and settled In Scotland. He passed at the young age of 34, most likely due to illness caused by poor nutrition in his youth. He had done enough though to secure his lineage, as William is my great great grandfather.

At around the same time a certain Timothy Clay first opened his eyes to this world, over the shores in England. His plight was not much different, The price of iron had dropped dramatically, and as a consequence the local trade of nail making had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Poverty had struck the small nail making towns of the Midlands. The nail makers, now unable to make enough to eat, began to organise strikes. Civil disorder ensued and local authorities even had to call upon military assistance to quell it. This didn’t stop them, strike after strike occurred, as no matter how hard they worked, no food could be put upon their tables.

I know even less of the life of Timothy, but I do know his grand daughter, Amy Louisa Clay was handed over to a poor house at birth, her poor family unable to feed her. Amy was my Great, Great Grandmother. A staunch and noble Lady, who by the grace of family memory, I heard many stories about, all lovingly told by my dear Nana.

It is often claimed that the famine my great great grandfather suffered under was the fault of the English. The snippet of history my family tree reveals, tells a slightly different story. The common English man, that is the workers of mine and forge, did not benefit from the suffering of the Irish folk. They themselves were locked in a battle of survival of their own across the narrow sea.

Little know that the Irish had suffered a food shortage in the late 1700’s. You do not hear of this “famine” though, because there never was one. The ports of Ireland were closed, no food could leave the island, thus starvation of the population was averted by sound measure. This did not please the wealthy merchants, who got fat off of the hardships of the common man. In the Great Famine; the great genocide and orchestrated land theft of the Irish peoples, no such measure was enacted. The merchants made their pretty pennies, as the poor starved and were forced out of their homes.

To gain access to the poor houses set up to aid the starving, you could not own land. If you did, especially with valuable commodities like housing, you would be forced to pay for the poor houses, via the “poor tax”. As you can imagine this only exacerbated the problem, whilst driving a wedge between the classes of the folk. With tenants unable to pay, their houses instead of being sources of income became burdens for the land owners. As soon as they became empty they were knocked down. With housing and land becoming to expensive to own land prices dropped. This gave the super wealthy rich pickings, whilst the poor became totally dispossessed.

Some tried to escape this ordeal, by begging and borrowing to afford a ticket to the “new world”. For many though, this would only end in further tragedy. Many unscrupulous merchants, would take advantage by selling tickets at extortionate prices. This was not their worst crime though…. Some would even purchase boats in ill repair, take out high insurance on the vessel, with the full knowledge these ships would never make it to their destination. Many of these “coffin ships” sank at sea, all souls aboard lost. How many died in such a way no one knows, but again the merchants made their wretched coin .

Many may blame British rule for the situation, and to a point I agree, but what of the common English man? What was his plight? The poor laws introduced in Ireland had already been in effect in England and Wales for some time. The workhouse was a common sight in English towns since the 17th century. A description by Sir Frederik Eden in 1797 gives us insight in to their operation and conditions.

“The workhouse is an inconvenient building, with small windows, low rooms and dark staircases. It is surrounded by a high wall, that gives it the appearance of a prison, and prevents free circulation of air. There are 8 or 10 beds in each room, chiefly of flocks, and consequently retentive of all scents and very productive of vermin. The passages are in great want of whitewashing. No regular account is kept of births and deaths, but when smallpox, measles or malignant fevers make their appearance in the house, the mortality is very great. Of 131 inmates in the house, 60 are children”

They were initially set up for the frail and young, children were often sent alone, split from their parents, as was little Amy, my great great grandmother. With war and bad harvests ravaging England in the 1800’s demand became high. Able bodied workers were not given access to them, nor wanted it, if they could avoid it. Instead certain amounts of relief were handed out to people not within their walls. This would all change though with the an amendment to the act in 1834. Despite the hardships of war and the crop failures, some accused the poor souls taking up this “outdoor relief” of abusing the system. Thus with the act this was stopped, to get any aid you had to enter these “prisons for the poor” and forsake both your freewill and any property you owned. This was one of the main reasons for the separation of families. Parents would put their young in such institutions whilst they desperately searched for work, so they bring them home, a home with food on the table that is.

Daily life in a workhouse was a grim ordeal too. They were only allowed to allot food to the “inmates”, no clothes or other essentials and for this pitiful amount of grain were forced to work. Where no meaningful work could be found, they would be given tedious tasks such as splitting rope to earn their meagre rations. In Scotland today, there are many a wall, built over mountain top, serving no purpose. They were built to give these poor souls work to do, for fear a handful of oats would go to someone who was “lazy”.

Across the sea, as you might imagine with the infrastructure already in place, when iron prices dropped, causing the nail makers to be unable to make a living, many families unable to put food on the table ended up these work houses losing all they had worked for over generations in the process. Their plight was already a hard one. Unable to sell their wares directly they had to sell through “Tommy shops”, effectively they bartered their nails for goods, not money. The products on offer were normally of low quality and were priced much higher than in normal outlets.

In vain they organised strikes and pleaded, but invariably the leaders of such actions, were beaten and abused as a message to the others. With the strikes having no effect, this led many into generational poverty, never fully recovering from their loses. Thus already with nothing, the plight of thousands of little Amy Clays were sealed long before their birth.

Even through all this misery and heartache they still soldiered on, never allowing this to break them. Amy grew to be strong and dignified and so too did little William. They forged their legacy, not in gold, but in something far more valuable: blood. I am here today as testament to their endurance, their tenacity. Which brings me to why I wrote this piece.

This article is a little different to my normal fare, but to honour our ancestors, we must understand their plight. No one was there to comfort little Amy, when she cried for her mothers touch, In fact my Nana who adored her grandmother so, never knew of her ordeal, till, I uncovered it. Amy grew to be a proud Lady of noble nature, who would never deign to tell others of her hardships. As for young William, I often wonder how many times he kept quiet about the pains in his stomach from lack of food, knowing his loving parents could not answer his pleas?

We cannot turn back the hands of time, We cannot undo what has been done. As much as we wish, we cannot be there to comfort them in their time of need. We can however remember them. The power of acknowledgement is under rated, to acknowledge another’s deed, or pain can create powerful bonds of attachment. This is just as true of the dead as it is of the living. When we remember, when we acknowledge our forebears hardships and lives we show we care. Our hands reach through time and lay themselves upon their shoulders, and gently whisper, “it was not in vain”

This can also have a profound effect upon ourselves. In remembering them, we acknowledge ourselves. I am often amazed at how so many of my people diminish the suffering of their own. Falsely believing that their ancestors are the cause of all the ills of the world. When I hear a young European state “they hate white people” my heart breaks. Not just for them, but for those who went before. I do not know what happens in death, but I know in remembrance all things live. To be forgotten, for your plight to go unacknowledged, must be the sharpest pain the dead can feel. To have your love reduced to an accusation of hatred, must be like a second death.

Although this piece speaks of my ancestry, I KNOW that everyone reading this has their own tales. Each and every one of you has a thousand or more stories of your own. I urge you to uncover what you can and when ever possible remember them. Acknowledge them, and give them the gift of life and love once more.

edited by CJ