From reading accounts in the local press, it seems that Edwardian Britain was full of individuals seeking to avoid paying for their family’s upkeep. From husbands failing to maintain their wives, to fathers refusing to pay for their children to be accommodated, fed and educated in industrial schools and relatives not paying for their ‘insane’ family members to stay in private asylums, cases were frequently being heard in courts to decide who needed to pay for what.

In 1903, Alexander Davies was working as a blacksmith at the Barrow shipyard in Cumbria. He was having a hard time; his wife was ill at home in Dalton, near Burton-in-Kendal, and his two sons were in an industrial school. He was now ordered to appear at Ulverston Police Court as despite earning over £1 12s a week in his job, he was in arrears for his boys’ maintenance by £14 8s. Alexander duly appeared in court in December that year and pleaded poverty: he was considerably in debt and had his wife to look after. The court decided to let him pay 7s 6d a week, and he was to appear in court again the following month. If he failed to pay, he would be sent to prison.

Alexander certainly needed his wages to go far. In 1889, in his 40s, he had married widow Isabella Barton, née Crabtree. She had given birth to seven children by her first husband, the eldest of whom had died aged one. She then had a further four children, including two sons, by Alexander. These sons were Alexander, who would have been 13 in 1903, and Edward Charles, two years younger. The older Alexander would die seven years later, leaving Isabella a widow again, having by now also lost three of her children.

A similar case had been heard in May 1901 in Devon, when Harry Kuppers, a railway ballast guard from Newton Abbot, was called to court. Harry’s son Ernest was, like the two Davies boys, at an industrial school, having been sent there by magistrates. Harry was now asked to give a reason why he should not contribute towards the 12-year-old Ernest’s maintenance there; he obviously didn’t have a good reason as he was ordered to pay 1s 6d. Ernest had only been sent to the industrial school in the previous month, as the census of 1 April 1901 showed him living at home with his parents and younger siblings. Luckily, Ernest’s spell in the school seems to have done him no harm; by 1911, he had joined his father on the Great Western Railway and was working as a foreman, living back at home.

Illegitimate children
It was not just legitimate children that parents had to pay for: where there was an illegitimate child, attempts would be made by Poor Law Guardians to hold the putative father to account. In June 1906, William Chilvers of Heddington, Kent, was summoned by the Greenwich Poor Law Guardians. It was alleged that he was the father of Frances Mary Bodman’s illegitimate baby. Evidence was given, the legality of the Guardians’ claim was even checked, and it was agreed that a maintenance order could be granted against Chilvers to ensure he paid towards the child’s upkeep.

Fathers were expected to maintain their families, and if a marriage broke down, they needed to ensure that their estranged wives had the means to provide for any children of the relationship as well as for the wives themselves; in Edwardian times, many women were still looking after the house and children. Even if they were working, they were unlikely to earn as good a salary as their husbands. Where couples had formally separated, a maintenance order would be made whereby the husband had to pay his wife an agreed amount on a regular basis. Some men failed to pay up, however; perhaps they genuinely did not earn enough to, but there are certainly many who tried to avoid doing so. There are cases of husbands even moving out of the local area, hoping to live a quiet life elsewhere to avoid paying out money to a wife they were no longer in love with – but they were tracked down surprisingly often. These men are detailed in the newspapers appearing at their local police court to be ordered to pay the maintenance owed, or face prison.

Case study
One such man was Frederick William Smith, a man only in his mid-20s. He was called before the Cheltenham Police Court in August 1906, it being stated that he was nearly three months in arrears with maintenance payments to his wife, Alice Sarah. A maintenance order had been made in her favour following the couple’s separation, but Frederick had not paid. In fact, this was not his first offence – around three months earlier, he had been committed for a similar default in maintenance payments.

Frederick argued that he had been living in Worcester, doing a ‘little carpentering, gardening and haymaking’ to earn a living. He said he was doing ‘a bit better than before’ – his previous time before the court – but that he was still suffering from an eye complaint. It sounds as though Frederick was only just scraping a living doing labouring or odd jobs; a look at the archives suggests he had had a difficult start to life. His father had died shortly before his birth, and he and his widowed mother had moved in with her parents. His mother Georgina had then died, aged only 25, when her son was barely six years old. The orphaned child continued to live with his grandparents in his native Cheltenham, until he married Alice Sarah Crisp in December 1889.

This was not the whole picture, however. Frederick was not a labourer or odd job man but a sculptor, brought up with a similarly artistic grandfather who worked as a photographer. He was brought up in a respectable part of Cheltenham, but had married at 21 and had two children quickly – Violet, born in 1901, and Jack, three years later. By the time Jack was two, Frederick had left him effectively fatherless, as he had also been. The excuses about having to find menial work in Worcester were more about avoiding paying maintenance for Alice and his children than about genuine economic need. The court did not believe him, either, and ordered Frederick to pay the £5 he owed, in addition to around £1 in costs. Frederick didn’t pay, and so was sent to Gloucester Gaol for a month. Five years later, his estranged wife and children had moved in with her parents – a repeat of how his own mother had moved back with her parents in order to find support after being left on her own.

Unusual case
A more unusual case came up in East Anglia in 1905. Walter James Clarke, a Norwich labourer, had been paying maintenance to his wife Emily since 1899, but was applying to have the maintenance order cancelled as Emily had had an illegitimate child since they separated. Emily argued that she had been maintaining herself and a home since their separation, but that she could not maintain her two children by Clarke without his financial input.

Despite the fact that these children were Clarke’s, and therefore his responsibility, the magistrates hearing the case decided that since Emily had displayed immorality by since having another child, Clarke need not pay any further maintenance towards her or their children.

A look back through newspapers and archival documents shows that poor Emily had a rough deal; having been married in 1893, by 1899, Walter was having an affair with his next door neighbour, Maria Minister. Maria was also married, and had had four children by her husband, two of whom had died and the youngest of whom was barely a year old. Maria walked out on her husband Joseph to move in with Walter. Unfortunately, Maria and Walter took with them furniture that was deemed to be her husband’s property. He then took her to court charging her with theft.

Maria was not sent to prison, but her husband did divorce her. Walter and Maria stayed together, having four more daughters together (and claiming in the 1911 census to have been married 15 years – despite Walter still being legally married to Emily).

One suspects that with Walter’s increasing financial obligations with Maria, he was increasingly reluctant to pay for his wife and first two children – and was happy to play the morality card, despite him having run off with another married woman in the first place. Without her maintenance, Emily continued to maintain her family – her and Walter’s children Mildred and Bertie, plus her other child Frederic – by working as a charwoman.

Insights into family life
Reading these accounts of maintenance orders and defaulted payments in press reports provide a fascinating insight into family life and how it could break down. Our ancestors lived often complicated lives, and although some might not be able to afford a divorce, or see the need for one, they were not able to avoid financial responsibility as easily. The courts were keen to see people take such responsibility, and where individuals failed to pay, they would be sent to prison in the hope that they would learn a lesson and come out more amenable to pay for their families. Unfortunately, though, the records show that this was not always the case. {