WHAT PRICE OLD AGE?
Posted: 05 Apr 2026, 01:20
WHAT PRICE OLD AGE?
(25 March 2002)
Like many of us, particularly the older end, I have been watching recent developments at Cravenside very closely. Being a crumbly myself, and a historian to boot I start to compare the present day with the past and making some assessments about the differences.
There’s a picture of the top end of Hill Street for you to look at and you might well ask what this has got to do with old age and pensions, it’s actually a very good example of self-help and provision for old age. If you look carefully you’ll see that there are three houses all of the same build. The top one has a continuous string course above the door and ground floor windows and it’s double-fronted, this shows that it was originally built as a corner shop. The idea of saving up and building the houses and the shop was that you could look forward to a comfortable old age, you had the income from the shop while you were working because your wife kept it and when you retired one of your children could take it over and you moved into one of the houses. In the days when these three houses were built there was no pension and no care homes as we know them today. When you got old you had to live off your savings or be kept by your children. If you had neither of these you only had one alternative, the workhouse at Skipton. This was a dreadful prospect, husbands and wives were separated and the level of care and maintenance was minimal. If you keep your eyes open you’ll find lots of examples of this sort of provision for old age in the town. Many rows of houses don’t have the shop but one of the houses will be a better standard of build than the others. 34 Water Street in Earby is a good example, the middle house has a bay window and all the others are plain, this was the landlord’s house.
A bit of history for you. Up to the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in the 1530s individual charity and the religious orders cared for the poor and destitute. Between 1531 and 1601 the first Poor Law Acts were put in place and made the needy a charge on the parish. You’ll still hear the older end refer to being ‘On the Parish’ and this is where the saying originates. A Poor Rate was levied on all householders to pay the ‘dole’ and over the years, parishes combined to build and finance ‘workhouses’. They were called this because the able-bodied were expected to work for their keep.
Barlick and Earby contributed to Skipton Workhouse which still exists, it’s the hospital at Raikeswood. You will have heard me refer to ‘Poorbones’ up Manchester Road, this was where poor people knapped stones for the roads to qualify for ‘Outdoor Relief’. This was the dole which was handed out by the Parish to people still living in their own houses. If you look at old field names you’ll often find some named ‘dole’, these were pieces of land that were let off each year and the proceeds went for community purposes.
In 1834 Parliament had another look at the Poor Law and the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed. This kept the administration of the Poor Law with the Local Boards but introduced an important principle that still lingers on today called ‘Less Eligibility’. What it meant was that the condition of the poor on relief should not be better than the lowest paid worker. If you think about it, this still applies to this day. The effect is that nobody can be well-off on benefit. We started to improve this situation in the 1950s when levels were tied to the average wage but the conservatives broke this link and pensioners now are £28 a week worse off than they would have been if this system had been kept in place.
Until this year, the better-off in the community could improve their position by using some of their earnings to contribute towards a private or occupational pension and feel safe about the future. All this is changing as the stock markets adjust to lower levels of dividend. Many people who thought they were well-provided for now find that they are in trouble. Anyone relying on Enron has lost all their money, many companies are stopping pensions based on final salary. Those of us who paid into the government contributory pension scheme all our lives are being told now that this wasn’t strictly true, what we were doing was paying for the pensions of the existing recipients. As the proportion of old people to workers rises the State Pension becomes less well funded.
So, what can we do? The first thing is that Grey Power must rise and make itself felt, we might be old but we have a vote and there are more and more of us. We must fight for a decent pension and guard facilities like Cravenside. A lot of people suffered in the past to bring us these improvements, we must not let them be taken away by stealth.
As for the better-off, perhaps they should be thinking about investing their spare income in a house to rent to give them an income in their old age. It begins to look as though this could be safer than a pension in Equitable Life! We have come a long way since the days of the workhouse., self-help in the form of protest and private provision are being forced on us and this might be no bad thing.
Finally, I want to make a request. I’m sure that everyone has some old family photographs in a drawer somewhere. When you have a minute, will you please get them out and write on the back all you know about the people and places in the picture. Future generations will bless you if you do!
I’m asking you to do this because I have been sorting out pictures myself and asking other members of the family to help me identify the people. One picture in particular intrigued me and it was my cousin who told me what it was. The lady on the left is my grandma Margaret Challenger, the lady at the back is my mother Mary Challenger and the older lady on the right is Margaret Challenger’s mother, Grandma Shaw. The baby on Margaret Challenger’s knee is, you’ve guessed it, Stanley! I am very new so this was taken in 1936. The point I want to make is that this is a wonderful picture to have, four generations on one photo and my grandchildren are looking back six generations when they see it. If I hadn’t taken the trouble to ask I wouldn’t have known this and of course I’ve written the information on the back. Please take a bit of time and do the same thing with yours, you will give so much information and pleasure to children not yet born and it is so easy to do.
(25 March 2002)
(25 March 2002)
Like many of us, particularly the older end, I have been watching recent developments at Cravenside very closely. Being a crumbly myself, and a historian to boot I start to compare the present day with the past and making some assessments about the differences.
There’s a picture of the top end of Hill Street for you to look at and you might well ask what this has got to do with old age and pensions, it’s actually a very good example of self-help and provision for old age. If you look carefully you’ll see that there are three houses all of the same build. The top one has a continuous string course above the door and ground floor windows and it’s double-fronted, this shows that it was originally built as a corner shop. The idea of saving up and building the houses and the shop was that you could look forward to a comfortable old age, you had the income from the shop while you were working because your wife kept it and when you retired one of your children could take it over and you moved into one of the houses. In the days when these three houses were built there was no pension and no care homes as we know them today. When you got old you had to live off your savings or be kept by your children. If you had neither of these you only had one alternative, the workhouse at Skipton. This was a dreadful prospect, husbands and wives were separated and the level of care and maintenance was minimal. If you keep your eyes open you’ll find lots of examples of this sort of provision for old age in the town. Many rows of houses don’t have the shop but one of the houses will be a better standard of build than the others. 34 Water Street in Earby is a good example, the middle house has a bay window and all the others are plain, this was the landlord’s house.
A bit of history for you. Up to the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in the 1530s individual charity and the religious orders cared for the poor and destitute. Between 1531 and 1601 the first Poor Law Acts were put in place and made the needy a charge on the parish. You’ll still hear the older end refer to being ‘On the Parish’ and this is where the saying originates. A Poor Rate was levied on all householders to pay the ‘dole’ and over the years, parishes combined to build and finance ‘workhouses’. They were called this because the able-bodied were expected to work for their keep.
Barlick and Earby contributed to Skipton Workhouse which still exists, it’s the hospital at Raikeswood. You will have heard me refer to ‘Poorbones’ up Manchester Road, this was where poor people knapped stones for the roads to qualify for ‘Outdoor Relief’. This was the dole which was handed out by the Parish to people still living in their own houses. If you look at old field names you’ll often find some named ‘dole’, these were pieces of land that were let off each year and the proceeds went for community purposes.
In 1834 Parliament had another look at the Poor Law and the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed. This kept the administration of the Poor Law with the Local Boards but introduced an important principle that still lingers on today called ‘Less Eligibility’. What it meant was that the condition of the poor on relief should not be better than the lowest paid worker. If you think about it, this still applies to this day. The effect is that nobody can be well-off on benefit. We started to improve this situation in the 1950s when levels were tied to the average wage but the conservatives broke this link and pensioners now are £28 a week worse off than they would have been if this system had been kept in place.
Until this year, the better-off in the community could improve their position by using some of their earnings to contribute towards a private or occupational pension and feel safe about the future. All this is changing as the stock markets adjust to lower levels of dividend. Many people who thought they were well-provided for now find that they are in trouble. Anyone relying on Enron has lost all their money, many companies are stopping pensions based on final salary. Those of us who paid into the government contributory pension scheme all our lives are being told now that this wasn’t strictly true, what we were doing was paying for the pensions of the existing recipients. As the proportion of old people to workers rises the State Pension becomes less well funded.
So, what can we do? The first thing is that Grey Power must rise and make itself felt, we might be old but we have a vote and there are more and more of us. We must fight for a decent pension and guard facilities like Cravenside. A lot of people suffered in the past to bring us these improvements, we must not let them be taken away by stealth.
As for the better-off, perhaps they should be thinking about investing their spare income in a house to rent to give them an income in their old age. It begins to look as though this could be safer than a pension in Equitable Life! We have come a long way since the days of the workhouse., self-help in the form of protest and private provision are being forced on us and this might be no bad thing.
Finally, I want to make a request. I’m sure that everyone has some old family photographs in a drawer somewhere. When you have a minute, will you please get them out and write on the back all you know about the people and places in the picture. Future generations will bless you if you do!
I’m asking you to do this because I have been sorting out pictures myself and asking other members of the family to help me identify the people. One picture in particular intrigued me and it was my cousin who told me what it was. The lady on the left is my grandma Margaret Challenger, the lady at the back is my mother Mary Challenger and the older lady on the right is Margaret Challenger’s mother, Grandma Shaw. The baby on Margaret Challenger’s knee is, you’ve guessed it, Stanley! I am very new so this was taken in 1936. The point I want to make is that this is a wonderful picture to have, four generations on one photo and my grandchildren are looking back six generations when they see it. If I hadn’t taken the trouble to ask I wouldn’t have known this and of course I’ve written the information on the back. Please take a bit of time and do the same thing with yours, you will give so much information and pleasure to children not yet born and it is so easy to do.
(25 March 2002)