Patronage and charity

(Notes and ideas from JM Bourne's Patronage and Society in Nineteenth Century England)

The relationship between patronage and charity/poor relief was close. For instance, the New Poor Law opened up new opportunities for patronage associated with the appointment of national and local officers. Presumably this would also be true of appointments as officers of charities.

For the elite, particuarly the landed class, patronage was a "reward, an obligation and a butress" of their position. But was this true for elites within immigrant communities at this time? Did they follow the pattern of the indigenous elite or were their patronage networks and obligations different? For instance was it informed by different religious beliefs and a less secure position in society compared to the English elite?

In a rapidly changing society which seemed in danger of falling into an "anarchy of competitive individualism", patronage helped mitigate the danger of social conflict. However, patronage networks tended not to extend as far as the working class and the poor were more reliant on the Poor Law or charity. Was this also true for immigrant communities? Did closer ties and identification with each other as fellow Jews, Irish or Germans mean that there was a stronger sense of obligation on the part of the elite?

Patronage has been accused of being a form of social control built on power dependency. But Bourne rejects the extent of this by pointing out that "the pursuit of patronage was not a central working class concern" although it was more true of the middle class where it helped establish a "common area of shared valued which would not otherwise exist". Using this argument, you could also argue that patronage networks played a role in the the making of the English Middle Class, alongside charity and other associational movements (so that middle class identity is more of a cultural/associational construct rather than defined through economic relationships). Bourne also says that "far from seeking to perpetuate a socially hostile environment many patrons were at the centre of the struggle to ameliorate it through legislative enactment, educational improvement and philanthropy".

But charities for immigrant groups (and other social structures) were means by which help could be accessed and could be seen as forms of patronage (Bourne doesn't really regard charity as a form of patronage being more interested in more individually based forms, although the rise of voting charities where donors would have a direct say in who received help can surely be seen as a form of such patronage). Given that immigrant communities were smaller and where class divisions were affected by ethnic identifications, were immigrant charities more clearly part of patronage networks?