De armenzorg in Asten in de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw gezien vanuit een nationaal en Noord-Brabants perspectief

Samenvatting

Poverty Relief in Asten in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century from a National and North-Brabant Perspective

In accordance with national and regional views, a growing number of Asten inhabitants requested subsidy in the years 1814-1854. Especially in those years with endless winters, crop failure, rising food prices and in economic crises, the percentage of people who applied for subsidies rose to 20%.

Rather than the churches, it was the general board of guardians which stood as the main institution for beneficence and was responsible for the care of these poor people.
The governance was carried out by the dignitaries of the village, who thought it their social-religious duty, although self-interest was certainly a motive as well.
When times got rough, their contacts with the local government and the upper middle classes were quite convenient. However, the board of guardians wasn’t always able to make financial ends meet.
The deficits on the account were no longer only temporary and more often than not they had to rely on gifts and grants.
As was the case in other municipalities, distribution of relief to the less fortunate citizens of Asten (either living in Asten or elsewhere) sometimes happened disgracefully. On several occasions they endeavoured ‘to impose their own legal charges on other people’.
In addition, the prevailing poverty was also opposed according to the Enlightenment ideas of that time. The municipality was engaged in the provision of jobs and focused on the upbringing of deprived children in need.
It was agreed upon that ‘people, once they had become paupers, could not or only reluctantly turn their situation around for the better’.
The children of the poor had to be protected from the state of indolence their parents were in. Some of these children were put to work in the local cotton mill; the foundation of the school by the Nuns of Charity should also be regarded as a part of this endeavour.
These attempts at poverty relief were like drops in the ocean. The total number of underprivileged inhabitants of Asten kept rising in the years 1830-1854, while at the same time the average expenditure for impecunious citizens declined. Resources were spread thinner and thinner and so the inhabitants of Asten could not escape das Zeitalter des Pauperismus either.