The Feeding Of School Children

[RichardB]

At Bristol out of 129 applications from the Local Education

Authority, the Guardians felt justified in giving relief in 12 cases

was no serious contention that these children did not

need food, but merely that their parents' circumstances

were such that they could afford to provide it.

Undoubtedly under the voluntary feeding system there had been

much abuse, many parents obtaining the meals when

they were in receipt of good incomes. But in these

cases, with very few exceptions, no pressure was brought

to bear by the Guardians on the parents to force them to

provide adequate food for their children, and the children

consequently remained unfed. In many cases the fathers

of the children indignantly refused to allow them to

receive the meals when they discovered that disfranchise-

ment was entailed.

At Bradford, where the most systematic attempt was

only. (35th Report of Local Government Board, 1905-6, p. 480.)

At Chorlton, relief was given in 219 cases out of 1,295 applications ;

at Salford in 175 out of 1,086. (Ibid., p. 504.) At Stoke-on-Trent,

out of 72 cases reported 4 were relieved, and at Ecclesall Bierlow

51 cases were reduced after careful investigation to one. (Ibid.,

pp. 488, 520.) At Kettering, on the other hand, practically all

the cases referred to the Guardians were relieved. (Report of

Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1909, Appendix, Vol. I., Q.

6443.) This, however, was exceptional.