Vagrants and the Dartmoor Shepherd

Vagrants

Tramps or vagrants were regarded with growing hostility during the 19^th Century. They were seen as a threat to the social order and a potential source of contamination, though many were in fact unemployed men looking for work. Accommodation had to be provided for them, preferably away from the other inmates, but both this and the food supplied were made as unappealing as possible and they had to perform manual labour – usually breaking stones for road-mending – before being allowed to leave in the morning.

At Llanfyllin Workhouse a special block of cells was built in the 1880s to house vagrants, or ‘Casual Paupers’ each with a small working area for stone-breaking. The broken stones had to be small enough to pass through a metal grille built into the wall. The block has been demolished and no trace of it remains, but the plans survive in The National Archives at Kew.

Powys Archives have preserved a notice board removed from the Workhouse. It is a standard issue from the Local Government Board. Specific tasks of work were laid down for Casual Paupers remaining for one night. For men this meant breaking two hundredweight of stones, picking one pound of unbeaten or two pounds of beaten oakum, or three hours of digging, pumping, chopping wood or grinding corn. The women had to pick a smaller quantity of oakum or spend three hours in washing, scrubbing or cleaning. They were not allowed to leave until the work had been done.

Residents of Llangynog remember tramps arriving at the village shop during the 1950s with tokens given to them at Y Dolydd, as the Workhouse was then known. They were supposed to be exchanged for tea and sugar, but were usually spent on tobacco.

The Dartmoor Shepherd

The most famous inmate of the Llanfyllin Union Workhouse was David Davies, the Dartmoor Shepherd.

David Davies was born in 1849 at Llanfihangel, but when he was still a child his family moved to Rock Cottage, Llanfyllin, which stands just above the road not far from the Workhouse. Though he came of a respectable family, he soon became involved in petty crime. In his lifetime he was sentenced to over 60 years imprisonment, and he must have spent more than 50 years in prison. All the sentences were for minor burglaries or – his speciality – robbing church poor-boxes. He was only once convicted of violence: for throwing a work-basket at a policemen who had caught him red-handed.

David’s case received national publicity when an exasperated judge at Shrewsbury sentenced him to 13 years for stealing two shillings from an almsbox. He was sent to Dartmoor, where his agricultural background caused him to be given the job of looking after the prison’s flock of sheep. In 1910 he was visited in prison by Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George: Churchill, then Home Secretary, arranged for him to be released and sent to work on a farm near Rhuthun. He quickly absconded, and went back to his old ways.

In 1923, in court at Oswestry for robbing another poor box, David told a policeman: ‘I don’t want to die in prison. I want the magistrates to settle it, and send me to Llanfyllin Workhouse, my native place.’ Eventually, in May 1924 the Chairman of the Bench, Lord Harlech, arranged for him to go to the Workhouse: the following month he was caught breaking into Llandrinio Church and was returned to Llanfyllin.

The Master of the Workhouse, Captain Astley, arranged for David to receive an old age pension and found work for him on a nearby farm. However, he soon broke into the church at Llanfechain, and later absconded and was arrested at Congleton Church in Cheshire. He absconded so many times that his shoes were taken away and replaced with leather slippers.

In the night of April 2 1929, in his 80^th year, David slipped out of the Workhouse in his leather slippers and set off along the lane towards Llanfechain. Near Bodynfoel he must have collapsed, for his body was found there next morning. David avoided a pauper’s grave: sympathisers made a collection, and his body was taken on a farm cart to be buried in Llanfyllin. A Wesleyan minister and three deacons saw him laid to rest.