Propert, Peregrine Sydney Goldwin

Peregrine Sydney Goldwin Propert was born at St. Davids, Pembrokeshire, in 1861, the son of Dr. W. P. Propert, LL.D. He was a fine athlete and as a youth of 17 swam across the Ramsey Sound, a dangerous strait about a mile wide. He was educated privately and then at Trinity Hall, Cambridge where, as well as being a co-founder of the Footlights Amateur Dramatic Society, he took up rowing. In 1884 he won with the Rev. Sidney Swann the University Pairs and was extra man for the University Eight.

Around this time he also travelled across Canada and cycled through Syria with Rev. Sidney Swann.

He graduated in 1884 and thereafter rowed for Thames until 1890, and he was a member of the winning crews in the Grand Challenge Cup in 1888 and 1889, the Wyfold Challenge Cup in 1886 and 1890 and the Metropolitan Challenge Cup in 1886, 1888, and 1889.

As his Times obituary explains, "When he went to the University Propert had intended to make law his career, but he was caught up by the wave of religious enthusiasm so strong in the Cambridge of his day that he decided to take orders, and was ordained in 1885. At once he started work among the poor in Fulham as curate of St. Andrew's, and it was not long before he founded the parish of St. Augustine’s, in which he built the stately memorial church (raising £30,000 for its construction as a memorial to Queen Victoria). One of his greatest interests throughout his long career was Poor Law administration. He took up the study of economics better to understand it, and became one of the best known writers and speakers on the subject. He defended consistently the board of guardians and the system of poor relief under which they functioned. It was in no small measure due to him that the Minister of Health’s Bill of 1930, known as the Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, which seriously affected boards of-guardians, failed to become law.

Some insight to his uncompromising views on the best way to deal with poverty can be given by this extract from a letter he wrote to the Times in 1907:

"...the second fundamental principle of Poor Law administration laid down by the Poor Law Commissioners in their additional report of 1839 (that the condition of the pauper should be less eligible than that of the independent labourer) is now universally disregarded...I may add that the comfort and attraction of these palatial Poor Law establishments, with their Christmas feasts, the provision of regular entertainments during the winter, newspapers, books, periodicals, games, and the very small amount of work exacted from the able-bodied, are so great that they largely cease to be in any way deterrent, or to act as a test, and so fail in the very object for which they were instituted."

Pembrokeshire
Cambridge
Fulham

Vicar of St Augustines, Fulham, and later Rural Dean
Prebendary St Paul’s Cathedral
Co-founder of the West London Co-operative Society and President for thirty years
1896 Vice-Chairman of the Fulham Union
Chairman of the Fulham Board of Guardians for twenty-five years
Founder with Dr F. J. Furnivall of the National Amateur Rowing Association; later Chairman and Hon. Treasurer.
Author of The Problem of Unemployment; Some Aspects of Public Expenditure; Legal Relief in Relation to Charity; Poor-Law Administration since 1870, etc

1920 President of the Association of Poor-Law Unions in England and Wales
1926 President, Central Poor-Law Conference, 1926
Hon. Secretary, National Committee for Reform of the Poor-Law
Gave evidence before the Royal Commission on the Poor-Laws 1908
Gave evidence before the Royal Commission on London Government, 1922
Member Advisory Committee for Welfare of the Blind (Ministry of Health)

"Propert, Rev. Peregrine Sydney Goldwin, (1861–18 Feb. 1940), Vicar St Augustines, Fulham, and late Rural Dean; Prebendary St Paul’s Cathedral." WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. December 01, 2007. Oxford University Press. Date of access 4 May. 2021, https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-215817
"Obituaries." Times, 20 Feb. 1940, p. 4. The Times Digital Archive, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS67319380/TTDA?u=whl_earl&sid=TTDA&xid=658eb7ff. Accessed 7 May 2021.