English Poor Laws
The English Poor Laws
English Poor Law legislation can be traced back as far as 1536,
The Poor Law system fell into decline at the beginning of the 20th century owing to factors such as the introduction of the Liberal welfare reforms[7] and the availability of other sources of assistance from friendly societies and trade unions,[7] as well as piecemeal reforms which bypassed the Poor Law system.[8] The Poor Law system was not formally abolished until the National Assistance Act 1948,[citation needed] with parts of the law remaining on the books until 1967.[6]
History
Medieval Poor Laws
The earliest medieval Poor Law was the
Tudor Poor Law
The origins of the English Poor Law system can be traced back to late medieval statutes dealing with beggars and vagrancy, but it was only during the
Tudor attempts to tackle the problem originated during the reign of Henry VII. In 1495, Parliament passed the Vagabonds and Beggars Act ordering that "vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of Town. Every beggar suitable to work shall resort to the Hundred where he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and there remain upon the pain aforesaid."[17] Although this returned the burden of caring for the jobless to the communities producing more children than they could employ, it offered no immediate remedy to the problem of poverty; it was merely swept from sight, or moved from town to town. Moreover, no distinction was made between vagrants and the jobless; both were simply categorised as "sturdy beggars", to be punished and moved on.[18]
In 1530, during the reign of
In London, there was a great massing of the poor, and the Reformation threatened to eliminate some of the infrastructure used to provide for the poor. As a result, King Henry VIII consented to re-endow St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1544 and St. Thomas' Hospital in 1552 on the condition that the citizens of London pay for their maintenance.[23] However, the city was unable to raise enough revenue from voluntary contributions, so it instituted the first definite compulsory Poor Rate in 1547, which replaced Sunday collections in church with a mandatory collection for the poor.[24] In 1555, London became increasingly concerned with the number of poor who could work, but yet could not find work, so it established the first House of Correction (predecessor to the workhouse) in the King's Palace at Bridewell where poor could receive shelter and work at cap-making, feather-bed making, and wire drawing.[25]
For the able-bodied poor, life became even tougher during the reign of
The government of
A new colonial solution
In the early 1580s, with the development of English colonisation schemes, initially in
By 1619
Old Poor Law
In 1597, a session of Parliament was called to deal with the issues of increased poverty and vagrancy, among other things. This session culminated in the passage of several Acts referred to as the "Poor Laws of 1598".[36] Among them were the Poor Relief Act 1597 and the Vagabonds Act 1597. These laws were further refined and formalized by the next session of Parliament, primarily in the Poor Relief Act 1601. Together, these Acts of 1598 and 1601 came to be known as "The Elizabethan Poor Laws."[37][38][39]
The more immediate origins of the Elizabethan Poor Law system were deteriorating economic circumstances in sixteenth-century England. Historian George Boyer has stated that England suffered rapid inflation at this time caused by population growth, the debasement of coinage and the inflow of American silver.[2] Poor harvests in the period between 1595 and 1598 caused the numbers in poverty to increase, while charitable giving had decreased after the dissolution of the monasteries and religious guilds.[40]
The
The
The 1601 act sought to deal with 'settled' poor who had found themselves temporarily out of work—it was assumed they would accept
A pauper applicant had to prove a settlement. If he could not, he was removed to the parish nearest to his birthplace, or where he prove some connection; some paupers were moved hundreds of miles. Although the parishes he passed through en route had no responsibility for him, they were supposed to supply food and drink and shelter for at least one night. An act of 1697 required beggars to wear a badge of red or blue cloth on the right shoulder with an embroidered letter "P" and the initial of their parish.[48] However, this practice soon fell into disuse.[49]
The workhouse movement began at the end of the 17th century with the establishment of the
Starting with the parish of
During the
The Royal Commission on the Poor Law
The
The commission proposed the
- "
pauper should have to enter a workhouse with conditions worse than that of the poorest free labourer outside of the workhouse.[69]- the "workhouse test", that relief should only be available in the workhouse.[1] The reformed workhouses were to be uninviting, so that anyone capable of coping outside them would choose not to be in one.
When the act was introduced however it had been partly watered down. The workhouse test and the idea of "less eligibility" were never mentioned themselves and the recommendation of the royal commission that
New Poor Law
The Poor Law Amendment Act
Although the
Various reasons prevented the application of some of the act's terms. Less eligibility was in some cases impossible without starving paupers, and the high cost of building workhouses incurred by rate payers meant that outdoor relief continued to be a popular alternative. Despite efforts to ban outdoor relief, parishes continued to offer it as a more cost-effective method of dealing with pauperism. The Outdoor Labour Test Order[78] and Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order[79] were both issued to try to prevent people receiving relief outside of the workhouse.
When the new amendment was applied to the industrial North of
The abuses and shortcomings of the system are documented in the novels of
In 1846, the Andover workhouse scandal,[82] where conditions in the Andover Union workhouse were found to be inhumane and dangerous, prompted a government review and the replacement of the Poor Law Commission with a Poor Law Board. Now, a committee of Parliament was to administer the Poor Law, with a cabinet minister as head. Despite this another scandal occurred over inhumane treatment of paupers in the Huddersfield workhouse.[83]
After the New Poor Law
After 1847 the
Decline and abolition
The Poor Law system began to decline with the availability of other forms of assistance. The growth of
In 1905 a
During the
In 1948 the Poor Law system was finally abolished with the introduction of the modern
Opposition
Opposition to the Poor Law grew at the beginning of the 19th century. The
In the period following the
The introduction of the
Scotland and Ireland
The Poor Law systems of
Historiography
The historiography of the
See also
- Social welfare, government programs that seek to provide a minimum level of income, service or other support for certain people
- Timeline of the Poor Law system
- Welfare (financial aid)
- Social care in the United Kingdom
- Wife selling (English custom)
References
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Further reading
- . London: John Murray. 1920.
- Blaug, Mark. The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New Journal of Economic History 23 (1963): 151–84. JSTOR
- Blaug, Mark. The Poor Law Report Re-examined Journal of Economic History (1964) 24: 229–45. JSTOR
- Boot, H.M. Unemployment and Poor Law Relief in Manchester, 1845–5 Social History 15 (1990): 217–28. JSTOR
- Booth, Charles. The Aged Poor in England and Wales. London: MacMillan, 1894. Internet Archive
- Boyer, George R. Poor Relief, Informal Assistance, and Short Time during the Lancashire Cotton Famine Explorations in Economic History 34 (1997): 56–76.
- Boyer, George R. An Economic History of the English Poor Law, 1750–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990
- Brundage, Anthony. The Making of the New Poor Law. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1978. ISBN 978-0-8135-0855-9
- Clark, Gregory. Farm Wages and Living Standards in the Industrial Revolution: England, 1670–1869 Economic History Review, 2nd series 54 (2001): 477–505. UCDavis
- Clark, Gregory and Anthony Clark. Common Rights to Land in England, 1475–1839 Journal of Economic History 61 (2001): 1009–36. UCDavis
- Digby, Anne. The Labour Market and the Continuity of Social Policy after 1834: The Case of the Eastern Counties Economic History Review, 2nd series 28 (1975): 69–83.
- Eastwood, David. Governing Rural England: Tradition and Transformation in Local Government, 1780–1840. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0-19-820481-7
- Fraser, Derek, editor. The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century. London: Macmillan, 1976.
- Hammond, J. L. and Barbara Hammond. The Village Labourer, 1760–1832. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911.
- Hampson, E.M. The Treatment of Poverty in Cambridgeshire, 1597–1834. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934 (reissued by ISBN 978-1-108-00234-9)
- Humphries, Jane. Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (1990): 17–42.
- King, Steven. Poverty and Welfare in England, 1700–1850: A Regional Perspective. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
- Lees, Lynn Hollen. The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1770–1948. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
- Lindert, Peter H. Poor Relief before the Welfare State: Britain versus the Continent, 1780–1880 European Review of Economic History 2 (1998): 101–40.
- MacKinnon, Mary. English Poor Law Policy and the Crusade Against Outrelief Journal of Economic History 47 (1987): 603–25.
- Marshall, J.D. The Old Poor Law, 1795–1834. 2nd edition. London: Macmillan, 1985.
- Nagl, Dominik. No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions – Law, State Formation and Governance in England, Massachusetts und South Carolina, 1630–1769, Berlin: LIT, 2013: 149–59.
- Pinchbeck, Ivy. Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1850. London: Routledge, 1930.
- Pound, John. Poverty and Vagrancy in Tudor England, 2nd edition. London: Longmans, 1986.
- Rose, Michael E. “The New Poor Law in an Industrial Area”. in The Industrial Revolution, edited by R.M. Hartwell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
- Rose, Michael E. The English Poor Law, 1780–1930. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971.
- Royden, Mike, 'The Poor Law and Workhouse in Liverpool' in Tales from the 'Pool, (2017) Creative Dreams, ISBN 978-0993552410
- Royden, Mike, ‘The Nineteenth century Poor Law in Liverpool and its Hinterland: Towards the Origins of the Workhouse Infirmary’, Journal of the Liverpool Medical History Society, Volume 11 (2000)
- Shaw-Taylor, Leigh. "Parliamentary Enclosure and the Emergence of an English Agricultural Proletariat." Journal of Economic History 61 (2001): 640–62.
- Slack, Paul. Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Longmans, 1988.
- Slack, Paul. The English Poor Law, 1531–1782. London: Macmillan, 1990.
- Smith, Richard (1996). “Charity, Self-interest and Welfare: Reflections from Demographic and Family History” in Charity, Self-Interest and Welfare in the English Past.
- Sokoll, Thomas. Household and Family among the Poor: The Case of Two Essex Communities in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. 1993.
- Solar, Peter M. "'Poor Relief and English Economic Development before the Industrial Revolution'." Economic History Review, 2nd series 48 (1995): 1–22.
- Tawney, R.H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study. London: J. Murray, 1926.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice Webb. English Poor Law History. Part I: The Old Poor Law. London: Longmans, 1927.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice Webb. English poor law policy (1910)
External links
- Annotated text of an Act of 1598 of which the 1601 Act was a revision (scroll down to (H))
- Workhouse records on The National Archives' website.
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 74–80. .
- A famous depiction of women in the Victorian workhouse – 'A scene in the Westminster Union, 1878'