Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832

The 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws was a group set up to decide how to change the

The findings of the Poor Law Commissioners, published in thirteen volumes, began appearing in February 1833.[2]^[3] They were used to argue that the existing system of poor relief needed a radical overhaul.

Members

The nine members of the Central Board of the commission were:,^[1][4]

• Charles James Blomfield (Bishop of London) - Chairman
• William Sturges Bourne (chairman of the 1817 Parliamentary commission)
• John Bird Sumner (Bishop of Chester)
• Nassau Senior
• Walter Coulson
• Rev.
  Oriel College, University of Oxford
  .
• Henry Gawler
• James Traill
• Edwin Chadwick (secretary)

The first seven were appointed in 1832, the last two in 1833.^[5]

Recommendations

The writers of the report suggested radical changes to English Poor Laws:

• Separate
  paupers
  including aged, children, able-bodied males and able-bodied females.
• The grouping of parishes into unions to provide workhouses.
• A ban on outdoor relief so that people had to enter workhouses to claim relief
• A central authority to implement the policies and to prevent the variation that in practice occurred under the
  Old Poor Law
  .

Response from Parliament

There was strong support for the report from all sides of Parliament, and the ideas were quickly passed into law. The Whigs controlled the

Criticism

There is evidence that

From a modern standpoint, it can be argued that despite the long term effects of the ensuing Poor Law Amendment, the report itself was wildly inaccurate. Most of the relief was received by the undeserving poor (those who were considered not "able-bodied" and therefore undeserving of poverty), which contrasted with the reports findings. Only 20% of the total population of 12 million were claiming poor relief, of which only 20% were "able-bodied", 50% were children under 15 and 9% to 20% were sick, aged or infirm. Many of the moral judgements that supported Benthamite ideas were thus unfounded.

"They fell into the trap of assuming that employers and workers could bargain on equal terms, which they could not and did not. The Commissioners argued that the existing means of poor relief allowed unscrupulous employers and farmers to force down wages and deliberately to keep a pool of surplus labour because they knew the workers could 'fall on the rates' if it suited business. It was accepted that poverty was inevitable ("the poor are always with you') so nothing was done to tackle that problem. It was thought that a deterrent workhouse would cause a moral reformation among the poor: that they would go out and find work rather than submit to 'the House'. Unfortunately, there was little work to be found in the rural south so the whole basis of the legislation was unsound." Marjie Bloy, Ph. D.^[9]

References

Sources

Bryan Green. Knowing the Poor. A Case Study in Textual Reality Construction. London: RKP, 1993