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Page contents > 18th Century Pamphlets | Cost of the Poor Laws | Poor Law Reform | Poor Relief in the 20th Century | Poor Relief for Women and Children | Family Allowances | The Welfare State Many of the pamphlets on the Poor Laws held in the Library were published in the 19th century and a few were published in the 18th century. The value of this primary source material is to give researchers an insight into the thinking of contemporary politicians and reformers and to see how social policy worked in Britain before the advent of the welfare state. Social policy before the 1940s was the "Poor Law". There are hundreds of pamphlets on this subject in the Library's collection.
desires to see the poor happy and contented in that situation of life in which it has pleased God to place them" by J. Godfrey (1835) (HV/439) and "Tyranny of poor laws exemplified - Englishmen! tis your little all" published in Bath in 1815. There are pamphlets issued by the State Children's Association, Society for Promoting the Comforts of the Poor, National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, Association of Poor Law Unions, Poor Law Reform Association, National Council of Social Service, Workhouse Visiting Society as well as Poor Law Commissioners themselves. Many of the early Fabian Tracts also cover poverty and poor relief. The first Fabian tract was entitled "Why are there many poor?". The pamphlet collection contains material connected with the Poor Law Commission of 1910 both supporting the Minority and Majority reports. Some of these pamphlets were written by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, founders of LSE and the Library. Pamphlets were issued by the Association of Poor Law Unions in England and Wales, National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution and the National Poor Law Reform Association. There is a tiny pamphlet entitled "A plea for the vagrant" dated 1904. (HV/B24). "War against poverty" written collectively by W.C. Anderson, Ramsay MacDonald, George Bernard Shaw, and the Webbs in 1912 includes a leaflet for a meeting at the Royal Albert Hall (HV/215).
shall we do with our pauper children: a paper read at the Social Science Association, Dublin" by M. Carpenter 1861 (HV/C190).
Family Allowances
There are a number of pamphlets from organisations which campaigned on the issue of family allowances. One of them, published by the Family Endowment Society, contains addresses made at the the First Public Conference on Family Allowances held at LSE in 1927 by Beveridge and other speakers (HD4/135). "Family allowances: an Aylesbury broadside" is a reprint from the Lancet in 1940 (HD4/205). There are pamphlets published by the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship in 1920 (HD4/17) and the National Industrial Alliance- "The case for and against family allowances" in 1939 (HD4/400). Pamphlets published by political parties include "Families and incomes: the case for childrens' allowances" written by H. Brailsford and published by the Independent Labour Party in 1926 (HD4/209), "Note for the study of family allowances" published by the Cooperative Women's Guild in 1925 (HD4/376) and "Family allowances: a socialist analysis" published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1943 (HD4/350).
Poor Law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article deals chiefly with the English Poor Laws covering England and Wales. For the laws regarding the other areas of the British Isles see Irish Poor Laws and Scottish Poor Law
The Poor Law was the system for the provision of social security in operation in England and Wales from the 16th century until the establishment of the Welfare State in the 20th century. It was made up of several Acts of Parliament and subsequent Amendments. The extreme longevity of the Poor Law meant that some of the generalisations made about it (for example, the use of workhouses) refer to only a part of its history.
Contents
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1 The classification of the poor 2 Origins of the Poor Law system 3 The Act of 1601 o 3.1 Amendments to the 1601 Act 4 The 18th century 5 The reform of the Poor Law 6 The Royal Commission on the Poor Law o 6.1 Findings of the Commission 7 The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act o 7.1 Amendments to the Amendment Act 8 The Poor Laws in Ireland, Scotland and Wales 9 Poor Law Policy 1847-1900 o 9.1 Commission replaced with a Board o 9.2 Union Chargeability Act o 9.3 Increasing powers for local government 10 The end of the Poor Law 11 See also 12 References 13 External links
The impotent poor could not look after themselves or go to work. They included the ill, the infirm, the elderly, and children with no-one to properly care for them. It was generally held that they should be looked after. The able-bodied poor normally referred to those who were unable to find work either due to cyclical or long term unemployment in the area, or a lack of skills. Attempts to assist these people, and move them out of this category, varied over the centuries, but usually consisted of relief either in the form of work or money. The 'vagrants' or 'beggars', sometimes termed 'sturdy rogues', were deemed those who could work but had refused to. Such people were seen in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries as potential criminals, apt to do mischief when hired for the purpose. They were normally seen as people needing punishment, and as such were often whipped in the market place as an example to others, or sometimes sent to houses of correction. This group was also termed the idle poor.
1552 - Parishes began to register those considered 'poor'. 1563 - Justices of the Peace began to collect money for poor relief. The poor were grouped for the first time into the impotent poor, idle poor and able-bodied poor (unemployed). 1572 - First local poor tax to fund poor relief. 1576 - Idea of a workhouse first suggested. It is first suggested that JPs could provide materials for which the able-bodied could work in return for relief. 1579 - Justices of the Peace authorised to collect funds for poor relief. The post of Overseer of the Poor was created.[1] 1595 'Buttock Mail', a Scottish Poor Rate is levied.[2]
To board out (making a payment to families willing to accept them) those young children who were orphaned or whose parents could not maintain them, to provide materials to "set the poor on work" To offer relief to people who were unable to work -- mainly those who were "lame, impotent, old, blind", and "The putting out of children to be apprentices".
Relief for those too ill or old to work, the so called deserving poor, was in the form of a payment or items of food ('the parish loaf') or clothing. Some aged people might be accommodated in parish alms houses, though these were usually private charitable institutions. Meanwhile able-bodied beggars who had refused work were often placed in houses of correction. However, provision for the many able-bodied poor in the workhouse,
which provided accommodation at the same time as work, was relatively unusual, and most workhouses developed later. Assistance given to the deserving poor that did not involve an institution like the workhouse, was known as 'outdoor relief'. There was much variation in the application of the law and there was a tendency for the destitute to migrate towards the more generous parishes, usually situated in the towns. This led to the Settlement Act 1662 also known as the Poor Relief Act 1662 - this allowed relief only to established residents of a parish - mainly through birth, marriage and apprenticeship. A pauper applicant had to prove a 'settlement'.If they could not, they were removed to the next parish that was nearest to the place of their birth, or where they might prove some connection. Some paupers were moved hundreds of miles. Although each parish that they passed through was not responsible for them, they were supposed to supply food and drink and shelter for at least one night. The Act was criticised in later years for its effect in distorting the labour market, through the power given to parishes to let them remove 'undeserving' poor. Some of the legislation was punitive. In 1697 an act was passed requiring the poor to wear a "badge" of red or blue cloth on the right shoulder with an embroidered letter "P" and the initial of their parish. However, this was often disregarded.
1662 -Poor Relief Act 1662 (Settlement Acts) 1723 -Workhouse Test Act 1782 -Gilbert's Act 1795 -Speenhamland
establishing workhouses to a national audience. By 1776 some 1912 parish and corporation workhouses had been established in England and Wales, housing almost 100,000 paupers. Although many parishes and pamphlet writers expected to earn money from the labour of the poor in workhouses, the vast majority of people obliged to take up residence in workhouses were ill, elderly, or children whose labour proved largely unprofitable. The demands, needs and expectations of the poor also ensured that workhouses came to take on the character of general social policy institutions, combining the functions of creche, and night shelter, geriatric ward and orphanage. In 1782, Thomas Gilbert finally succeeded in passing an act that established poor houses solely for the aged and infirm and introduced a system of outdoor relief for the able-bodied. This was the basis for the development of the Speenhamland system, which made financial provision for low-paid workers.
practices were of particular concern: the "roundsman" system, where overseers hired out paupers as cheap labour, and the Speenhamland system, which subsidised low wages with out relief.
"less eligibility": that the position of the pauper should have to enter a workhouse with conditions worse than that of the poorest 'free' labourer outside of the workhouse. the "workhouse test", that relief should only be available in the workhouse. 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 'outdoor relief' (relief given outside of a workhouse) should be abolished - was never implemented. The report recommended separate workhouses for the aged, infirm, children, able-bodied females and able-bodied males. The report also stated that parishes should be grouped into unions in order to spread the cost of workhouses and a central authority should be established in order to enforce these measures. The Poor Law Commission took two years to write its report, the recommendations passed easily through Parliament support by both main parties the Whigs and the Tories. The bill gained Royal Assent in 1834. Of those who opposed the Bill - of whom there were few were more concerned about the centralisation which the bill would bring rather than the underpinning philosophy of utilitarianism.
(b) conditions in workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to receive help; (c) workhouses were to be built in every parish or, if parishes were too small, in unions of parishes; (d) ratepayers in each parish or union had to elect a Board of Guardians to supervise the workhouse, to collect the Poor Rate and to send reports to the Central Poor Law Commission; (e) the three man Central Poor Law Commission would be appointed by the government and would be responsible for supervising the Amendment Act throughout the country. The Amendment Act did not ban all forms of outdoor relief. Not until the 1840s would the only method of relief be for the poor to enter a Workhouse. The Workhouses were to be made little more than prisons and families were normally separated upon entering a Workhouse. When the new Amendment was applied to the industrial North of England (an area the law had never considered during reviews), the system failed catastrophically as many found themselves temporarily unemployed, due to recessions or a fall in stock demands, so called 'cyclical unemployment' and were reluctant to enter a Workhouse, despite it being the only method of gaining aid. The abuses and shortcomings of the system are documented in the novels of Charles Dickens and Frances Trollope. Despite the aspirations of the reformers, the New Poor Law was unable to make the Workhouse as bad as life outside. The primary problem was that in order to make the diet of the Workhouse inmates "less eligible" than what they could expect outside, it would be necessary to starve the inmates beyond an acceptable level. It was for this reason that other ways were found to deter entrance to the Workhouses. These measures ranged from the introduction of prison style uniforms to the segregation of 'inmates' into yards - there were normally male, female, boy and girls yards. Fierce hostility and organised opposition from workers, politicians and religious leaders eventually lead to the Amendment Act being amended, removing the very harsh measures of the Workhouses to a certain degree. The Andover workhouse scandal, where conditions in the Andover Union Workhouse were found to be inhumane and dangerous, prompted a government review and the abolishment of the Poor Law Commission which was replaced with a Poor Law Board. From now on a Committee of Parliament was to administer the Poor Law, with a cabinet minister as head. There were a number of provisions that aimed at stopping previous discrimination against non-conformists and Roman Catholics.[4]
pensions and National Insurance, and from that period fewer people were covered by the system. Means tests were developed during the inter-war period, not as part of the Poor Law, but as part of the attempt to offer relief that was not affected by the stigma of pauperism. One aspect of the Poor Law that continued to cause resentment was that the burden of poor relief was not shared equally by rich and poor areas but, rather, fell most heavily on those areas in which poverty was at its worst. This was a central issue in the Poplar Rates Rebellion led by George Lansbury and others in 1921. Workhouses were officially abolished by the Local Government Act 1929, which from 1 April 1930 abolished the Unions and transferred their responsibilities to the county councils and county boroughs. Some however persisted into the 1940s. The remaining responsibility for the Poor Law was given to local authorities before final abolition in 1948.
Workhouse
[edit] References
1. 2. 3. 4. ^ The 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law ^ British social policy, 1601-1948 ^ 1834 Poor Law ^ "Poor Laws". Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company. [hide]
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Labour Test Order Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order Anti-Poor Law League Book of Opposition Murder Opposition Poor Law Commission Poor Law Board Local Government Board After the Poor Law Amendment Act Andover workhouse scandal Union Chargeability Act Royal Commission Majority Report Liberal reforms Minority Report Liberal reforms