3.3 Paupers and pauperism

Question 1

What were the roles of the parishes and why were they critical to the administration of the old Poor Law?

Answer 1

They were the ones who set the Poor Rate and determined whether the poor were eligible for relief, how much relief should be given, and whether this should be provided as indoor/ outdoor relief - there were uncertainties regarding who to provide relief to

Question 2

At the start of the administration of the Elizabethan Poor Law, were the parish paid? Did this change later on?

Answer 2

No, they were unpaid, non-professional administrators, it was not until the mid-to-late 18th century that rapidly growing towns began to employ paid officials

Question 3

What did the parishes do? (relief)

Answer 3

they would administer relief to its own poor and collect taxes in order to provide appropriate relief

Question 4

Who were in charge of setting work to the poor under the Elizabethan poor law?

Answer 4

churchwardens and overseers of the poor who were appointed annually by the local justices of the peace (JPs)

Question 5

In practice, who were usually in charge of setting work the poor?

Answer 5

local farmers and respectable householder- those liable for the poor rates

Question 6

In theory, how were the administrations more sensitive to the poor and needy and show greater humanity?

Answer 6

since those seeking relief and those dispensing it would be known to one another (small parish units), local people would be better able to distinguish between those who genuinely needed help and those who did not

Question 7

In practice, how was the administration system open to exploitation?

Answer 7

• there were opportunities for tyrannical behaviours among local overseers of the poor, and for the settling of old scores and the perpetuating of grievances
• local class relationship and the habit of deference to one’s ‘betters’ tended to prevail

Question 8

What was a factor that affected locally raised finances?

Answer 8

local crisis such as poor harvests

Question 9

How was poverty viewed by the people?

Answer 9

necessary bc it was only the fear of poverty that motivated ppl to work

Question 10

meaning of indigence

Answer 10

inability of individuals to support themselves

Question 11

How did ppl view ‘indigence’?

Answer 11

that it was wrong and they wanted to force the poor to able able to stand on their own feet and participate in a healthy economy

Question 12

What was the point of the poor laws? Did they try to bring an end to poverty?

Answer 12

no, they just tried to prevent the ‘indigent’ from starving while at the same time forcing the poor to work rather than to have them become dependent upon the authorities for support

Question 13

Who were the ‘deserving poor’? + examples?

Answer 13

those who were poor through no fault of their own and were therefore deemed worthy of help and support-e.g. old, the sick and children

Question 14

Who were the ‘undeserving poor’? + examples?

Answer 14

those whose poverty was the result of some sort of perceived moral failures, e.g. drunkenness/ prostituion

Question 15

What was the treatment towards the undeserving poor?

Answer 15

they would still provide help but they would involve elements of both punishment and improvement

Question 16

What were some problems of the current system? (3)

Answer 16

• the undeserving poor taking advantage of the system and become more dependent on it
• parishes didn’t know who they should be responsible for
• e.g. people who weren’t born in that area but currently lives there, married couples, family where children were born in diff parishes

Question 17

What did the Elizabethan Poor Law state? (regarding the person claiming relief)

Answer 17

• that they had to be returned to the place of their birth in order to receive relief
• if birthplace was unknown – a place where they have lived for a year or more/ the last parish they passed without getting trouble w the law

Question 18

What did the Settlement Act 1662 do?

Answer 18

legal settlement was by birth, marriage, apprenticeship or inheritance, so if an individual wanted to claim relief, the responsible parish would be based on their legal settlement

Question 19

How were strangers staying in a parish treated under the Settlement Act 1662?

Answer 19

they could be removed (if they weren’t working) within 40 days/ if overseers considered they were likely to end up claiming poor relief

Question 20

In practice, how were strangers staying in a parish treated?

Answer 20

they would just be left alone until they tried to claim relief then they would be removed

Question 21

What were the changes made to the Settlement legislation in 1697?

Answer 21

strangers could be barred from entering a parish and finding work there unless they could produce a settlement certificate issued by their home parish which stated that they would be taken back and given relief there should they become needy

Question 22

What did the Removal Act 1795 do?

Answer 22

prevented strangers from being removed unless they tried to apply for relief

Question 23

Except for controlling a migrant population, what did the Settlement Laws also do?

Answer 23

they intended to ensure that the burden of providing for the poor did not overwhelm some parishes

Question 24

Why did parishes need to keep Poor Rates low?

Answer 24

because there was a burden of Poor Rate on parish property owners, who had elected them at first place, so they needed to ensure that Poor Rates are low

Question 25

What was done in attempt to keep Poor Rates low? (Settlement Act)

Answer 25

local vestry minutes would record the fortunes of pauper families and the manoeuvrings of overseers as paupers were brought back and forth across parish boundaries

Question 26

Were the Settlement Laws effective?

Answer 26

No, there was a mobile population that created growing cities of the late 18th and early 19th century, which made it hard for overseers and local magistrates to issue and carry out settlement orders, also the laws were hated by the poor and manipulated by the administrators

Question 27

What was outdoor relief?

Answer 27

assistance in the form of money, food or goods to alleviate povery

Question 28

Why did parishes generally provide outdoor relief?

Answer 28

it was easy to administer and could be applied flexibly, e.g. families can ask for relief is their principle breadwinner was ill or during cyclical unemployment

Question 29

Why had the system of outdoor relief start to become less effective from 1750?

Answer 29

industrialisation and a growing, mobile population began to test to the limits of ingenuity of magistrates and vestries in devising effective ways of meeting the needs of the able-bodies poor

Question 30

What happened in the 18th century that brought the Poor Law almost to the breaking point?

Answer 30

The Napoleonic Wars and a series of bad harvests meant that there were lagging wages and increasing food prices, this means that even when the main breadwinners were in full-time work, thousands of families struggles on the edge of starvation

Question 31

Did the central governmnet do anything to aid the increase food wages and lagging wages?

Answer 31

no, it was the parishes themselves that had to look for solutions themselves

Question 32

Why didn’t the Commons agree to the proposal (by Samuel Whitbread and PM William Pritt) to raise the wages and create a national poor law budget?

Answer 32

because the Commons were dominated by employers and wage-paying landowners, they all favoured a flexible allowance system, where low wages would be topped up by the parishes

Question 33

When was the Speenhamland system introduced?

Answer 33

1795

Question 34

What did the Speenhamland system do?

Answer 34

it estalished a formal relationship between the price of rbead and the number of dependants in a family

Question 35

Why was the Speenhamland system more widely adopted in the south and east of Britain at the start of the 19th century?

Answer 35

seasonal unemployment was more common there, especially after harvests, and this was exacerbated by the loss of cottage industries and the lack of availability of allotments on which villagers could grow their own vegetables + the loss of land due to enclosures

Question 36

Was the Speenhamland system used in the north?

Answer 36

rarely, they have livestock farming that usually provides full employment throughout the year

Question 37

What was a weakness of the Speenhamland system?

Answer 37

it didn’t have legal backing, and it was often abandoned or modified out of all recognition as overseers struggled to cope with changing economic conditions particularly after 1815

Question 38

What does the Roundsman system do?

Answer 38

in parishes where there were too many paupers for the work available, at least some work was found for each able-bodied pauper

Question 39

How does the Roundsman system provide work of all able-bodies paupers?

Answer 39

they were sent in rotation to local farmers who would provide them with work that either genuinely needed doing, or that had been invented for the purpose

Question 40

How were the Roudsman’s wages paid?

Answer 40

they were paid partly by parishes and partly by farmers, there was a ‘ticket’ which the pauper would bring to the potential employer, after the work was done, the ‘ticket’ would be signed by the employer to show that work had been done and a wage paid

Question 41

What was a problem with the Roundsman system?

Answer 41

over time, the proportion of a Roundsman’s wage paid by the parish increased as farmers took advantage of a system that did not require them to pay a set proportion of the wages of the paupers they employed

Question 42

What was the Labour Rate?

Answer 42

it involved an agreement between parishioners to establish a labour rate in addition to the usual Poor Rate, the total parish labour bill was worked out according to what was assumed to be the going market rate

Question 43

How did the Labour Rate work?

Answer 43

those who did not pay the going rate had to pay the difference between the wages they were paying and the going rate into the Poor Rate ‘pot’, whilst employers who paid paupers at the rate set by the parish would be eempt from paying poor rates

Question 44

Was the Labour Rate popular?

Answer 44

can’t be determined, but by 1832, about one parish in five were operating some sort of Labour Rate

Question 45

Under the Elizabethan Poor Law, how was the impotent poor looked after?

Answer 45

they were looked after in poorhouses or almshouses - indoor relief

Question 46

Who were the impotent poor?

Answer 46

sick, old, infirm and mentally ill

Question 47

Under the Elizabethan Poor Law, how did the able-bodied poor receive relief?

Answer 47

they were set to work in a workhouses while the continued to live at home

Question 48

Under the Elizabethan Poor Law, how were the poor people who refused to work treated?

Answer 48

they were punished in ‘house of correction’

Question 49

Under the Elizabethan Poor Law, where were the children sent?

Answer 49

they were sent to be apprenticed to a trade so that they could support themselves when they grew up

Question 50

Why was the division of the ‘poorhouses’, ‘workhouses’ and ‘houses of correction’ not effective?

Answer 50

it was not cost effective

Question 51

What was a solution to the high costs of the division of institutions?

Answer 51

amalgamation of workhouses

Question 52

Which few areas’ workhouses were combined at first?

Answer 52

Exeter, Hereford, Gloucester and Plymouth

Question 53

By1780, about how many workhouses were there throughout England and Wales?

Answer 53

about 2000 providing around 90,000 places for paupers

Question 54

What was one significant feature of the amalgamation of the workhouses?

Answer 54

authority was transferred away from parish overseers to elected and appointed guardians of the poor

Question 55

What was the advantage of having authority being transferred to guardians?

Answer 55

they have the required judgement and experience, and they were drawn from the ranks of magistrates, gentry and upper ranks of tenant farmers (while overseers were just local farmers and tradesmen)

Question 56

Towards the end of the 18th century, what were the 3 reasons why the attention of parliament was drawn to a more formal reform of the poor laws?

Answer 56

1) the end of the American War of Independence in 1782 led to demobilised and unemployed soldiers and sailors flooding the labour market
2) enclosure resulted in generalised long-term rural unemployment (even though it created some immediate employment opportunities)
3) early stages of industrialisation meant that there were more people in growing towns, which led to an increased pressure on urban parishes to provide relief

Question 57

Under Gilbert’s Act 1782, how could parishes combine in Poor Law unions for the purpose of building and maintaing a workhouse?

Answer 57

if two-thirds of the major landowners and ratepayers voted in favour, voting was weighted according to the rateable value of the voters’ property

Question 58

In the Gilber Unions, who were overseers replaced by?

Answer 58

paid guardians, appointed by local magistrates chosen from a list supplied by ratepayers

Question 59

Who were the Gilber Union workhouses only for? Who were excluded?

Answer 59

they were solely for the aged, the sick and the children, able-bodied workers were excluded

Question 60

How could the parish guardian help able-bodied workers?

Answer 60

they were to find work for able-bodied workers, only if this could not be found could outdoor relief be provided

Question 61

Was the Gilbert Act permissive or mandatory?

Answer 61

permissive

Question 62

When was the Gilbert Act introduced?

Answer 62

1782

Question 63

What were the 2 further pieces of legislation Gilbert passed throguh parliament?

Answer 63

1) overseers had to submit annual returns of Poor Law expenditure, which provides hard evidence of the cost of poor relief that was to be used by later reformers
2) ministers and churchwardens were required to provide information about local charities that mirrored, or supplemented, the support given by the Poor Law

Question 64

What was a problem of the Gilbert Act being permissive?

Answer 64

parishes were slow initially to adopt Gilbert’s Act and were under no compulsion to do so

Question 65

by 1834, when a new Poor Law was introduced, how many parishes were combined into Gilbert Union?

Answer 65

924 parishes combined into 67 Gilbert Unions

Question 66

By the end of 18th century, what were the 2 main sets of largely rural Poor Law unions in existence?

Answer 66

one was the ones created by local initiatives, another was the Gilbert Unions created under stricter terms - all were in the rural areas of the Midlands, south and the east

Question 67

When were the two Sturges-Bourne Acts introduced?

Answer 67

1818 and 1819

Question 68

Why were the intentions of the two Acts similar?

Answer 68

they both intended to tie the landowners, gentry and well-to-do more firmly into the administration of the poor laws

Question 69

How did the first Act help bring the landowners etc. more firmly into the administration of the poor laws?

Answer 69

it laid down how voting was to be managed when electing men to the parish select vestries that were responsible for the local administration of the poor laws, those occupying land worth less than 50pounds had one vote, for ever further 25 pounds, a man had another vote up to max six

Question 70

What is a drawback of the first Sturges-Bourne Act?

Answer 70

major landowners would have 6 times the power and influence of smallholders

Question 71

What was a select vestry?

Answer 71

a group of parishioners who met in the vestry of a church, members were selected according to a specific criteria

Question 72

What did the second Sturges-Bourne Act do?

Answer 72

it added a resident clergyman to the members of vestry, it also instructed vestries to take account of an applicant’s character and circumstances, distinguishing between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor when considering who should receive relief

Question 73

Was destitution a sufficient reason to obtain relief?

Answer 73

no

Question 74

Could decisions of select vestries be overturned?

Answer 74

yes, it could be overturned if 2 JPs agreed that it was wrong

Question 75

What was a success of the Sturges-Bourne Acts?

Answer 75

by 1825, 46 select vestries had been formed and many experienced a remarkable drop in the cost of relief

Question 76

Give an example of a parish who had a significant drop in the cost of relief

Answer 76

2 parishes in Berkshire saw a reduction of 33% during the first year of the operation of their select vestries, they used the Speenhamland system of outdoor relief

Question 77

Nationally, how many % of costs was reduced after the first year of adminsitering relief?

Answer 77

9%

Question 78

What was the reduction of the costs at the expense of?

Answer 78

the destitue, not all of those who were refused relief were scroungers, thousands were genuinely destitute and remained so

Question 79

What was the policy of ‘less eligibility’?

Answer 79

that order within the Poor Law system could only be restotred and then maintained if potential paupers were forced to provide for themselves because they feared the workhouse, they had to make conditions of the workhouses less desirable than conditions outside

Question 80

What was the workhosue test?

Answer 80

that only the genuinely needy would accept relief on the terms that workhoues were ‘less eligible’, children, the sick, the disabled and the elderly were exempy from the this policy

Question 81

What happened to the provision of relief since children, elderly, disabled etc. were usually part of a family?

Answer 81

it usually resulted in families being split up or remaining destitution

Question 82

When were the wars with France?

Answer 82

1783-1815

Question 83

How did the end of wars with France increase pressure for change?

Answer 83

it led to greater demands of poor relief

Question 84

How did the good harvests in 1813 and 1814 negatively impact English farmers?

Answer 84

since harvests were good, cheap foreign corn could be imported from Europe, which forced English farmers to keep their prices low, this created problems for many as they had wartime taxes to pay and some had interest to pay on loans to cover the cost of enclosure

Question 85

How did the wartime taxes, loans etc. lead to increased demand for relief?

Answer 85

since many went bankrupt, which meant unemployment for their labourers, many were forced to ask for relief with the little work that could be provided, farmers who survived were forced to reduce the wages, which pushes more ppl into pauperism

Question 86

What Law was introduced in 1815 in repsonse to the stiutation created by cheap foreign corns?

Answer 86

the Corn Laws

Question 87

In theory, what did the Corn Laws intend to do?

Answer 87

they wouldn’t allow the import of foreign corns until the price of British corn reached 80 shillings a quarter in order to keep the price of corn and bread steady, and since the landowner’s profits would not fluctuate wildly, wages would remain stable as well

Question 88

Why did people resent the Corn Laws?

Answer 88

they believed they kept the price of bread artificially high, and the poor could not afford to buy sufficient bread, which was their staple diet, and the systems fixing relief to the price of bread struggled to provide sufficient relief

Question 89

What did the post-war distress result in?

Answer 89

more people than ever before claimed relief

Question 90

When were the crisis years after war? What happened to expenditure on poor relief?

Answer 90

in 1817-1819, returning soldiers, the continuing dislocation of trade, appalling weather and poor harvests led to expenditure reaching 8m pounds per year

Question 91

How was the situation exacerbated which caused more financial pressure for change in the Poor Law?

Answer 91

the continuing radical protests, they forced governments to suspend habeas corpus in 1817 and introduce the Six Acts, which confirmed its policy of repression and the curtailing of individual liberties

Question 92

What were the problems created by the suspension of habeas corpus and the Six Acts?

Answer 92

the government appeared repressive, which means they were unlikely to legislate for any easement in the provision of relief

Question 93

What did the 1817 report of the Select Committee reveal? How did it exacerbate public dissatisfication of the Poor Law?

Answer 93

It condemned the evils of the Poor Law as being the creators of poverty

Question 94

When did urban protests (that was matched by rural discontent) came to a head? (aka Swing Riots)

Answer 94

1830

Question 95

What did the rioters in the protests want?

Answer 95

higher wages, removal of threshing machines that deprived them of autumn and winter employment, increase relief (later on) as the threshing machines were forcing farmers into pauperism

Question 96

In the villagers of Brede, Sussex, a group of laboureres launched a local movement against who and what did they demand?

Answer 96

the overseers of the poor, they demanded higher allowances and the removal of an assistant overseers who constantly used parish cart to remove paupers

Question 97

What did the rioters in Headly and Selbourne riot against?

Answer 97

threshing machines, tithes and overseers of the poor

Question 98

As the rioting spread, what did the rioters do?

Answer 98

repeated arson attacks against the propoerty of overseers of the poor and their assistants

Question 99

Did the Swing Riots have revolutionary intent?

Answer 99

no, but it was enough for the authorities to think that the revolt was organised and to believe they had to face up to a very real threat of revolution

Question 100

How did the central government react to the swing riots?

Answer 100

a special commission of three judges was appointed to try the rioters, 19 rioters were sentenced to deaths, others were given harsh treatments like imprisonment, exile, fine

Question 101

How did the Swing Riots pressure the government into taking action?

Answer 101

they created a political climate where reform of the poor laws was becoming more than a possibility, it was an urgent necessity

Question 102

How much had the cost of poor relief rise from 1783-1833?

Answer 102

in 1783-85, tbe average expenditure was 2004 pounds and in 1829-33 it was at around 6800

Question 103

Traditionally, how did parishes raise money for poor relief?

Answer 103

through tax on property

Question 104

In the early 19th century, why did the cost of poor relief rise by a lot?

Answer 104

thousands were crossing the line that divided poor from pauperism and enlarging the exisiting underclass, and also because of industrialisation, where hundreds of people crowded into parishes in industrialising areas and claimed relief that parishes could barely afford to pay

Question 105

Except for the issue of increasing poor rates, what were other factors that pressured governments to change?

Answer 105

the perception among the rate-paying classes that the poor were increasingly idle (so they’d invest less to poor relief) and the fear of revolutionary potential

Question 106

Why was Nottinghamshire the fifth-most industrialised country in Britain?

Answer 106

it had a thiriving framework knitting industry, and industrial expansion provided alternative work when there was a downturn in rural employment

Question 107

Why was the Revered JT Becher of Southwell significant in Nottinghamshire?

Answer 107

he was the driving force behind the amalgamation in 1823 of 49 parishes into a large Gilbert Act Union and the building of two new workhouses at Upton and Southwell - even though they were deterrent workhouses with strict segregation and classification, Becher still insisted on kindness being shown to the aged and infirm

Question 108

Under Becher, what were the workhouse schools that were established?

Answer 108

they were for children and were also open to children ‘outside’ if there were more than 4 children in a family

Question 109

Although Reverend Robert Lowe of Bingham also agreed that there was a need for deterrance, what did he insist upon? (workhouses)

Answer 109

in 1818, he said that outdoor relief should be abolished and the way to do that was by making the workhouse a place of fear

Question 110

What was George Nicholls’s view on workhouses/ outdoor relief?

Answer 110

that there was a need for deterrance and reached a conclusion that allowance systems were themselves responsible for the continuation of poverty

Question 111

When did George Nicholls write the book ‘Eight Letters on the Management of the Poor’, what did he claim?

Answer 111

1822, he claimed to have ended outdoor relief through the creation of well-regulated workhouse

Question 112

In 1830, which JP from Gloucestershire started reforming poor law administration?

Answer 112

J.H Lloyd Baker

Question 113

What reforms did Lloyd Baker introduce to reform the poor law administration?

Answer 113

to abolish outdoor relief and to make the workhouse so dreadful that only the desperate would seek admission

Question 114

Was Baker’s reforms to poor law administration successful?

Answer 114

yes, within 2 years, the numbers of paupers fell from 977 to 125

Question 115

Except for Gloucestershire, which two counties also introduced rigorous reforms to poor law administration?

Answer 115

Cornwall and Derbyshire

Question 116

What approach did Reverend Thomas Whately of Cookham in Berkshire take towards the allowance ssytem (poor law admin.)?

Answer 116

when the able-bodied applied for relief, he offered them work at a lower rate than that which was generally paid in the parish

Question 117

What did the approach by Whately reveal?

Answer 117

that the 63 long-term recipients immediately left the parish (so it suggests that the able-bodied poor were claiming relief from parishes just because they paid higher)

Question 118

Was the adoption of aggressive policies in attempt to lower the costs of poor rates and reduce pauperism a universal approach?

Answer 118

no, there were still areas where local magistrates and local overseers took a paternalistic approach towards the poor

Question 119

What was the economist Thomas Malthus’s argument and the link to Poor Law?

Answer 119

he argued that population had an inbuilt propensity to rise and outstrip all available food supplies, and the Poor Law made this worse because it encouraged the poor to have more children so that they could claim more relief

Question 120

Why did Malthus favour the abolition of Poor Law?

Answer 120

so that the poor would have to keep their families small because there would be no financial advantage to having more children, this will allow wages to rise bc the Poor Rate would not longer be levied and employers could afford to pay their employees more

Question 121

Why did David Ricardo argue for the abolition of the Poor Laws?

Answer 121

he put forward the idea of an iron law of wages, believing that there was a wages fund from which money for wages and poor relief was paid, therefore, the more that was paid out in poor relief, the less there was available for wages, and due to less money available for wages, more people would be draw to pauperism- endless cycle, the only way to break this is by abolishing the Poor Laws

Question 122

What did Thomas Paine propose?

Answer 122

a property tax on the very rich to be used for a variety of support systems for the poor, among these being family allowances and old age pensions

Question 123

What did Paine imply about the able-bodied poor?

Answer 123

that they had to go into workhouses before they could receive relief

Question 124

What did Robert Owen do in the early 19th century?

Answer 124

At his New Lanark site, there was a mill worker’s village, and in this community, no adult was allowed to work for more than 10 hours, sick pay was provided when illnesses or accidents occured, children were educated until they were 10 and later work in the mills, corporal punishment were forbidden

Question 125

Did Owen’s community work?

Answer 125

yes, his mills ran at a profit

Question 126

What did Owen suggest about co-operative communities?

Answer 126

everyone would share in the profits of whatever organisation they worked for, so the harder they worked, the greater their income would be, and there would be no need for poor relief, care would only need to be taken of the impotent poor

Question 127

What is utilitarianism?

Answer 127

the theory that society shold be organised so as to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, so legislatures should be guided only by a desire to maximise happiness and minimise misery

Question 128

How did Bentham view relief?

Answer 128

that it was a public responsibilit that should be organised by central government

Question 129

Who did Bentham believe should be responsible for keeping statistics, inspecting workhouses etc.?

Answer 129

an additional government minister

Question 130

Did Bentham support the retention of outdoor relief?

Answer 130

no, he believed all outdoor relief should be abolished, relief should only be given to those prepared to enter a workhouse, where conditions would be no better than those enjoyed by the poorest labourer outside the workhoue

Question 131

According to Bentham’s beliefs, should therer be discrimination between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor?

Answer 131

no, there were only the destitute, without the means of support and so worthy of relief

Question 132

When did government finally take action in the early 19th century? What did they do?

Answer 132

1832, the Royal Commission was appointed to conduct an investigation into the operation of the poor laws

Question 133

Why did the government take action in 1832?

Answer 133

there was a general election in 1831 that brought about a change of government, the increasing costs of poor relief pushed the government into taking action