3.4 Less eligibility: the Poor Amendment Act and its impact, 1832-47 Flashcards
When and why was the Royal commission set up?
1832 (Set up by Whig gov)
What were the long term concerns which led to the Royal commission to be set up?
Increasing cost of poor relief
Growing belief that PL was corrupt, or exploit the laws for their own benefit
Systems such as the Speenham, were actually encouraging large families and perpetuating a cycle of poverty. Roundsman did nothing to encourage labourers
Information on the Royal Commission (members and what they did)
9 commissioners= Nassau Senoir + Edwin Chadwick
26 assistant commissioners
Collected data in 2 ways
3 different questionnaires, around 10% replied
Visited around 3,000 parishes/about 1/5th of the PL districts
13 volumes publishes
Though the questionnaires were showed in order to elect the answers requires
Their survey was the first of its kind
Recommendations from the Royal Commission Report of early 1834
Separate workhouses
Parishes should be grouped into unions
All outdoor relief should stop
A central authority should be established, with powers to improve
Aims of PL= reduce the cost of providing relief for the poor, only the genuinely destitute should get relief, provide a national system
Findings of the Royal Commission
Overseers incompetent
Outdoor relief encouraged people to apply for poor rate
Growing population; parishes unable to cope with the distribution of poor rate
The poor law itself was a cause of poverty
Impact of the workhouses
Diet
Architecture
Routine, rules and regulation
Work
Discipline
Edwin Chadwick
salty
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, what it set down
A central authority should be set up to supervise the implementation and regulation of the administration of the Poor Law
Parishes grouped into unions
Each Poor Law Union was to establish a workhouse where the conditions were worse than those of the poorest independent worker
Outdoor relief discouraged (though was not abolished)
Poor Law commission
Main commissioners= Thomas Franklin Lewis, George Nicholls, John Shaw-Lefevre
Secretary= Edwin Chadwick
Independent from parliament
Could veto appointments, centralise accounting procedures, set up dietaries in the workhouse
Poor Law commission, priorities of the Amendment Act
Workhouse construction= deterrent to paupers (policy of less eligibility)
The Settlement laws= make them clearer, so they were followed and protected urban ratepayers from a sudden increase due to migration
Opposition to the PL Amendment Act successful
Anti-Poor Law movement was well organised and effective in the short term.
The government made concessions e.g. In 1838 the General Prohibitory Order was set aside for unions in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Few workhouses were built until the 1850s’ and 1860s, Todmorden one was not built until 1877
Opposition to the PL Amendment Act unsuccessful
The government did not repeal the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834
The new Poor Law established relatively easily in other urban areas
Opposition was short lived and was often a spontaneous reaction to unwelcome change, therefore unorganised and little chance of success
Where it was organised the unlikely combination of paternalistic Tories and working class radicals was bound to fall apart eventually.
Opposition to the PL Amendment Act
Rumour and propaganda
Anti-PL campaingers thought the new PL was made specifically to lower the national wage bill
Rumours the union workhouses were extermination centres
Opposition to the PL Amendment Act
Genuine fears
People didn’t like the centralisation implicit in the new PL, London based with no understanding for those who live outside it
The building of workhouses may lead to higher poor rates
Opposition to the PL Amendment Act
Protest in the rural south
People took to the streets in Buckinghamshire took to the street
East Anglia, newly built workhouses were attacked
