3.4 New Poor Law 1834 - 1847 Flashcards
What did the Whig government set up in February 1832
Royal commission of enquiry into the operations of the poor law
How many questionnaires were sent out
3
What percentage of parishes replied
10%
Who were the 2 most notable commissioners
Nassur senior and Edwin Chadwick
How many commissioners were there
9
How many asssistant commissioners visited over ? Of parishes
26
3000
What were the 4 recommendations of the poor law amendment act
Separate workhouses for m/w/c/e
Parishes should group together to become unions
All outdoor relief should stop
A new central authority should be established
What were the 3 aims of the poor law
Reduce the cost of providing relief for the poor
Ensure only the destitute received relief
Provide a national system of poor relief
What were the terms of poor law amendment act (4)
A central authority should supervise the implementation and regulate the administration of the poor law
Parishes become unions to prove relief effectively
Conditions in the workhouse should be worse than those of the poorest labourer
Outdoor relief should be discouraged
Key individuals
Poor law commission
Thomas Frankland Lewis - Tory MP
George Nicholls - radical overseer
John Shaw-Lefevre - a lawyer and Whig MP
Pool law commission was independent of parliament
The work and priorities of the amendment act
Workhouse construction - workhouses to be a deterrent
To make Settlement act laws clearer
(Opposition to the new poor law)
What were rumours of the workhouses
Workhouses were places of extermination
Children in pauper families were killed
Bread was poisoned
(Opposition to the new poor law)
Genuine fears of the new poor law
Fear it would break tradition
Attacked centralisation
Rate payers realised the outdoor relief was cheaper
Prone to cyclical unemployment to need more workhouses
(Opposition to the new poor law)
Protest in the rural south to the new poor law
Buckinghamshire - protested against transportation of paupers
Eastanglia - newly built workhouses were attacked
Tol puddle martyrs were transported to Australia
(Opposition to the new poor law)
Opposition in the north
Organised and fired up by demands of 10 hours’ movement
Anti-poor law associations emerged
Armed riots in Oldham rochedale
(Opposition to the new poor law)
Richard Oastler
Believed poor law commissioners were too powerful
Supplied factories with cheap labour - lowered wage worsening conditions increasing paupersim
Combining parishes resulted in depersonalisation
1838 he encouraged workers to strike
(Opposition to the new poor law)
John Fielden
Active member of the anti-poor law
TolMorden tried to implement new poor law
Threatened to close family mills unless the poor law union resigned
3000 out of work causing riots
Fielden refused to cooperate with authorities
Workhouse architecture
Y shaped workhouse
Cruciform shaped workhouse
- designed to segregate and also split up family
Routine and rules
Given medical inspection upon arrival
Children sent to workhouse schools
Paupers had to wear uniform
They were up to 7 am to 8 pm
Work
Was dispiriting and monotonous
Work had to be done in the confines of the workhouse
It’s aim was to prepare them to go back into the workforce
Discipline
Staff used physical and verbal abuse
Punishment and rewards to maintain order o
Couldn’t be too loud
Children
Not allowed to leave
Received basic education and medical attention
Staff
The master and matron were in charge, they had the power to make the workhouse a place of grim, terror and dread
The master - discipline and economy
The matron - female paupers and the domestic side
New paupers
Young people, vagrants, the elderly, children, single women, mentally ill
