3.4 New Poor Law 1834 - 1847

Question 1

What did the Whig government set up in February 1832

Answer 1

Royal commission of enquiry into the operations of the poor law

Question 2

How many questionnaires were sent out

Answer 2

3

Question 3

What percentage of parishes replied

Answer 3

10%

Question 4

Who were the 2 most notable commissioners

Answer 4

Nassur senior and Edwin Chadwick

Question 5

How many commissioners were there

Answer 5

9

Question 6

How many asssistant commissioners visited over ? Of parishes

Answer 6

26

3000

Question 7

What were the 4 recommendations of the poor law amendment act

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What were the 3 aims of the poor law

Answer 8

Reduce the cost of providing relief for the poor
Ensure only the destitute received relief
Provide a national system of poor relief

Question 9

What were the terms of poor law amendment act (4)

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Key individuals

Poor law commission

Answer 10

Thomas Frankland Lewis - Tory MP
George Nicholls - radical overseer
John Shaw-Lefevre - a lawyer and Whig MP

Pool law commission was independent of parliament

Question 11

The work and priorities of the amendment act

Answer 11

Workhouse construction - workhouses to be a deterrent

To make Settlement act laws clearer

Question 12

(Opposition to the new poor law)

What were rumours of the workhouses

Answer 12

Workhouses were places of extermination
Children in pauper families were killed
Bread was poisoned

Question 13

(Opposition to the new poor law)

Genuine fears of the new poor law

Answer 13

Fear it would break tradition
Attacked centralisation
Rate payers realised the outdoor relief was cheaper
Prone to cyclical unemployment to need more workhouses

Question 14

(Opposition to the new poor law)

Protest in the rural south to the new poor law

Answer 14

Buckinghamshire - protested against transportation of paupers
Eastanglia - newly built workhouses were attacked

Tol puddle martyrs were transported to Australia

Question 15

(Opposition to the new poor law)

Opposition in the north

Answer 15

Organised and fired up by demands of 10 hours’ movement
Anti-poor law associations emerged
Armed riots in Oldham rochedale

Question 16

(Opposition to the new poor law)

Richard Oastler

Answer 16

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

Question 17

(Opposition to the new poor law)

John Fielden

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Workhouse architecture

Answer 18

Y shaped workhouse
Cruciform shaped workhouse
- designed to segregate and also split up family

Question 19

Routine and rules

Answer 19

Given medical inspection upon arrival
Children sent to workhouse schools
Paupers had to wear uniform
They were up to 7 am to 8 pm

Question 20

Work

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Discipline

Answer 21

Staff used physical and verbal abuse
Punishment and rewards to maintain order o
Couldn’t be too loud

Question 22

Children

Answer 22

Not allowed to leave

Received basic education and medical attention

Question 23

Staff

Answer 23

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

Question 24

New paupers

Answer 24

Young people, vagrants, the elderly, children, single women, mentally ill

Question 25

Dietaries

Answer 25

Served to degrade and to discipline
6 model diets a workhouse has to choose from
Aim to sustain and maintain life but be boring and tedious
Meals had to be eaten in silence