5 - Poverty and Pauperism

Question 1

Failure of the earlier examples of Poor Relief

Answer 1

• Speenhamland System introducedd in 1795 – never a law
  = (after the Napoleonic Wars end in 1794)
  –> caused the 1830 Swing Riots
• Allowed landowners to not pay workers as the government would top it up
  = high taxes
• In 1817, Poor Relief cost £7.9 million
• abolished in 1834

Question 2

Individualism AND Collectivism arguement towards the Poor

Answer 2

I:
- William Pitt the Younger withdrew a Bill he had introduced that called for the extension of Poor Relief due to the idae of population control from Thomas Malthus

C:
- Thomas Paine’s Declaration of the Rights of Man (1790) was a direct response to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.
–> he was also a ‘founding father’ of America
- Robert Owen is viwed as one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement

Question 3

Utilitarianism arguement to Poverty

Answer 3

• Bentham criticised the Poor Bill introduced by William Pitt the Younger in 1796, in his ‘Observations on the Poor Bill’
• Chadwick drafted the famous report of 1834, recommending the reform of the old Poor Laws.
  –>In 1834, he was appointed secretary to the Poor Law commissioners
  = Led to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
• The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain was published in 1843 by Chadwick
  –>Chadwick’s report led to the Public Health Act of 1848

Question 4

The Rising Cost of the old system

Answer 4

• The Post-Napoleonic Depression = increase in claims of Poor Relief = £7.9 million in 1817
• By the early 19th century 1 in 4 men were in uniform so when the war ended they were unemployed
• Agricultural depression = the Year Without a Summer/the Lost Summer in 1816 — led to the passage of the Corn Laws in 1815
• middle class had gained the right to vote by the 1832 Great Reform Act so would want to change their taxes being wasted

Question 5

Attitudes towards the poor changing

Answer 5

• The government passed the Poor Employment Act in 1817, which made public money available to able-bodied paupers in public works such as road building = only short term solution
• Attitudes towards poverty did not change significantly as the Poor Law Amendment Act increased the use of workhouses

Question 6

What did the Royal Commission into the Poor Laws find

Answer 6

• The report was launched in 1832 (Whig)
• The wealthy investigator sfound that “the current Poor Laws were completely inadequate”
  –> However, only 10% of questionaires ent to parishes were returned
• It suggested the increase of workhouses for able-bodied paupers
  –> despite, them only making up 2% of the entire population.

Question 7

Workhouses facts

Answer 7

• It cost £6,200 to open a workhouse at Banbury
• Hustorian George Boyer estimated that indoor relief cost 50%-100% more than outdoor relief.
• The Andover workhouse scandal

Question 8

The growth of charity and self-help facts