Changing Attitudes after the Poor Law Amendment Act

Question 1

PLAA

Answer 1

• When the PLAA was published in 1834 its moral tone was clear
• It argued that employers were helping to keep wages artificially low so that they would be made up from the rates

Question 2

1838 Poor Law Commission

Answer 2

• Oversaw new legislation
• 15,000 smaller parishes organised into 600 larger ones to allow for larger workhouses to be built for common usage (no concern for paupers, only housed them)

Question 3

Workhouse eligibility

Answer 3

• Less eligibility applied to those workhouses had to be built for the able bodied who could not find employments
• The utilitarian principle that deliberately made poor relief harsh so that only the most destitute and those truly unable to help themselves would apply for it

Question 4

Relief of workhouses

Answer 4

• The workhouse test was to test if a pauper was sufficiently in need by accepting a plan in a workhouse
• Refusing the offer of relief would mean you failed the test and were given nothing

Question 5

Poor conditions in workhouses

Answer 5

• 10 hours a day with no break
• Guildford workhouse - breaking stones for road building
• Newbury workhouse, Berkshire - every process involved with the manufacture of textiles
• Southwell workhouse - under Rev. Thomas Becher; banned beer, snuff, tobacco
• Basic diet of bread, cheese and gruel
• Once a week had soup, meat and potatoes
• Tea was only available for the elderly
• Uniform and separation between men and women

Question 6

Charles Dickens

Answer 6

• Charles Dickens had experience poverty first hand as his parents had been put in a workhouse and he was forced to work at the age of 12 in a shoe blacking factory
• Gave a voice to the poorest in society by having this as a recurring theme in his works such as Christmas Carol, Hard Times and Oliver Twist. Use of serial novels meant it was cheaper for many to afford which also spread the message further

Question 7

Henry Mayhew

Answer 7

• Henry Mayhew produced a 4 volume work called “London Labour and London Poor” catalogued in more than 2 million words the experiences of Britain’s poor
• Perhaps the first study of this topic conducted by a private individual and it challenge the view of idleness being the issue. Instead it showed that it was insufficient wages that made people dependent on relief

Question 8

Thomas Carlyle

Answer 8

• Thomas Carlyle’s work Past and Present published in 1843 drew attention to the growing divide
• Regarded as one of the great thinkers of the time he was well read among middle class reformers

Question 9

Self-Help - growth in middle class

Answer 9

Gave rise to a stronger feeling of Christian charity which consequently informed the newfound interest in the poor. Also many wanted to help people achieve the levels of success they had also achieved

Question 10

Self-Help - society created

Answer 10

• The Charity Organisation Society formed in 1869
• The charity organisation society served to assess people into the categories of deserving and undeserving poor, and so to limit the relief given out by employers. It aimed to not help everyone, but to ensure that the ‘deserving’ got back on their feet.

Question 11

Workhouse Visiting Society

Answer 11

• Workhouse Visiting Society set up in 1858 collected info on the experiences of the poor
• Allowed a much more formal approach to private relief to be organised. Solid statistics to back up philanthropic work

Question 12

Angelina Burdett-Coutts

Answer 12

• Angelina Burdett-Coutts was a leading female philanthropist when she inherited £1.8 million to become the richest woman in England
• With Charles Dickens she co-founded a hospital for poor women in 1847 called Urania for those who had turned to prostitution and funded education projects for Britain’s poorest children. Her purpose was to furnish the poor with the skills that they might need to get themselves out of poverty

Question 13

Lancet Medical Journal

Answer 13

• 1865
• This Medical journal investigated the quality of medical care in London workhouses and the its findings led to the passage of the metropolitan poor act in 1867

Question 14

1842 Outdoor Labour Test Order

Answer 14

• Allowed the use of outdoor relief for able-boded workers during times of economic decline, despite the PLAA prohibiting it

Question 15

1867 Metropolitan Poor Act

Answer 15

• Demanded that medical facilities be separate from the workhouse itself and provided for the creation of the Metropolitan Asylum Board that took over the responsibility of caring for sick paupers
• These advances paved the way for specialised care of the sick but also begun to modernise the system of general poor relief
• This begun to involve the poor themselves in finding solutions rather than treating them as the problem that needed solving

Question 16

1844 Outdoor Relief

Answer 16

Prohibitory order is passed, bringing an end to its provision

Question 17

1852 Outdoor Relief

Answer 17

Outdoor Relief Regulation Order limited the availability of outdoor relief to such a great extent that even the sick and infirm struggled to get any outdoor relief

Question 18

What was the Andover Scandal>

Answer 18

• 1845
• Regime established 1836 and it epitomised the belief in deterrence
• Purpose built cells
• Separated women and children (families)
• Jobs included crushing bones for fertiliser - little food available so meat was eaten off of the bones or marrow was sucked out
• Subsistence levels of food kept the Board of Guardians happy because it meant costs were lower, thus leading to a low Poor Rate
• 61 paupers were sent to prison for having deliberately committed offences to escape the institution

Question 19

Andover Scandal - role of Henry Mayhew

Answer 19

He published London Labour and the London Poor in 1849 that concluded it was poor wages that produced pauperism because they were insufficient to protect the recipients from unforeseen fluctuations in the economy. This challenged the belief that idleness was the real cause of poverty

Question 20

What replaced the Poor Law Commission after the Andover Scandal?

Answer 20

Poor Law Board - signalled relief brought more closely under government control

Question 21

Workhouse Visiting Society

Answer 21

• 1858
• Undertook checks on workhouses, the information that they collated through doing this agitated better treatment of the sick and elderly

Question 22

Despite the Andover Scandal, how many more workhouses were set up?

Answer 22

100 more built between 1851 and 1866

Question 23

Conclusion/Judgement

Answer 23

Attitudes depended on the type of person or social standing of the individual. More working class and middle class attitudes started to change due to the concept of self help, charity and philanthropic work as well as more subtle influences like the fictions of Charles Darwin. However, government and elite attitudes continue to consider the previous individualism and utilitarianism viewpoints and the pressures financially than those of humanitarian design.