Knowledge test - Workhouses Flashcards
What nickname were workhouses given?
Bastilles
What influenced the nickname ‘Bastilles’?
The French Revolution
Give 2 reasons why workhouses were repellent to the poor.
Situated at some distance from the applicant’s home, impersonal, threatening strict regime
What rumours circulated about the workhouses?
They had been built as extermination centres for the poor
What did Thomas Malthus propose?
That population growth would outstrip food production
What was the ‘Book of Murder’?
Anti-poor law propaganda based on 2 anonymous pamphlets which discussed the possibility of gassing pauper children to reduce the population.
Why did the new workhouses make no distinctions between deserving and undeserving poor?
Everyone was thrown together in the same workhouse
Why did Commission proposals to move unemployed labourers to the North of England 1835-37 create outrage?
Labourers argued it was part of a government plan to drive down wages
Why did Old Poor Law Overseers oppose the new system?
To protect their existing powers, because they believed they operated a successful and viable system in their own parish, cost of building the workhouse would be expensive and unsustainable.
Why were urban areas a special case?
Because industrial work put lots of workers out of work for short periods of time and then the workhouses would stand empty
What was the problem in agricultural areas with the idea of workhouses?
Because outdoor relief cost about half of what a workhouse would cost
Why did Richard Oastler oppose the new Poor Law?
Because he said it would break up society
Why was John Walter singled out for criticism?
He was Berkshire magistrate paying generous outdoor relief who opposed the new Poor Law in the Times
Why were influential landowners shocked?
At the power of the new commission’s powers
How did opposition manifest itself in the rural areas of Britain? Give an example.
Riot and disorder in the south e.g. Amersham – Riot Act 1835, Kent 1835, East Anglia 1844
