Less Eligibility Flashcards
How did the Commission of Enquiry work?
Set up 1832, finished research in 1834. Consisted of 9 commissioners including Nassau Sr. and Edwin Chadwick. Neither were unbiased and so the enquiry was hugely.
Questionnaires were sent to the parishes but only 10% replied. Each commissioner went and surveyed around 3000 parishes. All the information they found was published in 13 volumes of their report.
The questions were skewed to help get the desired answers.
What did the Commission of Enquiry find and recommend?
Found that allowances to supplement wages were commonplace which they weren’t as they mostly stopped in the 1820s.
Published 1834
Attacked the old poor law for its corruption. Made sure to keep the distinction between poverty and the natural order.
Recommended separate workhouses for the aged, infirm, children, men and women. Parishes should be grouped into unions to provide workhouses.
All outdoor relief should stop and workhouses must be unappealing.
Central authority should be created to enforce regulations.
Aimed to reduce cost, ensure only the genuinely destitute were helped and nationalise the system.
Describe the Poor Law Amendment Act.
Passed 1834.
Followed the recommendations of the Royal Commission.
Lots of opposition from Northern MPs.
Central authority created to supervise the administration of relief.
Parishes should be grouped together to provide relief.
Unions should establish a workhouse in which inmates would live in conditions that were worse than those of the poorest independent labourer.
Outdoor relief was heavily discouraged, but not abolished.
Describe the Poor Law Commission.
Set up to administer poor relief.
Was independent of parliament which meant that it had no spokesperson in parliament.
Didn’t have any direct power.
Aimed to transfer unemployed people in rural areas to industrialised ones and protect urban ratepayers from sudden demand.
The first was achieved by building workhouses and prohibiting outdoor relief in the South in the 1830s. this was extended to the North in 1842. Outdoor relief was the must humane and also the cheapest form of relief was officially prohibited by 1844 General Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order.
Settlement laws continued to protect rate payers, by 1840 40,000 paupers had been removed from the parish they were living in so they didn’t have to be helped.
Describe how workhouses deterred people.
Architecture - Large, intimidating buildings. They had wings to separate men, women, and children
Rules - Split apart families, children were apprenticed without their parents knowledge. They had a strict timetable, uncomfortable uniforms. They had a weekly, supervised bath. No personal possessions were allowed.
Work - Had to be carried out inside the workhouse boundaries and not take jobs from locals. Women and children would maintain the workhouse. Others would make sacks, unravel rope and chop wood.
Diet - Poor Law Commission gave 6 standard diets which were designed to just keep them alive. They were to be eaten in silence and it was often cold. The food was the same every week.
Discipline - Staff used verbal and physical abuse, there were often riots. Lots of cases of sexual abuse by both the staff and the paupers.
Describe rumour and propaganda as opposition to the Poor Law Amendment Act.
The Book of Murder was believed to be a guide for commissioners and suggested that pauper children should be gassed.
In Devon people believed bread that was distributed as a part of the outdoor relief had been poisoned to reduce the people claiming relief.
People thought that if a family had more then 3 children then they were killed.
People thought that the Poor Law was introduced to reduce the national wage bill and the mill owners in the north wanted unemployed workers from the south to work for them so limited rising wages.
Describe people’s genuine fears against the Poor Law Amendment Act.
Centralised system.
Feared it would break the paternalistic bond between the rich and the poor.
Rate payers thought workhouses would cost them more than outdoor relief.
In northern areas the cost of building a workhouse would make it impossible.
Describe opposition to the Poor Law Amendment Act in the South
People rioted in Buckinghamshire against the moving of people in workhouses and special police force had to be brought in in order to do it.
A workhouse in Ipswich was badly damaged and police were assaulted.
Many people still offered outdoor relief.
Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to transportation for swearing illegal oaths which were to protest their boss, many people protested in London and their conviction was reversed.
Most of the southern resistance was passive, helped by good harvests and the law was made for them.
Describe opposition to the Poor Law Amendment Act in the North
Much more angry than in the south.
Many areas had adapted their relief to work for their area and the new law wouldn’t have worked well.
Armed riots in Oldham, Rochdale, Todmorden, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, (Greater Manchester and West Riding).
Guardian of Huddersfield said it would be dangerous to put the poor law into action.
Troops had to be sent from London to stop riots in Dewsbury and Bradford.
The law wasn’t implemented in Todmorden until 1877 due to o[position from mill owners and their workers.
Workers attacked a workhouse in Stockport and distributed bread to the poor.
Who was Richard Oastler?
Had been a successful steward of Fixby, an estate near Huddersfield, when the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed.
He supported the Ten Hours ‘ Movement and sympathised with workers.
Believed the commissioners who he thought were too powerful. Thought the use of agricultural workers in factories would lead to reduced wages and deterioration of living conditions.
Thought the amalgamation of the parishes would lead to less individualised support.
By 1838 he was encouraging workers to strike and sabotage.
He was removed from his post but it didn’t stop him, he now had more time to organise resistance.
Without an income he ended up in debtors’ prison, his followers raised money in order to free him after 4 years.
Who was John Fielden?
Elected MP of Oldham in 1832.
He sat with the Whigs but was very much his own person with his own radical ideas.
He unsuccessfully tried to get the Act repealed for years.
He worked for the parliamentary committee into the working of the new Poor Law. When it found it was good he was critical and said evidence was only taken from people who were favourable to the law.
He also owned a mill in Todmorden with his brother and they were the largest employers in the area.
When they tried to implement the law in Todmorden, he threatened closing down his mill, they tried to implement it so he did and 3000 people lost their jobs. This caused huge violence by the workers towards the poor law. He reopened the factory after a week and paid the workers for the week missed. The violence didn’t end and the situation was so volatile in Todmorden that it wasn’t fully implemented until 1877
How effective was the anti-Poor Law movement?
It was well- organised and whilst it didn’t completely prevent it it did halt it and many workhouses weren’t built until the 1860s and not in Todmorden until 1877.
The opposition in many areas was short lived.
