Paper 3 Depth 3

Question 1

Give context of the Andover scandal

Answer 1

• 1837- workhouse master Colin M’Dougal was charged with sexual abuse and the diet of paupers was below standards
• paupers had to suck bone marrow from old bones they were using in work
• M’Dougal was sacked, Henry Parker was assistant commissioner and didn’t do his job so was blamed and also sacked

Question 2

What were consequences of the Andover scandal?

Answer 2

• Parker was sacked - bad for the commission
• Chadwick supported Parker and argued the commission wasn’t working
• Parliament investigated and found that commissioners weren’t willing to investigate/correct errors of Andover
• brought up the problem that commissioners didn’t have any supervision/accountability

Question 3

How did Charity Organisation Society help the Poor Law?

Answer 3

• it’s views of ensuring deserving poor were in receipt of relief were listened to and supported- had influence
• 1880- used practices when visiting the poor which formed the basis of social work
• wanted to co-ordinate efforts with other charities

Question 4

How did Friendly Societies/Burial Societies help the Poor Law?

Answer 4

• friendly societies became a large movement by 1847- working people joined together to provide for themselves in times of need
• burial societies provided funerals for the poorest in society

Question 5

How did Trade Unions help the Poor Law?

Answer 5

• members could afford subscriptions to them because they were workers
  example: amalgamated society of engineers
• gave workers a range of benefits e.g pensions, sick pay
• negotiated/fought for better pay

Question 6

How did Co-Operative Societies help the Poor Law?

Answer 6

• food they sold was not adulterated (spoiled to make it look better e.g adding chalk to bread to make it appear white)
• gave many working class families the ability to plan their finances

Question 7

How did Charity Organisation Society undermine the Poor Law?

Answer 7

• they failed to recruit sufficient volunteers - wasn’t very effective
• rigorous investigative methods were resented by the poor
• COS had an overbearing attitude - resented by people

Question 8

How did Friendly Societies/Burial Societies undermine the Poor Law?

Answer 8

• many required an entry fee which wasn’t possible for the poorest in society
• some fined members who didn’t pay which just added to their debts
• they were badly managed and often collapsed

Question 9

How did Trade Unions undermine the Poor Law?

Answer 9

• not all unions were generous to people, some had no sickness fund - weren’t effective

Question 10

How did Co-operative Societies undermine the Poor Law?

Answer 10

• cash had to be spent there, not food tokens - didn’t provide for the poorest in society

Question 11

What did the 1847 Poor Law Board do and what was the extent of change?

Answer 11

• got rid of the old commission and commissioners and replaced it with the Poor Law Board
• Board has a President and 2 secretaries, President has to be an MP which means they are accountable because they would have to stand up in Parliament and answer public opinion
• more assistant commissioners added- went from 9 to 13

extent of change: original commissioners became secretaries- same people on the board so not much change e.g George Nicholls
- 9 assistant commissioners remained the same, only added 4 more people so not much change

Question 12

How did changes to Poor Law affect treatment of the ill?

Answer 12

• illness of the main breadwinner was a major cause of poverty and eventually pauperism- Poor Law Commissioners didn’t pay much attention to this

positive effect:
- Poor Law amendment act allowed employment of medical officers

• 1850s Poor Law Unions set up dispensaries of medicine to the general public and from 1852 a poor person who could not pay for medical treatment, qualified for outdoor relief
• Poor Law medical officers began complaining through the Poor Law Medical Officer’s Association about poor conditions in workhouse hospitals- letters of complaint were published in the Lancet and led to an enquiry about conditions
• Pauper hospitals set up to separate pauperism from illness- were the only places working people could get help
• 1867 Metropolitan Poor Act- organised London in ‘asylum districts’ which provided general specialist isolation and mental hospitals

negative effect: medical officers were poorly paid and guardians often left sick, injured or pregnant paupers to be treated in their homes- this kept cost low, in 1840 only £150k of Poor Law expenditure of £34.5 million went on medical services

Question 13

How did changes to Poor Law affect treatment of children?

Answer 13

• it was considered undesirable for children to mix with adult paupers, there was growing belief that education was to ensure that pauper children didn’t return to the workhouse as pauper adults, after 1834 children under 16 made up around 1/3 of all paupers in workhouses

positive:
- 1848 Poor Law Schools act- poor law unions combined to form district schools where pauper children were educated in buildings distant from the workhouse

• some progressive boards of guardians e.g Leeds and Manchester set up industrial schools where pauper children learnt how to trade
• in 1850s some boards of guardians banned district schools in favour of smaller, on-site schools where boys were taught a trade and girls were taught domestic skills
• 1860s started to board pauper children with w.c families- got them out of the workhouse
• 1870 Forster’s Education Act set up board schools with no church provision and guardians were encouraged to send their poor children here- enabled them to mix with children outside of the workhouse which was significant as children in or out of the workhouse had the same experiences

Question 14

How did changes to Poor Law affect money and the financial system?

Answer 14

positive:
- 1865 Union Chargeability act put financial pressure on the union as a whole not single parishes, each parish in a union contributed to a fund based on the value of your property, not the amount of people in the area- richer parishes paid more than poor areas which made it affordable overall

• some parishes said they couldn’t afford to provide for the ill/elderly/children so introduced 1869 Loan Act which allowed guardians to extend the repayment of loans to 60 years

negative:
- no uniformed rating system e.g owner of a property in London would pay the same as an owner of a similar property in another area although there are more poor people in London

• Poor Law guardians were middle class themselves so didn’t want to pay much in poor relief

Question 15

What was the impact of 1867 Parliamentary Reform Act?

Answer 15

• gave the vote to householders regardless of social class- number of voters doubled from 1 million to 2 million
• some new voters were w.c e.g in Oldham the majority of voters were w.c men

impact:
- there was demand that guardians of the poor responsible for workhouses and poor relief should be more democratic and sympathetic to the w.c to end rich controlling the poor e.g small parishes/councils looking after the poor were combined with others so the local rich people could no longer control people

• more w.c voters put pressure on govt to improve conditions for the poor e.g 1875 Public Health Act caused by more demand for health reform, 1871 Local Govt Board replaced the Poor Law Board

limited impact:
- there were 6111 parishes controlled by the rich but only 580 were combined

• Poor Law Board had same policies, no outdoor relief, deterrent workhouses and encouraged emigration to Australia or New Zealand

Question 16

What was the orthodoxy for poverty and poor relief?

Answer 16

• poverty was seen as positive in society because it provided motivation for people to work hard and better themselves
• people believed poverty was a sign of moral weakness, it was the pauper’s fault they were poor
• belief that poor people had to be punished and their lives corrected so that they were no longer poor

Question 17

How far did Samuel Smiles change orthodoxy for poverty and poor relief?

Answer 17

background: was editor for the Leeds Times until 1845, originally supported Chartism in the 1840s (getting w.c people the vote) but became concerned with growing militarism with it, especially with Fergus O’Connor

attitude towards poor: believed parliamentary reform by itself was not enough to lift people out of poverty, individual reform was needed where people had to change their attitudes and help themselves out of poverty

book published: Self Help published in 1859 which became an instant bestseller mostly among the middle class, he argued that through self help it was possible to accumulate wealth without having to show concern for your neighbours because self help was open to them too, everyone could raise themselves and their families out of poverty, believed only the genuinely destitute needed help

• final book was not published and was destroyed so suggests his ideas weren’t popular
  overall: DIDNT change orthodoxy for poverty because his ideas were in line with ideas at the time of self help etc, didn’t change attitudes

Question 18

How far did Henry Mayhew change orthodoxy for poverty and poor relief?

Answer 18

background: became a writer and journalist for ‘Morning Chronicle’ after being disinherited by his father
work: wrote a series of articles for ‘Morning Chronicle’ about lives of the London poor, later gathered them into a book ‘London Labour and the London Poor’, he visited homes and workplaces of the poor and described what he saw, heard and smelt- his investigative journalism revealed the extent to which London’s economy depended on unskilled labourers

attitude towards the poor: classified them into those who will work, cannot work and will not work

will work- able-bodied poor and manual workers with a specific skill that would be sold e.g jewellers in London, machine engineers in the Midlands, made up of people who did work by hand- casual work ready when times were good,virtually non-existent in times of slump

cannot work- some able-bodied poor who can’t work due to bad weather/failing factories etc, no redundancy money or unemployment benefit meant the labouring poor had to do best they could, some labourers were ill or injured e.g cracked/broken bones, also consisted of the elderly

will not work: beggars and vagrants, nearly always men and boys, 40,000 men and 100,000 destitute boys

overall: DID help with his works and classifying the poor, showed it wasn’t always poor people’s fault they were in poverty BUT reflected system of deserving and undeserving poor e.g deserving- labourers without jobs, injured and ill, elderly and undeserving- the destitute, criminals etc.

Question 19

How far did Charles Dickens change orthodoxy for poverty and poor relief?

Answer 19

background: came from poverty himself and experienced it first-hand, his father was thrown into Marshalsea prison for debt which put his whole family into poverty

work: began his career in journalism with contributions to ‘The Mirror of Parliament’ and ‘The True Sun’, wrote books like Oliver Twist (criticised workhouse system), Bleak House (about a sweeper who feels isolated from people) and Little Dorrit (Amy Dorrit’s father was imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea, so complex no one could work out how to release him)
- other novelists e.g Elizabeth Gaskell and Benjamin Disraeli focused on poverty and problems faced by those living close to the edge

attitude towards poor: believed the workhouse was a cruel institution that dehumanised people, was aware of the plight of the poor and provided them with a voice that captured interest and concern of middle class

popularity: had very large impact on Victorian attitudes towards poverty and welfare, captured attention by ending novels on a cliffhanger, popular with the middle class but there is evidence the illiterate poor gathered to have his works read to them
overall: DID change orthodoxy (although not directly) because he criticised current system of poor relief an attitudes towards poor people, had impact on many people regardless of class and made them realise plight of poor BUT didn’t have very direct impact on change, was subtle

Question 20

What was the impact of the Local Govt Board?

Answer 20

• took over administration of poor relief in 1871 and tried to reduce number of paupers receiving relief
• issued a circular condemning outdoor relief because they believed it stopped poor people’s desire to save up for bad times by giving them relief whenever they needed it
• supported local authorities when they were harsh on the able-bodied poor e.g Poplar in East London set up a deterrent workhouse that gave harsh work to the undeserving poor, other authorities followed- they were able to do this because more charities were beginning to provide payments to the deserving poor
• authorised boards of guardians to have emigration schemes where groups of paupers were moved to places like Australia
• although ratio of paupers in and out of workhouses differed, more paupers had outdoor relief