Poor Law Amendment Act & its impact Flashcards
Terms of the PLAA?
1834
- A central authority should be set up to supervise the implementation and regulate administration of the poor law
- Parishes were to be grouped together to form poor law unions to provide more efficient relief
- Each poor law union was to establish a workhouse where inmates would live in harsh conditions
- Outdoor relief for able bodied poor was discouraged but not abolished
What did the designs of the workhouse provide?
- designs provided for the division and segregation of paupers
- Segregation enabled the workhouse officers to provide appropriately for each class of pauper
- it added to the deterrence factor by splitting up families,
- lose theis individuality and were beginning to be treated as impersonal units.
What was the regime of the workhouse like?
- Workhouse life was governed by rules and regulations outlined by the commissioners in London - designed to be unpleasant as to deter papers from seeking relief
- Pauper families were split up upon entry
- Pauper children were sent to workhouse school without parents knowledge or consent
- Paupers had weekly baths and were watched by workhouse staff which added to loss of privacy
- No personal possessions were allowed- loss of identity
What was work like in the workhouses?
- Primary aim was to restore them to work workforce outside
- mainly women and children, worked to help maintain the workhouse. They worked in the laundries, kitchens and sick rooms. They worked as cleaners, attendants, childminders and sloppers-out
- They made sacks
- unravelled ropes so that the fibres could be used again
- they chopped wood and smashed limestone into small pieces to make roads
What were the diets like of paupers in the workhouses?
- The Poor Law commissioners issued six model diets from which boards of guardians could choose the one, or ones, that best suited their pockets and inclinations
- aim of the published dietaries was to sustain and maintain life, but to make mealtimes as boring and tedious as possible. Paupers were to get no pleasure from the food they ate.
- Until 1842 Paupers had to eat their food in silence
- Ate poor quality meals consisting of meat, oatmeal, cheese and bread
- Some workhouses did not allow paupers to eat with cutlery - use hands
What methods were used to maintain discipline in workhouses?
Staff and paupers frequently hurled verbal and physical abuse at one another, exchanges between paupers themselves often involved bullying and blackmail instances ranged from full scale riots to hurling insults
Workhouse staff used a complicated system of rewards and punishments to maintain order paupers could be punished for being in the wrong part of the building, making too much noise, working too slowly or being disrespectful towards members of staff
Most workhouses had punishment cells and paupers could be sent there for minor misdemeanours
Some workhouses developed their own refinements such as forcing paupers to spend the night at the workhouse mortuary
Examples of workhouses staff
- At Ashford, the union workhouse was run by a retired naval officer and his wife. Renowned for its efficiency and compassion - when the master retired, paupers wept
- George Catch, an ex policemen moved from workhouse to workhouse inflicting cruelty and terror wherever he went.
Rumours & Propaganda as opposition to the PLAA
- Union workhouses were built some distance from the homes of those seeking relief which fuelled belief among the poor that they were extermination centres were paupers were held against their will to keep the poor rates low
- Rumours circulated that all children over and above the first three in a paupers family were to be killed
- In Devon, the poor belief that bread distributed as part of outdoor relief was poisoned to reduce those claiming relief
Protest in the south of England as opposition to the poor law amendment act
1835 Poor law commissioners began their work in the most heavily pauperised districts of southern England - began during a period of economic recovery - local magistrates and clergy were angry over unnecessary centralisation and removal of master-servant relationships
First example of protest in southern England
In Buckinghamshire - people took to the streets when paupers from the old workhouse in St Giles were being transported to a new union workhouse in Amersham - only when the riot act was read and armed yeomanry were put to the streets could the paupers be transported
Second example of protest in southern England
In East Anglia - newly built workhouses were attacked, with one at St Clements being particularly badly damaged and officers
assaulted
Poor themselves took to the lanes and market squares of rural England - more influential citizens used their position to refuse to apply the less eligibility rule strictly & continue to provide outdoor relief
Tolpuddle martyrs
- In 1833, a peaceful group of Dorset farm workers from the village of Tolpuddle formed a trade union to try to stop their wages from going down
- Not violent, but the law was used to control them
- law from 1797 prevented the swearing of secret oaths (promises) in the navy was used to arrest the farm workers
- farm workers were arrested and transported
to Australia for seven years
Opposition in the north of England
Chadwick wanted to implement PLAA when north was prosperous - ignored
1837 - start of trade depression was when PLC wanted to implement it
1842 – In Stockport the workhouse was
attacked and bread distributed to the poor on the outside
1838 – In Bradford the assistant commissioner,
Alfred Power, was threatened by the mob
and pelted with stones and tin cans. Troops had to be sent in from London to restore order
Opposition in Todmorden?
- Fielden was a mill owner in Todmorden & active member of the anti-poor law movement
- When the commission came to implement the new poor law, Fielden threatened to close all his cotton mills unless the guardians of the poor law union resigned
- They refused, the mills closed leaving 300 unemployed
- Violence ensued
-Fielden was not directly involved in the riots but refused to cooperate with authorities in indentifying ringleaders & refused to pay poor rates - PLAA could not be implementted in Todmorden till 1877
