Poor Law Commission's Work, 1834-47

Question 1

PLC policy had 2 Priorities

Answer 1

1: transfer out-of-work and unemployed workers in rural areas to urban areas where employment was plentiful
2: protect urban ratepayers from sudden surge of demand from rural migrants prior to their obtaining regular employment

Question 2

P2: The Settlement Laws

Answer 2

seen as necessary if cost of maintaining paupers was to be fairly spread between rural and urban parishes, by 1840 = 40,000 paupers removed from parishes where they lived and claimed relief, back to their parishes of settlement, theirs by virtue of birth or marriage

Question 3

P2: costly process

Answer 3

both in practical and administrative terms, while cost in terms of human suffering = incalculable

Question 4

P1: A programme of workhouse construction

Answer 4

carried assumption that outdoor relief for able-bodied poor would stop (though it was not expressly forbidden by PLAA 1834), commissioners only able to act fairly slow - amalgamating unions and adapting workhouses took time despite no opps

Question 5

P1: Throughout 1830s

Answer 5

commission began issuing orders to specific unions in rural south, prohibiting outdoor relief to able bodied poor, extended to rural north in 1842

Question 6

P1: 1844 General Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order

Answer 6

applied to all unions and forbade outdoor relief to able-bodied poor

Question 7

P1: Effective?

Answer 7

Outdoor relief did continue as most common form of relief given to paupers, especially in industrial northern towns, where it was the most humane and cheapest alternative to building huge workhouses which would remain empty for most of a working year