Poor Law - Who Opposed the New Poor Law System?

Question 1

Propertied Tory Paternalisms:

Answer 1

• Believed it destroyed a traditional understanding and relationship between rich and poor.
• The New Poor Law was seen as a rejection of the rich’s first obligation to relieve the poor - an obligation which was, in turn, a basis of social control and political stability.

Question 2

Working Class Radical Groups:

Answer 2

• These groups saw the New Poor Law as part of a wider pattern of the Whig Government’s contempt for the working class, which included the 1832 Reform Act, 1833 Factory Act and persecution of the Tolpuddle Martyrs

Question 3

JPs and Overseers:

Answer 3

• Objected to the Act’s centralising tendencies, its imposition by outsiders, its inherent criticism of their previous administration of the system and the obvious unsuitability of indoor relief in some areas

Question 4

The Working Class Poor:

Answer 4

• Some were terrified into action by rumours of the privations associated with the new ‘Bastilles’, as the workhouses became known.