Poor Laws

Question 0

What did the speenhamland system do…

Answer 0

Relief given to able-bodied poor by linking it to the price of bread.
Widely used in south and east of England

Question 1

Date of Speenhamland system

Answer 1

1795

Question 2

Elizabethan poor law of…

Answer 2

1601

Question 3

Why was the Elizabethan poor law an important step away from earlier poor laws?

Answer 3

Abandoned the more obvious sorts of repression in favour of ‘assistance’ and ‘correction’

Impotent poor (sick/old/infirm/mentally ill) were to be looked after in poorhouses/almshouses

Able-bodied poor who wanted relief - set work in a ‘workhouse’ while they continued to live at home
Those who refused were to be punished in a ‘house of correction’

Pauper children - apprenticed to a trade so that they could support themselves when older

Question 4

The Elizabethan poor law stated that…

Answer 4

A person claiming relief HAD to be RETURNED to the place of their BIRTH in order to receive it.

If their birthplace was unknown they would be sent to a place they had lived for a year or more, or to the LAST parish through which the person had passed without getting into trouble.

Question 5

Why did settlement statement cause problems?

Answer 5

Parish overseers wanted to keep their own poor rate as low as possible, as they struggled to stop paupers from becoming a charge on their particular parish

Question 6

The settlement law of 1662 tried to clarify matters by…

Answer 6

Legal settlement was by birth, marriage, apprenticeship or inheritance.

So, for any individual claiming relief, the responsible parish could be the anyone of which the above states.

Question 7

Why was settlement legislation tightened up in 1697?

Answer 7

To bar strangers from entering a parish and finding work there unless they could produce a settlement certificate issued by their home parish - statin they would be taken back and given relief there should they become needy

Question 8

How were the settlement laws designed?

Answer 8

To control a migrant population and at the same time ensure that the burden of providing for the poor did not overwhelm some parishes.
However, they were never applied consistently over time or place to place.

They did not stop a mobile population creating the growing cities of the late 18th and early 19th centuries

Question 9

Why was the division of ‘houses’: poorhouses for impotent poor, workhouses for able-bodied poor and ‘houses of correction’ for the idle - never effective?

Answer 9

It was not cost-effective for each parish to provide for paupers in this way

Question 10

1834 over 900 parishes had joined to form 67 unions, most of which employed a paid relieving officer - section 29 stated that no one was sent to the poorhouse except children, the aged or infirm

The overseers were required to…

Answer 10

Find work for the able-bodied who needed relief

Question 11

Why did parishes continue to provide outdoor relief for their able-bodied poor?

Answer 11

It was easy to administer and could be applied flexibly

E.g. Cyclical unemployment might cause only short-term distress and long-term provision of relief in a poorhouse/workhouse would not be appropriate

Question 12

What different solution did the parishes develop?

Answer 12

The Speenhamland system
The labour rate
The roundsman system

Question 13

Why was the Speenhamland system widely used?

Answer 13

It was a way of providing relief by subsidising low wages and as such it was not new.

Difference? It establish a formal relationship between the bread price and the number of dependants in a family.

Question 14

When was the Speenhamland system implemented?

Answer 14

1795

Question 15

Why did the Speenhamland system struggle to cope?

Answer 15

Widely used in south and east of Britain at the beginning of the 19th century
It was rarely used in the north

The system was never given legal backing, although some politicians tried and it was often abandoned or modified out of all recognition as overseers struggled to cope with changing economic conditions

Question 16

Why was the labour rate a different way of providing relief?

Answer 16

Overseers did not directly top up low pay

Instead they levied a parish rate to cover the relief of the able-bodied poor, as usual, and then set a wage for each unemployed labourer.

Question 17

(Labour rate)

Ratepayers who employed these labourers, and at the rate set by the parish were…

Answer 17

Exempt from paying poor rates into the general fund.

Question 18

The roundsman system was a common variant on the labour rate.

Able-bodied pauper labourers were sent round the parish until thy puns a…

Answer 18

Parish ratepayer to employ them.

Question 19

How did the pauper get paid?

Answer 19

Paid a wage by the ratepayer agreed with the overseer and the parish overseer made up the rest from the poor rate

Question 20

Roundsman system often called a…

Answer 20

‘Billet’/’ticket’ system by locals

Question 21

Why was the rohndsman system called a ‘ticket’ system?

Answer 21

The overseer would sign a ‘ticket’ for the pauper to take to a potential employer, authorising the pauper to work under the parish relief system.

When the work was completed, the pauper would return the ‘ticket’ to the overseer, signed by the employer to show that the work had been done and a wage paid

The difference would then be made up by the overseer

Question 22

How did the roundsman system vary?

Answer 22

In some parishes this would be based on the price of bread and the size of a pauper’s family; in other parishes, a flat rate would be paid

Question 23

What did all these interpretations and modifications of the Elizabethan poor law have in common?

Answer 23

They were genuine attempts to deal with the worst effects of poverty.

It reflected a tradition by which the MORE POWERFUL sections of society took on RESPONSIBILITY for the welfare of the MOST VULNERABLE.

Question 24

The old poor law was regarded by the poor themselves as an..

Answer 24

Essential safety net - they had a right to access and from which they had a right to benefit.