Poverty Flashcards
Old Poor Law
‘Outdoor Relief’- food, payments, clothing
‘Indoor Relief’- not as common. Almshouses, mainly used for the elderly
System was open to corruption and bribery
Poor Laws funded through local tax and given out by churches and local officials
Regional Variations
Sunderland’s first workhouse built in 1740
First workhouse built in Bristol
Speenhamland System, 1795- tried to modify old system, provide sliding scale for poor relief related so price of bread, still not nationwide
Pressure on the System
Napoleonic Wars- effect on trade and bread prices
Agricultural Depression-> Unemployment
Social Unrest- Swing Riots (people destroy machinery)
1817- encourage employment of paupers on civil work schemes
1830s-40s, unemployment in Manchester was particularly bad and they couldn’t cope with levels of poverty
Changing attitudes
Change begins in 1815 Agrarian- industrial economy Rising costs ‘Parent of Idleness’ 44 Parliamentary investigations into poverty between 1750-1834
Thomas Malthus
Essay on the Principle of Population 1796
Increase in food production->population growth-> pressure on production
He believed poor law sustained idleness
He believed in a more natural selection world
Royal Commission
1832 (same year as great reform act)
Concluded- corrupt system, wasteful and inefficient, no incentive to find work
Aims- create a national system, save ratepayers money, less eligibility for benefits
They only selected the data that would help back up their claims and most was written before and research was made
Poor Law Amendment Act
- Because of the royal commission
Poor Law Unions- run the poor laws rather than the parish
Poor Law Guardians elected locally to administer relief
Shift towards indoor relief
Workhouses
Act as a deterrent
Prison-like
Andover Scandal- exposes system, people eating meat off scraps of bones they were supposed to grind up, master of workhouse was an alcoholic who abused his workers
