poverty and pauperism

Question 1

What was the Speenhamland system?

Answer 1

A system whereby the rate of outdoor relief is set at the price of a loaf of bread.

Question 2

When was the Speenhamland system introduced?

Answer 2

1795

Question 3

By 1801 how long had the Elizabethan Poor Law been in operation?

Answer 3

200 years

Question 4

When did the Napoleonic Wars begin and end?

Answer 4

1803-1815

Question 5

What influential book was published by Samuel Smiles in 1859 and what did it advocate?

Answer 5

Self Help advocated the importance of people’s own abilities to help themselves rather than rely on state help

Question 6

When were the Corn Laws introduced?

Answer 6

1815

Question 7

What was the purpose of the Corn Laws?

Answer 7

The Corn Laws were designed to protect British farmers from foreign competition.

Question 8

When were the Corn Laws repealed?

Answer 8

1846

Question 9

Under whose ministry were the Corn Laws repealed?

Answer 9

Robert Peel

Question 10

How did the Corn Laws work?

Answer 10

The law prohibited the importation of foreign corn until the price of domestic corn reached 10 shillings a bushel.

Question 11

Why did the workings classes oppose the Corn Laws?

Answer 11

Raised the price of bread the staple food of the poor

Question 12

Why did the Middle classes oppose the Corn Laws?

Answer 12

Raised the cost of employing the working classes in their factories to accommodate for the price of bread

Question 13

What did the government set up in 1832 to look at the issue of poor relief?

Answer 13

A Royal Commission

Question 14

When was the Poor Law Amendment Act passed?

Answer 14

1834

Question 15

What is a parish?

Answer 15

An area served by a parish church that was responsible for poor relief

Question 16

Give 3 reasons why the Poor Law Amendment Act was introduced.

Answer 16

Cost to the local ratepayer, attitudes towards the poor were changing, problems with the speenhamland system, ineffective parish system, variation in geographical areas, people had to be sent back to the parish of their birth

Question 17

What did Gilbert’s Act of 1782 do?

Answer 17

Grouping together of parishes into unions to provide a poor house for physically unfit people rather than abel-bodied poor people.

Question 18

Give 3 requirements of the Poor Law Amendment Act.

Answer 18

Poor Law Commission set up, ‘less eligibility’ rule, grouping of parishes together, workhouses, ending of outdoor relief

Question 19

What replaced the Poor Law Commission in 1847?

Answer 19

The Poor Law Board

Question 20

What does the term ‘less eligibility’ mean?

Answer 20

Maing the conditions in workhouses so harsh than only the truly desparte would enter/apply.

Question 21

What did Jeremy Bentham found?

Answer 21

The founder of utilitarianism

Question 22

What was Jeremy Bentham’s theory?

Answer 22

Utilitarianism is the belief that human’s are motivated by pleasure and pain and that government action should be based on what provided the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people

Question 23

Why was Jeremy Bentham’s theory important when considering poor law reform?

Answer 23

Because it was popular amongst middle clas, the Whigs and strongly influenced Edwin Chadwick

Question 24

Give 2 reasons why important parts of the Amendment Act were not implemented sucessfully.

Answer 24

outdoor relief was still around, Edwin chadwick predicted Low taper fade meme

Question 25

Give 2 examples of opposition to the New Poor Law.

Question 26

What book did Charles Dickens write about the despair and drudgery of the workhouse for children?

Answer 26

Oliver Twist 1835-37

Question 27

Why did Dicken's book have a big impact on the public? Give 2 reasons.

Answer 27

Because it was serialised in a newspaper making it cheaper to buy, read by more people and tapped into a growing concern amongst the public

Question 28

What is philanthropy?

Answer 28

General concern for the welfare of others through charity or donations to help people

Question 29

When did the Andover Workhouse Scandal happen?

Answer 29

1845

Question 30

What was the Andover Workhouse Scandal? Give 2 points.

Answer 30

Harsh regime, treated more like prisoners, eating rotten bones, abuse of women inmates, eating with fingers, long working day, starving,

Question 31

Why did the Andover Workhouse scandal come to light?

Answer 31

Concerns raised by local poor law guardian to MP and home secretary, role of newspaper reports by the Times.

Question 32

What impact did the Andover Scandal have?

Answer 32

The Poor Law Commission was dissolved and replaced by a Poor Law Board in 1847

Question 33

How many workhouses were built between the years 1834 and 1851?

Answer 33

402

Question 34

How many workhouses were built between the years 1851 and 1866?

Answer 34

100

Question 35

Give one reason why the middle-classes supported the Poor Law Amendment Act?

Answer 35

cost to the local ratepayer, attitudes towards the poor/working class

Question 36

Give one reason why the middle-classes opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act?

Answer 36

ideas of self help, victorian values, christian ethos/evangelism, popular literature, reports into poverty, middle-class responsibility to the w-c/poor

Question 37

When did the Huddersfield scandal happen?

Answer 37

1848

Question 38

What was the Andover Workhouse Scandal? Give 2 points.

Answer 38

ill people sharing beds with dead bodies, lice-ridden beds, typhus outbreak

Question 39

What provision did the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 provide?

Answer 39

Separate medical facilities for inmates

Question 40

Which prominent pressure group leader opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act because of the way it treated labourers?

Answer 40

Richard Oastler

Question 41

Why was the anti Poor Law Amendment movement successful in the north of England?

Answer 41

The role of Oastler and Sadler, the industrial north was different to the type of work in the south

Question 42

Why did the local officials envoke the Riot Act in 1835 in Bedfordshire?

Answer 42

Because there was a violent riot opposing the Poor Law Act of 1834 involving 300-500 people

Question 43

What happened to the workhouse at Bulcamp in Suffolk in 1835?

Answer 43

Attacked by a mob of 200

Question 44

Why was the Poor Law more effectively implemented in the south despite opposition to it?

Answer 44

No effective co-ordination of the opposition, no united front, riots not well organised, each parish had had a different system anyway, use of laws to stop unrest.

Question 45

Why was opposition in the north of England more more significant than in the south? Give 2 reasons.

Answer 45

industrial north different to agricultural south, poor rate in the north lower because more people were employed, the workhouse system didn't suit the cyclical nature of employment in factories/mills,