Poverty and Pauperism Flashcards
Name 2 things the 1601 Poor Relief Act introduced
- The Poor Rate (to pay for relief)
- The Parish System (for giving relief)
What was the poor rate?
A tax to pay for poor relief
What was the parish system?
System were poor relief was administered by the local parish
Name 2 problems with the parish system
- Uneven parish sizes meaning relief was not distributed evenly
- No set standard for which people to give relief to
Name 3 systems in place for administering poor relief before the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act
- Outdoor relief
- Poor houses
- The Justice of the Peace
What was outdoor relief?
Giving the person needing relief things such as food, money or clothes
What were Poor Houses?
Facility where paupers would work to receive relief and a place to stay
Roughly how many people were in each poor house before 1834?
20-50 people
State a fact about Poor Houses before 1834
There were 2000 poor houses by 1776
What was a justice of the peace?
Person voted for by the electorate who would decide if a person was eligible for poor relief
Name a problem with JPs
- **Voted for ** by the electorate, wanting less money spent on poor relief
- Meaning those elected would be those who typically give less relief
Name 4 causes of pressure for changing poor relief
- The Royal Commission (1832)
- Economic depression following 1815
- Idealogical pressure
- Growing population
What was the 1832 Royal Commission?
- Commission into how the poor laws should be changed
- Sent questionnaires to Parishes
- Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick were involved
What were the recommendations of the 1832 Royal Commission?
- Scrap outdoor relief and replace it with harsh workhouses
- Group parishes together
- Create a central board to manage the system
Describe an ideology that influenced the poor law amendment act 1834
Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism that suggested the best solution is whatever creates the greatest good for the greatest number
How much money was the government spending on poor relief before 1834?
2% of GDP
What was the idea of less eligibility?
Making conditions worse than the worst labourer (to act as a deterrent)
Name 4 consequences of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act
- Scraped outdoor relief and replaced it with harsh workhouses
- Grouped parishes together, each group having a workhouse
- Created a central board to manage the system
Name 3 tasks that people did in the workhouses
- Bone crushing
- Stone breaking
- Picking oakum
Name 5 examples of the bad conditions in the workhouses
- Inmates given small amounts of boing food
- Monotonous work
- Split up families
- Compulsory uniform
- Physical punishment & punishment cells
Name 1 thing that was better about the workhouses compared to outside?
Better medical attention
Describe the Andover Workhouse scandal
- Colin McDougall made conditions similar to a prison
- Inmates were picking apart bones to eat the marrow inside because of a lack of food
- As a result the Poor Law Commission was replaced with the Poor Law Board
Give 3 examples of opposition to the workhouses
- MP William Cobbett spoke out saying paupers were being treated like criminals
- The Times spoke out in 1834
- There were riots across the country (eg. Bradford 1837)
What happened to outdoor relief following the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act?
- Continued to be more common than workhouses despite being officially scrapped
- Was cheaper to deliver than building workhouses in more sparsely populated areas
What ideas around poor relief were present following 1834?
- Self help
- Deserving & Undeserving Poor
- Such thing as too much relief (causing reliance)
- Investigative approach
What was the idea of self help?
Poor people can help themselves out of poverty (like the self-made middle class)
Who were the deserving poor?
Poor people deserving of relief (eg. disabled & elderly)
Who were the undeserving poor?
Poor who who don’t deserve relief (able bodied people)
Name 1 example of an organisation that took an investigative approach to dealing with the poor
The Workhouse Visiting Society
What did the 1867 Metropolitan Poor Act include?
- Separate medical facilities for workhouses
- Metropolitan asylum board responsible for the facilities
Name 2 individuals who challenged attitudes towards the poor at the time
- Charles Dickens
- Samuel Smiles
Why was Charles Dickens significant in challenging attitudes towards the poor?
- He experienced poverty as a child
- Wrote Oliver Twist (1837-34), which popularised a negative view of the workhouses being a place of punishment not charity
Who was Samuel Smiles?
- Social reformer who published Self Help in 1859
- Introduced the idea that if given a little help, they could help themselves out of poverty
