The Royal Commission of Enquiry

Question 1

Consisted of

Answer 1

9 commissioners (most influential = Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick) and 26 ass comms - who put in legwork (collecting and collating data)

Question 2

Commissioners devised 3 different questionnaires

Answer 2

2 sent to parishes in rural areas, 3rd sent to parishes in town, 10% replied (NO COMPULSION), information difficult to analyse, so ass comms visited around 3000 parishes - collecting info that was published by comms in 13 volumes of appendices to their report

Question 3

Ass comms found what they were looking for

Answer 3

Q’s skewed to elicit answers that were required (e.g. use of word ‘allowance’ - interpreted in different ways by different informants), made report look to be constructed on a mass of evidence BUT obscured the complexity of existing poor relief

Question 4

Although flawed

Answer 4

survey was first of its kind and unrealistic to expect more systematic approach to have been taken, also its intent was not to be impartial but to focus specifically on how old Poor Law worked w/ view of reforming it