Unit 3.3

Question 1

Who was responsible for looking after the Poor up until 1834?

Answer 1

• The Parish.

Question 2

What did the Parish do to help the Poor?

Answer 2

• Set the Poor Rate
• Determined who was eligible for relief and how much relief was to be given.
• Decided what relief should be given.

Question 3

What was the Poor Rate?

Answer 3

• Compulsory tax which was used to provide relief for the Poor.

Question 4

Who were the ‘Overseers of the Poor’?

Answer 4

• 1-2 members of the Parish.
• Appointed each year by local Justices of the Peace.
• Unpaid.
• Unprofessional.

Question 5

What were the advantages of Parish Administration?

Answer 5

• Poor Rates could be spent by Parish on local needs (different amounts of poverty in countryside vs city.)
• Someone you knew provided the relief.
• Local people would be able to distinguish the genuine needs and not.
• Controlled lower classes.
• Overseers were replaced yearly.

Question 6

What were the disadvantages of Parish Administration?

Answer 6

• Class relationships (Lower classes relied upon Upper classes.)
• Local crisis would impact relief given.
• Overseers were replaced annually.
• Overseers unskilled and unpaid.
• Personal grievances could impact relief.
• Poor Rate was a tax (met with resentment and unwillingness from those funding it.)

Question 7

When was the Settlement Act implemented?

Answer 7

-1662.

Question 8

What was the Settlement Act?

Answer 8

• Stated that the Parish responsible for distributing relief to the Poor was the one in which a person was born in, married in, served an apprenticeship in or inherited property in.

Question 9

What were limitations to the 1662 Settlement Act?

Answer 9

• Not applied consistently.

- Settlement Laws difficult to enforce with a moving population.

Question 10

What Indoor Relief was offered to paupers before 1834?

Answer 10

• Workhouse.
• Almshouse.
• Orphanage.
• Pauper Schools.
• Correction houses.

Question 11

Why was Indoor relief attractive to the Parish?

Answer 11

• Solved the problem of poor on the street.
• Cheaper than outdoor relief.
• Deflects responsibility onto another institution.
• Easy to organise.
• Parishes could form ‘unions’ with other parishes.
• Unpopularity of Workhouses meant less people asked for relief.
• Workhouses could be privatised.
• Workhouses could generate their own incomes.

Question 12

How many parishes ran their own workhouses by the end of the 18th century?

Answer 12

• 1 in 7 parishes.

Question 13

What are 3 advantages of Indoor Relief?

Answer 13

• Cheaper than Outdoor Relief.
• Parishes could form ‘Unions’.
• Poor conditions of Workhouse meant only the genuine destitute received help.

Question 14

What are 3 disadvantages of Indoor Relief?

Answer 14

• Privatisation of workhouses questions morality.
• 1723 Knatchbull Workhouse Test Act made living & working conditions worse.
• Parishes were slow to adopt Gilbert’s suggestions.

Question 15

Why did parliament draw their attention to formally reforming the Poor Laws towards the end of the 18th century?

Answer 15

• Ending of American War of Independence in 1782 resulted in demobilised soldiers and sailors being unable to find employment.
• Enclosure of great open fields only created immediate employment & wasn’t useful long term.
• Early stages of Industrialisation depopulated the countryside, increasing pressure on urban parishes.

Question 16

What was the 1782 Gilbert’s Act?

Answer 16

• Parishes could combine in Poor Law unions for the purpose of building and maintaining a workhouse. if 2/3rds of the major landowners and rate payers voted in favour.
• Overseers of the Poor had to be replaced with paid Guardians, who were appointed by local magistrates.
• Able-bodied workers were to be excluded from Gilbert Union Workhouses as the were intended for the aged and sick.

Question 17

What two further pieces of Gilbert’s legislation got passed after 1786?

Answer 17

• Overseers were required to submit annual returns of Poor Law expenditure.
• Ministers and churchwardens were required to provide information about local charities that supplemented support given by the Poor law.

Question 18

What were limitations to 1782 Gilberts Act?

Answer 18

• Only a Permissive Act and Gilbert failed to make it mandatory.
• ## Parishes were slow to adopt Gilbert’s Act.

Question 19

What did the 1818 Sturges-Bourne Act introduce?

Answer 19

• Laid down how voting was to be managed when electing men to the parish Select Vestries.
• Those occupying land worth less than £50 in rateable value had one vote, and number of votes increased for every further £25.
• Therefore major landowners could have up to 6x the power and influence of smallholders.

Question 20

What did the 1819 Sturges-Bourne Act introduce?

Answer 20

• Added a resident clergyman to the members of the Vestry.
• This act instructed vestries to take account of an applicants character and circumstance when considering who was eligible for relief. Helped distinguish deserving from undeserving.
• destitution was not enough to obtain relief.

Question 21

What were the Sturges-Bourne Acts otherwise known as?

Answer 21

• Select Vestries Acts.

Question 22

What was the intention of the Sturges-Bourne Acts?

Answer 22

• Tie the landowners, gentry and well-to-do more firmly into the administration of the Poor Laws.

Question 23

How many Select Vestries had been found by 1825?

Answer 23

• 46 Select Vestries had been formed.

- Many experienced a remarkable drop in the cost of relief.

Question 24

What was the national reduction in cost of relief after the first year of the establishment of Select Vestries?

Answer 24

• 9%.

Question 25

What was the Speenhamland system?

Answer 25

• Introduced in 1795.
• Provided relief by subsidising low wages.
• Established a formal relationship between price of bread and number of dependants in a family.
• Parishes did always provide relief in cash and could give flour instead.
• Was popular in the South-East of England.

Question 26

What was the Roundsman system?

Answer 26

• System used in Parishes where there were more paupers than available work.
• Able-bodied labourers were sent in rotation to local farmers who would provide them with work.
• Wages were paid partly by the farmer and the Parish.
• Often called the ‘Ticket System’
• Wages would be based of price of bread and size of family or just a flat rate.
• Farmers took advantage of the system as it did not require them to pay a set proportion of the wage.

Question 27

What was the Labour Rate?

Answer 27

• Provided relief without the pitfalls of the Roundsman system.
• Agreement amongst parishioners to establish a Labour Rate on top of the usual Poor Rate.
• The total parish labour bill was worked out according to the assumed going market rate.
• Labour Rate prevented abuse of Roundsman System.
• By 1832 1 in 5 parishes were operating some sort of Labour Rate.

Question 28

What are 4 strengths of Outdoor Relief?

Answer 28

• Easy to manage.
• Flexible.
• Gives opportunity for Paupers to break out of poverty cycle.
• Gives pauper a sense of independence and accountability.

Question 29

What are 4 weaknesses of Outdoor Relief?

Answer 29

• Labour Rate was a tax to be paid on top of Poor Rate (Unpopular)
• Roundsman system was abused by farmers.
• Speenhamland system meant only families with a certain number of children could benefit.
• Normal workers were sacked or less desirable to employers as they had to pay the workers full wage.

Question 30

Why did the impact of the wars with France cause financial pressure for change? (Good Continental Harvest)

Answer 30

• The ending of the wars (1783-1815) led to greater demands for poor relief.
• The harvests of 1813 & 1814 were good across the continent resulting in cheap foreign corn. English farmers had to keep their corn prices low which created financial issues as they had war time taxes to pay. Many farmers went bankrupt creating mass unemployment.

Question 31

Why did the impact of the wars with France cause financial pressure for change? (Corn Laws)

Answer 31

• In 1815, the Tory government attempted to improve the situation through the introduction of Corn Laws.
• The Corn Laws would not allow the foreign import of corn until the price of British corn reached 80 shillings a quarter.
• Kept the price of corn and bread steady. Many people resented the Corn Laws as they could no longer afford the price of bread.

Question 32

Why did the impact of the wars with France cause financial pressure for change? (Post-war distress)

Answer 32

• More people than ever before were claiming relief.
• Many began regarding relief as a right.
• The crisis years were 1817-1819 due to problems experienced by returning soldiers, dislocation of trade, poor weather and harvests and expenditure on poor relief reaching £8 million a year.

Question 33

Why did the impact of the increasing cost of Poor Relief cause financial pressure for change? (Radical Protests)

Answer 33

• Forced the governemnet to suspend Habeas Corpus in 1817.
• Introduced the Six Acts two years later. Confirmation of its policy of repression and curtailing of individual liberties in the face of protest.

Question 34

What were the Six Acts?

Answer 34

• Prohibited meetings of more than 50 people.
• Increased star duties on newspapers.
• Made the publication of blasphemous and seditious material a transportable offence.
• Forbade military training by civilians.
• Limited the right of an accused person to delay a trial.

Question 35

Why did the impact of the Swing Riots cause financial pressure for change?

Answer 35

• In over 20 counties the rural poor burned hayricks and barns, smashed threshing machines and intimidated their employers.
• Initially, they demanded higher wages and the removal of steam powered machines.
• As the rioting spread there were repeated arson attacks against overseers of the poor and their assistants, poorhouses and workhouses were burnt down and demands were made for increased relief.

Question 36

Why did the impact of the Swing Riots cause financial pressure for change? (Brede, Sussex)

Answer 36

• A group of labourers launched a local movement against the overseers of the poor, demanding higher wages and a removal of Mr Abel (Assistant overseer)
• The frightened gentry agreed to both demands.

Question 37

What was the significance of ‘Captain Swing’?

Answer 37

• Petitions and threats were signed ‘Captain Swing’ giving the impression of an organised revolt under a single leader.
• However, this wasn’t the case there was no such leader and no organised revolt.

Question 38

What was the impact of the Swing Riots?

Answer 38

• 19 paupers were sent to death.
• 400 paupers were exported to Australia.
• 644 paupers were imprisoned.
• One positive outcome of the Swing Riots was that they created a political climate where reform of the poor laws was becoming more than a possibility; it was an urgent necessity.

Question 39

What was the impact of ideological arguments?

JEREMY BENTHAM

Answer 39

• Utilitarianism.
• Believed that relief was a public responsibility that should be organised by central government.
• Believed there should be a government minister responsible for keeping statistics and inspecting workhouses.
• Believed there should be no discrimination between ‘deserving’ and ‘underserving’ poor. There were only the destitute, without the means of support and therefore worthy of relief.

Question 40

What was the impact of ideological arguments?

DAVID RICARDO

Answer 40

• Political economist.
• Put forward the idea of an iron law of wages.
• Believed that there was a wages fund from which money for wages and poor relief was paid, it therefore follows that the more that was paid out in poor relief, the less there was available for wages.
• Because less money was available for wages, more and more people were being drawn into pauperism, thus draining the wage fund more.
• Therefore the only way to break out of this cycle was to abolish the poor laws altogether.

Question 41

What was the impact of ideological arguments?

THOMAS MALTHUS

Answer 41

• Demographic economist.
• Suggested the more people there were the greater the strain there was on an economy.
• The old poor law system encouraged people to have more kids and Thomas Malthus was against this as it would lead to an increased distribution of relief.

Question 42

What was the impact of ideological arguments?

THOMAS PAINE

Answer 42

• Writer and Republican.
• Criticised the Poor Law because it was inadequate.
• Proposed a property tax on the very rich to be used for a variety of support systems for the poor, among these being family allowances and old age pensions.
• He had a problem with the able-bodied poor and implied that they had to go into workhouses before they could receive relief.

Question 43

What was the impact of ideological arguments?

ROBERT OWEN

Answer 43

• Radical factory owner.
• Blamed the capitalist economic system for creating poverty.
• Tried to implement his own ideas in his own factories. No adult was allowed to work for more than 10.5hrs a day, sick pay was provided when necessary, children had to be educated in his school until they were 10 and corporal punishment of children and adults was forbidden.
• To the surprise of Owen’s fellow mill-owners, his mills ran at a profit.
• he suggested that, if workers were employed in co-operative communities, everyone would share in the profits of whatever organisation they worked for.