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Poor Law and Public Health (BACK UP - NO REDUCTION) > Unit 3.4 (Complete) > Flashcards

Unit 3.4 (Complete) Flashcards

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1
Q

What made up the Royal Commission?

A
  • 9 Commissioners.
  • Most influential Commissioners were Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick.
  • 26 Assistant Commissioners.
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2
Q

Who was Nassau Senior?

A
  • Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University.

- Deeply disapproved of the allowance system.

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3
Q

Who was Edwin Chadwick?

A
  • Committed follower of Jeremy Bentham and the doctrine of Utilitarianism.
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4
Q

How was the data collected for the Royal Commission?

Surveys

A
  • Commissioners devised 3 questionnaires: 2 went to rural parishes and 1 went to parishes in towns.
  • Around 10% of Parishes answered the questionnaires as there was no compulsion to do so.
  • The surveys resulted in an immense amount of information that was difficult to analyse.
  • Information became so difficult to analyse that Assistant Commissioners were sent out to gather information instead.
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5
Q

How was the data collected for the Royal Commission?

Assistant Commissioners

A
  • ACs were sent out to talk to the poor, attend vestry meetings and magistrates’ sessions.
  • ACs were hard-working and received a daily allowance.
  • Each AC was responsible for a specific district in order to conduct their enquiries.
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6
Q

What were the successes of the Royal Commission Report?

A
  • ACs visited around 2000 parishes (1/5th of the Poor Law districts.)
  • All information collected was published by the Commissioners.
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7
Q

What did the Royal Commission report recommend?

A
  • Separate workhouses should be provided for the aged and infirm, children, able-bodied women and able-bodied men.
  • Parishes should group into unions for the purpose of providing these workhouses.
  • All relief outside workhouses should stop, and conditions inside workhouses should be such that no one would willingly enter them.
  • A new central authority should be established with powers to make and enforce regulations concerning the workhouse system.
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8
Q

What were the aims of Poor Law policy?

A
  • Reduce the cost of providing relief for the poor.
  • ensure that only the genuine destitute received relief.
  • Provide a national system of poor relief.
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9
Q

What was the purpose of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act?

A
  • Radically reform the system of poor relief in England.

- Regulate the administration of the Poor Law.

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10
Q

What did the 1834 Poor law Amendment Act recommend?

A
  • An establishment of a Central Authority to supervise the implementation and regulate administration of the Poor Law.
  • Parishes were to be grouped together into unions in order to provide efficient relief.
  • Each Poor Law union was to establish a workhouse in which inmates would live in conditions that were worse than those of the poorest independent labourer.
  • Outdoor relief was to be discouraged bout not abolished.
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11
Q

How was the Poor Law Commission set up?

A
  • A central Poor Law Commission was established in order to administer the Poor Law Amendment Act throughout the country.
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12
Q

Who were the 3 Poor Law Commissioners?

A
  • Thomas Frankland Lewis
  • George Nicholls
  • John Shaw-Lefevre
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13
Q

Who was Thomas Frankland Lewis?

A
  • Had been a Tory MP.

- Actively involved in Sturges-Bourne’s committee of 1817-1818

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14
Q

Who was George Nicholls?

A
  • Retired sea captain.
  • Bank of England official.
  • Had been a radical overseer in Nottingham under the old Poor Law.
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15
Q

Who was John Shaw-Lefevre?

A
  • Lawyer.
  • Had been a Whig MP.
  • Under-secretary of state for war and the colonies.
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16
Q

Who was the secretary to the commission?

A
  • Edwin Chadwick.

- Utilitarian Lawyer.

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17
Q

What power did the Commission have?

A
  • Independent of parliament. (Both a weakness and a strength.)
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18
Q

Why was the Commission being independent of Parliament a strength?

A
  • Powerful constitutional position.
  • Could issue directives, draw up regulations and monitor their implementation.
  • Had a range of negative powers (Could veto appointments, set dietries for workhouses, centralise accounting procedures and make life difficult for opposing parishes.)
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19
Q

Why was the Commission being independent of Parliament a weakness?

A
  • Independence meant Commission had no spokesperson in parliament to defend against criticisms.
  • Hated in parishes.
  • Lampooned in press, media, journals, songs and broadcasts.
  • Didn’t have direct power that many thought they had.
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20
Q

What were the 2 priorities of the Poor Law Commission policy after 1834?

A
  • The transfer of out-of-work and underemployed workers in rural areas to urban areas.
  • The protection of urban ratepayers from a sudden surge in demand from rural migrants prior to their obtaining if regular employment.
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21
Q

How would the Poor Law Commission meet these 2 priorities?

A
  • A programme of workhouse construction.

- Enforcement of the Settlement Laws.

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22
Q

What was the role of Edwin Chadwick?

A
  • Strong believer in the doctrine of Utilitarianism.
  • First appointed to the Royal Commission as an assistant commissioner his prodigious for as an investigator led to his rapid promotion.
  • His object was to deter applications for relief by adopting the principle of Less Eligibility.
  • Made the only accessible relief available in workhouses.
  • Driving force behind both the report and the Act.
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23
Q

Who wrote the final Royal Commission report

A
  • Nassau Senior wrote the first half of the report dealing with the abuses that had been uncovered.
  • Edwin Chadwick wrote the second half of the report setting out the remedial measures that had to be taken if the poor laws were to be put onto sound footing.
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24
Q

What was the ‘Notes for the Heads of a Bill’?

A
  • Chadwick’s recommendations for what should be included in the bill.
  • Circulated to cabinet ministers and fellow commissioners.
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25
Q

What two recommendations in Chadwick’s ‘Notes for the Heads of a Bill’ were implemented?

A
  • Local control of poor relief should be vested in elected boards of guardians.
  • Magistrates could become ex officio Poor Law guardians.
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26
Q

Why was Chadwick not appointed as one of the Poor Law Commissioners?

A
  • The Cabinet deemed Chadwick to be of insufficient rank to make his appointment acceptable.
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27
Q

Who recommended Chadwick to be appointed as a Commissioner?

A
  • Nassau Senior.
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28
Q

What was Chadwick appointed to do instead of being a Commissioner?

A
  • Chadwick was appointed as secretary to the Commission.
29
Q

How long did Chadwick serve in his position of Secretary?

A
  • 14 years.
30
Q

What did Chadwick do during his 14 secretariat years?

A
  • Issued hundreds of notes, circulars, regulations.
  • Replied to queries from parishes in a determined attempt to impose the doctrine of Utilitarianism on the operation of the New Poor Law.
31
Q

What was the intent behind the architectural design of the Workhouse?

A
  • Intended to act as a deterrent to would-be paupers.

- Supposedly to install discipline in the paupers they were designed to house.

32
Q

Who was the architect behind the design of the Workhouses ?

A
  • Sampson Kempthorne.

- Appointed to the Poor Law Commission in 1835.

33
Q

What was the Y-Shaped Workhouse?

A
  • 2-3 storeys high.
  • Accommodated around 300 paupers.
  • Master’s rooms were located in the centre of the Y so they could observe the exercise yards.
34
Q

What was the Cruciform-Shaped Workhouse?

A
  • 2 Storeys high.
  • Each ‘arm’ of the cross held a different set of rooms.
  • Sufficient accommodation for 200-500 Paupers.
35
Q

What did Kempthorne’s Workhouse designs provide?

A
  • Division and segregation of paupers.
36
Q

Why was segregation in Workhouses important?

A
  • Added to the deterrence by separating families.
  • Discouraged moral ‘contagion’.
  • Segregation allowed the Workhouse to provide appropriately for each class of pauper.
  • Upon entering the workhouse Paupers began to lose their individuality.
37
Q

What happened to a pauper family upon entry to the workhouse?

A
  • The family was given a medical inspection.
  • The family was split up. Husbands and wives were separated and parents were separated from their children.
  • Mothers usually stayed with their children until they were 7.
  • The assumption was that the pauper had given up all responsibility for his family and consequently they were separated.
38
Q

What happened to children upon entering the workhouse?

A
  • Children were sent to the workhouse school.

- When they were 9 or 10 years old they apprenticed, often without their parents consent or even knowledge.

39
Q

How was hygiene upheld for paupers in the workhouse?

A
  • Men were given razors to shave once a week.
  • All paupers had a weekly bath.
  • However, workhouse staff watched while this happened to prevent any attempts at self-mutilation or drowning and added to the sense of a loss of privacy.
40
Q

Did paupers in the workhouse have any form of individuality?

A
  • No.
  • They had to wear a workhouse uniform.
  • No personal possessions were allowed and there were no lockers or cupboards to store their things.
41
Q

What was the purpose of work in the workhouse?

A
  • The primary aim was to rehabilitate paupers and restore them to the workforce outside.
42
Q

What constraints were there surrounding work in the workhouse?

A
  • The work had to be available in the locality of the workhouse, and it has to be possible to do it inside the confines of the workhouse.
  • It could not diminish available employment outside the workhouse to the extent that the able-bodied working poor became paupers.
  • The commissioners principle of less eligibility held that work done inside the workhouse could not pay more than it cost the workhouse to maintain the pauper.
43
Q

What type of work could be done in the workhouse under the restrictions?

A
  • Some paupers, mainly women and children, worked to maintain the workhouse. They worked as cleaners, attendants, childminders and slippers-out.
  • If work that was economical and easy to perform within a workhouse cord not be found, dispiriting and monotonous work was given to paupers.
  • Paupers were essentially doing the same work as convicts and with the same attendant degradation.
44
Q

What are 5 examples of monotonous and dispiriting jobs that were to be performed by workhouse inmates?

A
  • Making sacks.
  • Unravelling ropes so that the fibres could be used again.
  • Chopped wood.
  • Smashed limestone into small pieces to make roads.
  • Ground animal bones into dust to be used by farmers as fertiliser.
45
Q

What was the diet like in the workhouse?

A
  • Poor Law commissioners issued 6 model diets from which the board of guardians could decide which one best suited them.
  • Diet used as a way to degrade and sustain paupers.
  • Not desirable to take paupers right to the edge of starvation and therefore aim of diets was to sustain and maintain life.
  • Paupers were to get no pleasure from the food they ate.
  • Until 1842 all meals were to be eaten in silence.
  • Food was often of poor quality and adulterated with.
46
Q

What were the staff like in the workhouse?

A
  • Master and Matron were the key individuals in a paupers day to day life.
  • Master was responsible for the discipline and economy of the workhouse.
  • Matron was responsible for the female paupers and domestic side of life.
  • Both enjoyed tremendous amounts of power over both staff and paupers.
  • Had enormous influence on the way the workhouse was perceived by its inmates but also from society outside.
47
Q

Who was George Catch?

WORKHOUSE MASTER

A
  • Ex-policeman.
  • Moved from workhouse to workhouse in London inflicting terror and cruelty.
  • Boards of guardians gave him excellent testimonials simply to get rid of him.
  • Threw himself under a train in the 1860s.
48
Q

How was the Ashford Workhouse run by the master and matron?

A
  • Run by a much decorated naval officer and his wife.
  • It was renowned for it’s efficiency and for it’s compassion.
  • Held by commissioners as a model to which others should aspire.
  • When the master retired, paupers wept.
49
Q

What was the impact of life in the workhouse for children?

POSITIVES

A
  • Children were not responsible for their poverty.
  • Received a better education and better medical attention within the workhouse.
  • When they were about 9 years old they could be apprenticed into a trade.
  • Education Act 1870 placed education firmly within the elementary school system making their integration into society easier.
50
Q

What was the impact of life in the workhouse for children?

NEGATIVES

A
  • Act of entering a workhouse meant that the pauper childs parents had relinquished their parental responsibility.
  • Education given was often limited and they could be apprenticed to any passing tradesmen and hence be relocated anywhere in the country.
  • Couldn’t leave a workhouse of their own feee will.
  • If they ran away and were caught they would be returned.
  • Quickly became institutionalised and struggled to cope with life beyond the workhouse.
51
Q

How would workhouse inmates be disciplined?

A
  • Girls and women couldn’t be beaten.
  • Reduction of rations was common but could only be carried out to an extent within a quota.
  • Workhouse staff couldn’t prevent paupers from leaving or refuse to readmit them.
52
Q

How did rumour and propaganda contribute to opposition to the distribution of the Poor Law Amendment Act?

A
  • Union workhouses were built some distance from the homes of most of those seeking relief. Fuelled the belief among the poor that they were extermination centres where paupers were killed to keep the poor rates low.
  • The Book of Murder, believed to be the work of Poor Law Commissioners, contained suggestions that pauper children should be gassed.
  • In Devon, many of the poor believed that bread distributed as part of outdoor relief was poisoned to reduce those claiming this form of relief.
  • Rumours circulated that all children over and above the first three in a pauper’s family were to be killed.
  • Many anti-Poor Law campaigners believed that the new Poor Law was introduced specifically to lower the national wage bill. Workhouses were supposed to force people onto the labour market, no matter how low the wages.
53
Q

How did genuine fears contribute to opposition to the distribution of the Poor Law Amendment Act?

A
  • Many attacked the centralisation implicit in the new Poor Law. The Commissioners were seen as being London-based, with no real concern/understanding of the ways of life outside the city.
  • Many feared the replacement of the old Poor Law by the new would break the traditional, paternalistic bonds between the rick and poor, which resulted in a kind of social contract.
  • Rural ratepayers realised that outdoor relief was cheaper than indoor relief, and were worried that a programme of workhouse building would lead to higher, not lower, poor rates.
  • Ratepayers in northern industrial areas, prone to cyclical unemployment, realised that to build a workhouse large enough to contain al those who might need relief in times of depression would be an enormously costly undertaking, if not an impossible one.
54
Q

How did protests in the rural south contribute to opposition of the distribution of the Poor Law Amendment Act?

A
  • Local magistrates and clearly were angered at the unnecessary centralisation and the removal of the master-servant relationship with its attendant responsibilities, joined with those of the poor who were alarmed and fearful to protest.
55
Q

What happened in Buckinghamshire

A
  • People took to the streets when paupers from the old workhouses were being transported to the new workhouse union in Amersham.
  • Only when the Riot Act was read, special constables sworn in and armed yeomanry put on the streets was it possible for the paupers to be transported the 3 miles to Amersham.
56
Q

What happened in East Anglia?

SOUTHERN OPPOSITION

A
  • Newly built workhouses were attacked.

- The one at St Clements was particularly damaged and relieving officers were assaulted.

57
Q

What did the influential citizens in East Anglia refuse to do?
(SOUTHERN OPPOSITION)

A
  • Refused to apply the less eligibility rule strictly.
  • Continue to provide outdoor relief to the able-bodied poor.
  • Generally find all possible ways of circumventing what they saw as an inhumane and destructive law.
58
Q

Who were the Tolpuddle Martyrs?

SOUTHERN OPPOSITION

A
  • In 1834.
  • Led by George Loveless.
  • 6 agricultural workers were sentenced to 7 years’ transportation for swearing illegal oaths.
  • The oath swearing was part of a loyalty ceremony that bound the men into a trade union.
  • Although Trade Unions weren’t banned, the government feared that unions of agricultural workers would heighten the general rural unrest.
  • After a series of mass campaigns the men were finally pardoned and returned home.
59
Q

What was The Ten Hours’ Movement?

NORTHERN OPPOSITION

A
  • A sustained campaign in the 1830s for the reduction go hours worked in textile mills to 10 per day.
  • The campaign was led inside parliament by Lord Shaftesbury and John Fielden and outside by Richard Oastler.
  • As part of the campaign, short-term committees were set up in most industrial towns to press for factory reform.
60
Q

How did protests in the north contribute to opposition of the distribution of the Poor Law Amendment Act?

A
  • Protested against centralisation and cyclical unemployment.
  • Guardians, magistrates protested as well, they believed workers weren’t being well represented.
  • There were amend riots in Bradford.
  • In Dewsbury workhouses were attacked.
  • The anti-poor law commission’s were well-organised and there were mass protests (resulted from Ten Hours’ Movement)
61
Q

What was the significance of Richard Oastler?

A
  • Avid promoter of opposition to the new Poor Law in the industrial north.
  • By 1838 Oastler was urging workers to involve themselves in strikes and sabotage.
  • He led workers in violently resisting attempts to impose the new Poor Law in Fixby.
  • Word of his involvement in unrest led to him losing his job and without an income he found himself in a debtors prison 2 years later.
  • Oastler committees were formed to raise the necessary money to ensure his release, and after 4 years they were successful.
62
Q

Why did Richard Oastler dislike the Poor Law Commissioners?

A
  • Believed they were too powerful.
  • Disliked their ability to supply factories with cheap labour in the form of pauperised agricultural workers.
  • Believed this would lead to a reduction in factory wages and deterioration of the living conditions of the working class which would lead to an increase in pauperism.
63
Q

Why did Richard Oastler dislike Parish Union Workhouses?

A
  • Believed this would do away with the personal interaction between the giver and the receiver of relief
  • Leading to a depersonalisation of the system.
64
Q

What was the significance of John Fielden?

A
  • MP and mill owner in Todmorden where he was the largest employer.
  • Fielden voted against the Poor Law Amendment bill at every stage of its passage and tried in vain to get the Act repealed.
  • Fielden was the only MP to attend the Hugh Yorkshire anti-Poor-Law meeting.
65
Q

What did John Fielden do when the Poor Law commissioners tried to implement the New Poor Law in Todmorden?

A
  • He threatened to close down the family mills unless the guardians resigned.
  • They refused, which resulted in nearly 3000 people out of work.
  • The violence that ensued did not end when Fielden reopened the mills after a week and workers attacked the homes of the guardians, troops were required to restore order.
  • Although not directly involved, Fielden refused to co-operate with the authorities in identifying ring leaders and refused to pay poor rates.
  • The situation in Todmorden remained so volatile that the new Poor Law was not implemented in Todmorden until 1877, long after Fielden’s death.
66
Q

How effective was the anti-Poor-Law movement?

STRENGTHS

A
  • The movement was well organised and very effective in the short term.
  • Despite not wanting to repeal the Act the government was willing to make concessions.
  • In 1838 the General Prohibitory Order was set aside for unions in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire.
  • Very few workhouses were built until the 1850s and 1860s.
  • In Todmorden a workhouse wasn’t built until 1877.
67
Q

How effective was the anti-Poor-Law movement?

WEAKNESSES

A
  • Not effective in the long term.
  • The government was not going to back down and repeal the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.
  • The Metropolitan Anti-Poor Law Association (founded in London) had little effect.
  • Opposition was short lived in many places, and was considered a spontaneous reaction to unwelcome change.
68
Q

What was the 1838 General Prohibitory Order?

A
  • The guardians were allowed to administer relief according to the provisions of the 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law.
  • A considerable amount of discretion was permitted to guardians in negotiating local settlements.
69
Q

Were the Poor Law Commission’s priorities successfully met?

A
  • No.
  • The Act was implemented unevenly, and was implemented and interpreted in different ways by different boards of guardians in different places.
  • Parishes were not insisting on the removal of paupers under the Settlement Laws and they continued to prefer paying ‘resident relief’ after 1834 for those whom they were responsible but lived elsewhere.

Poor Law and Public Health (BACK UP - NO REDUCTION) (7 decks)

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