What did the royal commission’s report recommend?

Question 1

When was it published and what did the 1st and 2nd part critique?

Answer 1

• published in 1834
• the first part attacked old poor law citing examples of corrupt practices and demoralized paupers
• the second part contained commissioners’ conclusions and recommendations

Question 2

What was the core of the commissioners’ analysis?

Answer 2

• at the core of the commissioners’s analysis was their unshaken belief in the need to keep the distinction between poverty, which was part of the natural order of things and indigence - the inability to live on - which was not
• the commissioners too had a problem with the impotent poor

Question 3

What were the changes the commissioners recommended?

Answer 3

Commissioners recommend radical changes designed to save money and improve efficiency:
- separate workhouses should be provided for the aged, infirm, children, able bodied men and women
-parishes should group into unions for the purpose of providing these workhouses
- all relief outside workhouses should stop, conditions inside workhouses should be such that no one willingly enters them
- new, central authority should be established, with powers to make and enforce regulations concerning workhouse system

Question 4

What were the aims of the poor law policy:

Answer 4

• reduce cost of providing relief for poor
• ensure only genuinely destitute received relief
• provide national system of poor relief