What Impact Did The Workhouse Have On Paupers?

Question 1

What was the workhouse intended to be?

Answer 1

• workhouse intended to be the last refuge for the destitute
• it was intended that the principle of less eligibility with deterrent workhouse conditions offered by the workhouse test would be self - regulating

Question 2

What couldn’t the conditions inside the workhouse be?

Answer 2

• conditions couldn’t insofar as cleanliness, food and clothing were concerned, be made deliberately worse than the poorest laborer living outside
• the state couldn’t be seen to institutionalize dirt, disease and starvation

Question 3

What was the poor law commissions attempt to solve this problem?

Answer 3

• they attempted to make workhouses repellent by insisting on a monotonous touring and strict discipline by building workhouses that looked like prisons and by trying to in every way to dehumanize the paupers by removing from them their own individual identities

Question 4

What did the commission argue about these ways?

Answer 4

• in these ways the commission argued the principle of less eligibility would be upheld
• regardless of intentions of poor law reformers outdoor relief continued to be the most common form of relief