The Relief of the Poor in Coventry, 1830–1863

1977 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Searby
Keyword(s):  
Local Economy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Will ◽  
Law Commission

Recent writers have pointed out that the 1834 act often made little immediate difference to the practice of local poor-law authorities. The poor-law commissioners lacked the means or the will to enforce their programme. Poor law unions did not replace the township as the effective unit of administration. The same men (albeit with different titles) remained in control. Authorities continued to vary greatly in efficiency and generosity, strong determinants of leniency or harshness being the fortunes of the local economy and the strength of local impulses towards paternalism or frugality. In Nottinghamshire, for example, relief policy became steadily more stringent from the 1820s onwards, largely owing to the work of cost-conscious magistrates; 1834 speeded the current, rather than changed its course. On the other hand, in the Durham unions surveyed by Peter Dunkley, relief was generous throughout the 1830s, but stingy when the local economy was hit by slump after 1840; in the Hungry Forties, the Durham unions were as ruthless as the poor law commission in their attitude towards the poor – and sometimes, indeed, were more so, the commission protesting vainly against the overcrowding of workhouses. Even local authorities' generous phases reflected a shrewd assessment of the ratepayers' best interests: Rhodes Boyson has shown how the north-east Lancashire unions' insistence on continuing outdoor relief was due in part to a realisation that to enforce indoor relief in all cases would be much more costly.

scholarly journals Urbanisation, Elite Attitudes and Philanthropy: Cardiff, 1850–1914

1982 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Evans
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
The Poor

How did philanthropy adjust to the transformation of society in the nineteenth century? What was its role in social relations and in relieving poverty? Recent writers studying these issues have suggested the need for detailed studies at local level, and in studying some English towns and cities in the earlier part of the nineteenth century they have come to varying conclusions. Roger Smith's study of Nottingham shows that philanthropy added insignificantly to the amount of relief available through the Poor Law. By contrast Peter Searby's study of Coventry shows that philanthropic funds were quite abundant and after some reforms in the 1830's even applied to the relief of the poor! Professor McCord's articles on the North-East of England in the early nineteenth century seek to establish the more ambitious claim “that nineteenth-century philanthropy provided increasing resources and extended machinery with which to diminish the undesirable effects of that period's social problems”.

scholarly journals STATE INSURANCE AND THE POOR LAW COMMISSION

BMJ ◽  
1910 ◽  
Vol 2 (2594) ◽  
pp. 742-748
Author(s):  
J. H. Keay
Keyword(s):  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Law Commission

Dickens’s National Novel

2021 ◽  
pp. 219-245
Author(s):  
Josephine McDonagh
Keyword(s):  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Bleak House ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Law ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
National Borders

Bleak House is a novel saturated with figures of unsettlement, in which characters uprooted by their social conditions operate within a plot animated by unsettlement, in an affective world dominated by feelings of pity and sympathy for those who have been displaced. Thresholds recur in the novel as privileged sites of heightened emotion. The novel’s preoccupation with unsettlement is best understood in the context of mid-century bourgeois aspirations to reimagine the nation as a place in which all citizens might enjoy freedom of movement. In framing this vision, Dickens draws on two contemporary discourses, one drawn from emigration, especially Caroline Chisholm’s popular ‘family emigration’ schemes; the other from public discussions about the law of settlement in the context of the New Poor Law. The latter were attempts to regulate where the poor could live, in the context of the bureaucratic reorganization of national geography that occurred at this time. Throughout, however, the novel displays profound ambivalence about Britain’s engagement with the wider world, expressed most clearly through its antagonism to overseas philanthropy, which it sees as a misdirection of national feeling. The novel’s vision of the nation, underpinned by its commitment to mobility and an ideology of freedom of movement within, but not beyond, the nation, produces its particular formal features and thematic emphases on mobility and movement, and its preoccupation with thresholds—doorsteps, entrances, and finally national borders—as places at which political decisions about inclusion and exclusion are made.

Gilberto Freyre and the Politics of Culture, 1930–1980

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Lúcia Pallares-Burke
Keyword(s):  
Political Career ◽  
American Experience ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Government ◽  
Brazilian Identity ◽  
Brazilian Culture

Although his views on the subject were changeable and difficult to define, Gilberto Freyre was interested in politics from his youth onwards. He had a brief political career as assistant to the Governor of Pernambuco (1926–1930) and as a deputy in the Constituent Assembly (1946–1950), where he spoke for the North East. He had what he called a “quasi-political” career as a journalist for most of his long life and he was also a cultural manager who founded or supported institutions that spread the ideas he believed in. More importantly, his central interests and ideas had political implications. He was accused of “Bolshevism” for his emphasis on the African element in Brazilian culture. His regionalism embodied a protest against centralization and standardization. His lifelong interest in architecture included a concern with housing for the poor that was hygienic and environmentally friendly, and also with the conservation of colonial buildings to serve as an inspiration for a Brazilian style of modern architecture. As a scholar, Freyre supported what he called the “tropicalization” of the social sciences, freeing them from generalizations based simply on European and North American experience. His view of Brazil in terms of culture instead of race implied that the government should be concerned with the health and education of the poor rather than with “whitening” the country by encouraging immigration from Europe. His idea that mixture was the core of Brazilian identity was taken up by governments from Vargas to Lula, while his idea of “Luso-Tropicalism,” claiming that the Portuguese were more flexible and benevolent colonizers than other nations, was used as a defense against critics of colonialism by the Salazar regime.

scholarly journals Intra-Specific Venom Variation in the Australian Coastal Taipan Oxyuranus scutellatus

Toxins ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Tasoulis ◽  
Anjana Silva ◽  
Punnam Chander Veerati ◽  
Mark Baker ◽  
Wayne C. Hodgson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Dimorphism ◽  
Snake Venom ◽  
Geographical Variation ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Population Variation ◽  
The Other ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Specific Variation ◽  
Two Populations

Intra-specific venom variation has the potential to provide important insights into the evolution of snake venom, but remains a relatively neglected aspect of snake venom studies. We investigated the venom from 13 individual coastal taipans Oxyuranus scutellatus from four localities on the north-east coast of Australia, spanning a distance of 2000 km. The intra-specific variation in taipan venom was considerably less than the inter-specific variation between it and the other Australian elapids to which it was compared. The electrophoretic venom profile of O. scutellatus was visually different to six other genera of Australian elapids, but not to its congener inland taipan O. microlepidotus. There was minimal geographical variation in taipan venom, as the intra-population variation exceeded the inter-population variation for enzymatic activity, procoagulant activity, and the abundance of neurotoxins. The pre-synaptic neurotoxin (taipoxin) was more abundant than the post-synaptic neurotoxins (3FTx), with a median of 11.0% (interquartile range (IQR): 9.7% to 18.3%; range: 6.7% to 23.6%) vs. a median of 3.4% (IQR: 0.4% to 6.7%; range: 0% to 8.1%). Three taipan individuals almost completely lacked post-synaptic neurotoxins, which was not associated with geography and occurred within two populations. We found no evidence of sexual dimorphism in taipan venom. Our study provides a basis for evaluating the significance of intra-specific venom variation within a phylogenetic context by comparing it to the inter-specific and inter-generic variation. The considerable intra-population variation we observed supports the use of several unpooled individuals from each population when making inter-specific comparisons.

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