Conceiving and constructing the Irish workhouse, 1836–45

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (149) ◽  
pp. 22-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gray
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Early History ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
History Of ◽  
Industrial Schools

The Irish workhouse has had a troubled history, attracting mostly negative commentary from the inception of the national poor law system after 1838 to the final abolition of the poor law in Northern Ireland in 1948. The popular historian of the institution opens his account with the bald statement that ‘the workhouse was the most feared and hated institution ever established in Ireland’. While one might quibble with this (the penitentiaries and asylums of the nineteenth century were surely as much feared, and perhaps with more reason; the record of the industrial schools and Magdalene asylums has more recently attracted the appalled attention of Irish society), the statement contains a kernel of truth. Designed with the deterrent principle of ‘less eligibility’ to the forefront, and irrevocably associated with the horrors of mass mortality during the Great Famine, the workhouses became in Irish popular memory (and in the bulk of historical commentary) associated with the suffering and degradation of their inmates. Nevertheless, the early history of the poor law and its associated workhouses is more complex than this suggests and deserves closer attention.

The Mendicity Society Movement and the Suppression of Begging

2018 ◽  
pp. 146-184
Author(s):  
Ciarán McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Parent Body ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Poor ◽  
System P ◽  
Short Space

Between 1809 and the early-1840s more than fifty mendicity societies were established throughout Ireland. These charities focused on the suppression of street begging and the relief of the destitute poor. Mendicity societies took their lead from earlier societies located in Britain and mainland Europe, and in Ireland the Dublin association acted as a parent body for this movement. While playing a prominent role in the welfare landscape in the first half of the nineteenth century Ireland’s mendicity societies largely disappeared within a short space of time, largely on foot of the introduction of the Poor Law system.

scholarly journals Savings banks as an institutional import: the case of nineteenth-century Ireland

2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
CORMAC Ó GRÁDA
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Aggregate Data ◽  
Early History ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Savings Banks ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Savings Bank ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

The article examines the early history of provident institutions or trustee savings banks in Ireland. Combining aggregate data and an archive-based study of one savings bank, it describes the growth and performance of this ‘institutional import’. By and large, Irish savings banks catered for the lower-middle and middle classes, not the poor as intended by the founders of the movement. The article also explains how the collapse of three savings banks in 1848 dealt savings banks in Ireland as a whole a blow from which they never really recovered.

The Poor Law Board August Order, 1859: A Case Study of Protestant-Catholic Conflict

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.M. Feheney
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Religious Instruction ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
History Of

The August Order was issued by the Poor Law Board on 23 August 1859 and made the provision of Religious Instruction for Catholic orphan pauper children obligatory on the Masters of all Workhouses. It was a significant concession to Roman Catholic, who had been demanding something like it for more than two decades. At the same time, its mandatory nature greatly offended and angered those Guardians who had ultra-Protestant sympathies and connections. The vigour and persistence of the ensuing agitation to have it repealed is almost without parallel in the history of nineteenth-century Protestant-Catholic relations in England and is worth examining in some detail.

Navigating the Old English Poor Law

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
National Context ◽  
Postal Service ◽  
General Reader ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Emotional Landscape

This edition of 599 letters written by, for or about the poor to the early nineteenth century Cumbrian town of Kirkby Lonsdale provides a unique window onto the experiences, views and conditions of a much neglected group in English social history. The letters provide a sense of the emotional landscape of people who have so far largely escaped our attention, telling the intensely human stories of their hardships and the efforts they made to survive, often against considerable odds. However, they also give a real sense of the agency of the poor and their advocates, demonstrating time and again that they were willing and able – indeed, that they saw it as their right – to challenge those who administered welfare locally in an attempt to shape a system which (notionally, at least) afforded them no power at all. The letters are framed by a scholarly introduction which explains the structural conditions under which they were produced and gives essential local and national context for readers wishing to understand them better. The volume as a whole will be of interest to students and scholars of the Old Poor Law and the history of welfare. It will equally appeal to the general reader with an interest in local and national social history, covering at is does everything from the history of literacy or clothing through to histories of health, disability and the postal service.

‘The Going Out of the Voluntary and the Coming in of the Compulsory’: The Impact of the 1838 Irish Poor Law on Voluntary Charitable Societies in Dublin City

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciarán McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Select Committee ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
The Many ◽  
Withdrawal Of Support ◽  
The Impact

The introduction of the workhouse-centred Poor Law system into Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine transformed the provision of poor assistance in the country. Throughout various urban centres, the plethora of charitable societies that had been prominent in the provision of corporate assistance to the poor faced an increasingly uncertain future, fearing that the levying of compulsory poor rates would result in a withdrawal of support from subscribers and donors. This article analyses the impact of the Poor Law system on charitable societies in Dublin city, covering the fifteen-year period between the 1830 Select Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland to the eve of the Great Famine in 1845. The article outlines how the establishment of the statutory Poor Law system resulted in confusion among the managers of existing welfare institutions and demonstrates that the opening of Poor Law Union workhouses greatly affected charitable societies’ pauper lists and income levels; yet the impact on the many charities that dotted Dublin’s crowded welfare landscape was not uniform.

scholarly journals Johann Michael von Hermann (1793–1855): A predecessor of Max Schweidler?

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 239-270
Author(s):  
Susanne Wagini ◽  
Katrin Holzherr
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Early History ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Conservation History ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
Paper Conservation

Abstract The restorer Johann Michael von Hermann (1793–1855), famous in the early nineteenth century, has long fallen into oblivion. A recent discovery of his work associated with old master prints at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München has allowed a close study of his methods and skills as well as those of his pupil Ludwig Albert von Montmorillon (1794–1854), providing a fresh perspective on the early history of paper conservation. Von Hermann’s method of facsimile inserts was praised by his contemporaries, before Max Schweidler (1885–1953) described these methods in 1938. The present article provides biographical notes on both nineteenth century restorers, gives examples of prints treated by them and adds a chapter of conservation history crediting them with a place in the history of the discipline. In summary, this offers a surprising insight on how works of art used to be almost untraceably restored by this team of Munich-based restorers more than 150 years before Schweidler.

The Relief of Poverty in Mid Nineteenth-Century Colyton

Rural History ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Robin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Present Form ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poor Person ◽  
The Welfare State

The welfare state emerged in 1948 when the National Assistance Act finally abolished the New Poor Law Forty-two years later, as politicians and bureaucrats struggle to keep increasing expenditure within bounds, the existence of the welfare state in its present form is under threat. Just over 150 years ago, the Old Poor Law was presenting parish ratepayers with a similar problem of rising costs, leading in 1834 to a fundamental reorganisation into the New Poor Law It may therefore be profitable to see how effective in practice the New Poor Law was when it replaced a system widely regarded as profligate, and to consider the extent to which benefits payable through the welfare state were available a hundred years or more ago.This study examines in detail how the New Poor Law, and other forms of relief, affected the whole population of the rural parish of Colyton, in south Devonshire, during the thirty years from 1851 to 1881. It will first describe the sources from which a poor person in Colyton in the mid nineteenth century could look for relief; next discuss how widespread poverty was and who the poor were; then look at what kinds of relief were available, under what conditions; and finally assess the comparative importance to the poor of the different agencies providing assistance.

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