The Poor Law Report Reexamined

1964 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Blaug
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Inhibitory Effect ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Economic Point ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
Unemployment Compensation ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Family Allowances

In an earlier article, I pleaded for a reappraisal of the Old Poor Law. Despite what all the books say, the evidence that we have does not suggest that the English Poor Law as it operated before its amendment in 1834 reduced the efficiency of agricultural workers, promoted population growth, lowered wages, depressed rents, destroyed yeomanry, and compounded the burden on ratepayers. Beyond this purely negative argument, I tried to show that the Old Poor Law was essentially a device for dealing with the problems of structural unemployment and substandard wages in the lagging rural sector of a rapidly growing but still underdeveloped economy. It constituted, so to speak, “a welfare state in miniature,” combining elements of wage-escalation, family allowances, unemployment compensation, and public works, all of which were administered and financed on a local level. Far from having an inhibitory effect, it probably contributed to economic expansion. At any rate, from the economic point of view, things were much the same after 1834 as before. The Poor Laws Amendment Act of 1834 marked a revolution in British social administration, but it left the structure of relief policy substantially unchanged.

scholarly journals The Power of Personality in the Operation of the New Poor Law

Genealogy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Karen Rothery
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Local History ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Controlled System ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Institutional Aspects ◽  
New Evidence

For many years, historians focused on the institutional aspects of the poor laws and the power vested in the central authorities; more recently, the experience of the poor themselves has been at the heart of academic study. This article looks at a third group: those who exercised power and influence in delivering poor law policy at a local level and specifically how certain individuals with strong personalities administered or disrupted what was heralded as a uniform and centrally controlled system. Based on an in-depth local history study on the development of the poor law unions in the county of Hertfordshire, England, this paper will look in detail at the contribution made by specific individuals during the early years of the new poor law and consider how they influenced poor law policy and practice. It will argue that personal contributions made a difference to the operation of the poor laws and that the personality of certain poor law officials had the potential to influence the central authorities, which has not been fully recognised. This research supports the argument that the new poor law was regionally diverse and provides new evidence to suggest that the power of local personnel to influence poor law policy contributed to that diversity and should not be overlooked.

The English Poor Laws, 1700–1930. By Anthony Brundage. [Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2001. vii and 185 pp. Hardback. £49.50. ISBN 0–333–68271–8.]

2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 715-738
Author(s):  
M.A. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Additional Research ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Short Account ◽  
Law System ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
Systematic Overview ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Subject

This latest addition to the Palgrave series on Social History in Perspective is a concise and systematic overview of the Poor Law system from the beginning of the 18th century through to its demise in 1930. Well written, The English Poor Law is intended as an introduction to the subject for students of law, history, and/or society, and therefore offers a very short account. Fortunately, the knowledgeable Professor Brundage (whose earlier books include an analysis of the New Poor Law and a biography of one of its facilitators, Edwin Chadwick) provides first-rate end notes and an extensive bibliography. In consequence, those wishing to learn more of this interesting topic have been afforded the means for additional research.

The Break-Up of the Poor Laws— German Style: Progressivism and the Origins of the Welfare State, 1900–1918

2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 981-1009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Frohman
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Social Security Systems ◽  
Security Systems ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Welfare State

While the 1834 New Poor Law and the controversies over its reform represent one of the central threads in every narrative of the history of modern Britain, the same can hardly be said of the German poor laws, whose history is far less known. This is due in large part to a historiographical tradition that sees the Bismarckian social insurance programs as the fons et origo of the German welfare state and thus marginalizes all forms of social assistance that can not be neatly fitted into the narrative pre-history or subsequent development of these programs. This contrasts with a British tradition where, as E. P. Hennock has recently argued, national insurance was primarily conceived as a means of poor law reform, and where the poor laws figure prominently in the historiography of the welfare state. On the other hand, this insurance-centered approach to the welfare state is not entirely to blame because, for their part, historians of poor relief have not been able to establish any positive connections between individualized, subsidiary, deterrent relief and social insurance or social security systems based on rights deriving from either contributions or citizenship.

scholarly journals Parsimony and Pauperism: Poor Relief in England, Scotland and Wales in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Harris
Keyword(s):  
The Elderly ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Different Levels

As the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws noted in 1909, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the Poor Law (Scotland) Act of 1845 sprang from rather different motives. Whereas the first Act aimed to restrict the provision of poor relief, the second was designed to enhance it. However, despite these aims, it is generally accepted that Scotland's Poor Law continued to relieve a smaller proportion of its population and to spend less money on them. This paper revisits the evidence on which these claims are based. Although the gap between the two Poor Laws was less than previously supposed, it was nevertheless substantial. The paper also explores the links between the size of Scottish parishes and welfare spending, and demonstrates that the main reasons for the persistence of the spending gap were related to different levels of investment in poorhouses and workhouses, and support for the elderly.

scholarly journals Natural Gas Hydrate Prediction and Prevention Methods of City Gate Stations

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Lili Zuo ◽  
Sirui Zhao ◽  
Yaxin Ma ◽  
Fangmei Jiang ◽  
Yue Zu
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Ethylene Glycol ◽  
Gas Phase ◽  
Hydrate Formation ◽  
Inhibitory Effect ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Economic Point ◽  
Prediction And Prevention ◽  
Prevention Methods ◽  
And Control

During the process of distributing natural gas to urban users through city gate stations, hydrate is easy to form due to the existence of throttling effect which causes safety risks. To handle this problem, a program to quickly calculate hydrate prediction and prevention methods for city gate stations is developed. The hydrate formation temperature is calculated through the Chen–Guo model, and the Peng–Robinson equation of state combined with the balance criterion is used to analyze the water condensation in the throttling process. The Wilson activity coefficient model is used to calculate the mass fraction in the liquid phase of thermodynamic inhibitors for preventing hydrates. Considering the volatility of inhibitors, the principle of isothermal flash has been utilized to calculate the total injection volume of the inhibitor. Moreover, the effects of commonly used methanol and ethylene glycol inhibitors are discussed. In terms of safety and sustainability, the ethanol inhibitor, which is considered for the first time, exhibited better prevention and control effects under conditions with relatively high temperature and low pressure after throttling. Combined with the actual working conditions of a gate station, methanol has the best inhibitory effect, followed by ethylene glycol. From an economic point of view, the benefits of the gas phase of the inhibitor during the delivery of natural gas are obvious; therefore, the method of methanol injection is recommended for hydrate prevention. If the gas phase benefits of the inhibitor are not considered, the ethylene glycol injection method becomes more economical.

Whigs and Paupers: The Reform of the English Poor Laws, 1830-1834

1981 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dunkley
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Actual Distribution ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Practical Effect

In 1832, a royal commission was appointed to investigate the operation of the poor laws in England and Wales, and two years later legislation was adopted on the basis of the commission's recommendations. For most contemporaries the passage of this measure, the so-called New Poor Law, seemed to promise significant, perhaps even radical, change in the administration of poor relief. An ancient system of parochial government was to be supplanted in the localities by a series of larger poor law unions and boards of guardians, whose discretion was to be limited by responsibility to a national bureaucratic authority in London. No less dramatic was the relief policy that the new law envisioned. It was generally understood that the poor law commissioners appointed under the act were to direct their main efforts to the establishment of a system of workhouses, wherein relief could be accorded under conditions that rendered the pauper's lot “less eligible,” that is, less attractive, than that of the poorest independent laborer. Through such means, it was hoped, an end might be made to what was seen as a long-established and widespread practice of supplementing the inadequate wages of the laboring poor out of the poor rates.While the tendency of recent work has been to question the practical effect of this legislation on the actual distribution of aid, the problem remains of explaining the motivations and intentions of the men who promoted a measure of such seemingly abundant and far-reaching implications.

scholarly journals The Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1905–09

1977 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Woodroofe
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost

Although there is some truth in the comment made by Canon Barnett, rector of St Jude's, Whitechapel, and founder of Toynbee Hall, that the issue in 1909 of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws “may mark the beginning of a new epoch in our social life”, the precise reasons for the appointment of the Commission on December 4th, 1905, are not yet known. The Conservative government, which made the appointment almost on the eve of its defeat, had been in power for ten years, first under the prime ministership of Lord Salisbury and then, until his resignation in December 1905, of A. J. Balfour. During that time the cost of the Poor Law had risen steadily, and yet, until the end of 1904, either through social myopia or a preoccupation with the greater drama of events abroad, the government displayed little interest in the problem of the Poor Law or, indeed, in any of the wider questions of social reform.

scholarly journals Krytyka nowego prawa o ubogich w ujęciu ruchu oksfordzkiego (1833‑1845)

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (55) ◽  
pp. 57-75
Author(s):  
Piotr Musiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
Poor Laws ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
History Of

The Oxford Movement’s Critique of the Poor Law Amendment ActThe paper presents a short history of poor laws in England and Great Britain, the content and justifications of the Poor Law Amendment Act (1834), general characteristics of the Oxford Movement and its main political ideas, the state of contemporary research on the topic, and finally the Movement’s approach to the new Poor Law. This approach – the Oxford Movement’s critique – has been reconstructed into three main groups of arguments. In the first group there are arguments pointing out why a state’s responsibility, and state-organised system of poor relief, is to be irrelevant and why the Church should play a far greater role in this field. The second group of arguments underlines the impracticality of centralisation in the system and proposes the major role of the local units in poor relief, as well as more ‘personal’ approach to the poor, also by reforming workhouses. The third group of arguments undermines the liberal (and Puritan) idea of solely individual responsibility for one’s poverty and destitution – an idea underlying the new Poor Law.

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