Changing Patterns of Poor Relief in Some English Rural Parishes Circa 1650–1750

Rural History ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOAN KENT ◽  
STEVE KING
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Court Records ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Rural Parishes ◽  
Changing Patterns

This article uses court records, overseers' accounts, pauper examinations and other records from several counties, including Huntingdonshire and Staffordshire, to look at the experiences of poor relief in early modern England. It shows the varied circumstances under which the poor ‘encountered’ the poor law in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, highlighting the often contradictory attitudes that poor people encountered. More than this, it argues that there were many sorts of ‘poor’ people with very different capacities to negotiate about relief and to help themselves and each other. These features compounded enduring regional differences in the nature and extent of relief to generate a complex patchwork of experiences for the poor in early modern England.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF POOR RELIEF IN LANCASHIRE, c. 1598–1680

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONATHAN HEALEY
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor

ABSTRACTThe development of the poor law has formed a key element of recent discussions of ‘state formation’ in early modern England. There are, however, still few local studies of how formal poor relief, stipulated in the great Tudor statutes, was implemented on the ground. This article offers such a study, focusing on Lancashire, an economically marginal county, far from Westminster. It argues that the poor law developed in Lancashire surprisingly quickly in the early seventeenth century, despite the fact that there is almost no evidence of implementation of statutory relief before 1598, and formal relief mechanisms were essentially in place before the Civil War even if the numbers on relief remained small. After a brief hiatus during the conflict, the poor law was quickly revived in the 1650s. The role of the magistracy is emphasized as a crucial driving force, not just in the enforcement of the statutes, but also in setting relief policy. The thousands of petitions to JPs by paupers, parishes, and townships that survive in the county archives suggests that magistrates were crucial players in the ‘politics of the parish’.

scholarly journals “It Is Extreme Necessity That Makes Me Do This”: Some “Survival Strategies” of Pauper Households in London's West End During the Early Eighteenth Century”

2000 ◽  
Vol 45 (S8) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Boulton
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Elderly Parents ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Alternative Sources

Although research on survival strategies is still at a relatively early stage, there are clearly some areas where there is considerable difference in emphasis placed by historians on the relative importance of particular “expedients” deployed by the poorin extremisThere is, for example, uncertainty regarding the amount of support given by neighbours as opposed to relatives. There is some historical contention, too, over the importance to the elderly of care by their children, as opposed to alternative sources of maintenance such as earnings, charity and especially the formal institutions of poor relief. After all, in the early modern period the principle source for a study of the survival strategies of poor people is always likely to be the records of poor relief or charitable agencies and institutions. The obvious danger here is that historians of poor relief consistently overestimate the importance of such relief to the poor. Both Richard Wall and Pat Thane, using evidence from nineteenth- and twentieth-century England, for example, have demonstrated that the elderly received far more support from relatives than has been realized. Professor Thane has argued that this situation is unlikely t o have been new. Other historians, however, are much more sceptical over the value of intergenerational flows of wealth from children to elderly parents.

Epilogue

2012 ◽  
pp. 226-230
Author(s):  
Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Remarkable Feature ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The City

This chapter identifies the most important characteristics of poverty and welfare among the Portuguese community of early modern Amsterdam. One remarkable feature of the poor in the Amsterdam Portuguese milieu is the prominence of women, until recently hardly considered. The reasons for this were manifold: as a key group in the effort to perpetuate Jewish tradition in the peninsula, women were consistently persecuted by the Inquisition and many fled in fear of it, as well as out of the desire to live openly as Jews. Also, economic opportunities for men outside the Dutch Republic led to many women being left on their own in the city, dependent on welfare. The poor relief provided by the Portuguese community was not exceptionally generous, at least when judged by Amsterdam standards, nor was it granted permanently to all poor people. The system was hierarchical and elitist, presided over by a closed, wealthy caste who ran a strict regime. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Amsterdam Portuguese community had lost its international attraction as a place of refuge.

“Constructing the Poor in Early Seventeenth-Century London”1

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-463
Author(s):  
Claire S. Schen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Demographic Pressure ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Undeserving Poor

Historians of early modern Europe have become accustomed to the dichotomy of the deserving and undeserving poor, though they still debate the origins of the transformation of attitudes toward the poor and poverty. Historians have studied less carefully the ways in which these presumably static categories flexed, as individuals and officials worked out poor relief and charity on the local level. Military, religious, and social exigencies, precipitated by war, the Reformation, and demographic pressure, allowed churchwardens and vestrymen to redraw the contours of the deserving and undeserving poor within the broader frame of the infirm, aged, and sick. International conflicts of the early seventeenth century created circumstances and refugees not anticipated by the poor law innovators of the sixteenth century. London’s responses to these unexpected developments illustrate how inhabitants constructed the categories of die deserving and undeserving poor. This construction depended upon the discretion of churchwardens and their fellow officers, who listened to the accounts and read the official documents of the poor making claims on parish relief and charity.

Emigration and the New Poor Law: The Norfolk Emigration Fever of 1836

Rural History ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Howells
Keyword(s):  
Poor People ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Potential Safety ◽  
Surplus Labour ◽  
Public Record ◽  
British Colonies

In 1836 under the auspices of section 62 of the New Poor Law, 3,069 poor people from Norfolk were assisted to emigrate to North America. Their passages, and various other requirements including spending money, travel to the port, equipment for the voyage and settling of debts, were paid for out of the poor rates. The rationale for this outflow of people revolved around the issue of surplus labour, which was believed to have a corrosive and unsettling effect upon the state of rural society. Emigration had long been seen as a potential safety valve for surplus labour. Clause 62 can be traced back to the vigorous debate about assisted emigration associated with Robert Wilmot Horton. For one emigration season, it looked as if parochial government were capable of rising to the challenge of solving its surplus labour problems and simultaneously satisfying the needs of the labour-hungry British colonies. This paper examines the Norfolk emigration fever by using a previously unused data set of nineteenth-century emigration (Ministry of Health files held at the Public Record Office). It argues that assisted emigration was the result of a concerted rational policy, applied by the parish officers aimed to benefit emigrants and those left behind. The policy was neither haphazard nor accidental and, though inspired by fear of the consequences of implementing the New Poor Law, was not a panicked response. It argues that the arrangements for assisted emigration resulted in a process of interchange and interaction between rich and poor which makes a mockery of the term ‘shovelling out paupers’. The poor emigrants who were targeted were assisted because they were good labourers, not useless indigents incapable of providing for themselves. The findings shed further light on the nature of emigrating populations, the emigratory process and the mindset of both rich and poor at the time of the introduction of the New Poor Law.

INTOXICANTS AND SOCIETY IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHIL WITHINGTON
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
The Poor

ABSTRACTThe article considers the rapid increase in the English market for alcohol and tobacco in the 1620s and the set of concurrent influences shaping their consumption. It suggests that intoxicants were not merely a source of solace for ‘the poor’ or the lubricant of traditional community, as historians often imply. Rather, the growth in the market for beer, wine, and tobacco was driven by those affluent social groups regarded as the legitimate governors of the English commonwealth. For men of a certain disposition and means, the consumption of intoxicants became a legitimate – indeed valorized and artful – aspect of their social identity: an identity encapsulated by the Renaissance concept of ‘wit’. These new styles of drinking were also implicated in the proliferation (in theory and practice) of ‘societies’ and ‘companies’, by which contemporaries meant voluntary and purposeful association. These arguments are made by unpacking the economic, social, and cultural contexts informing the humorous dialogue Wine, beere, ale and tobacco. Contending for superiority. What follows demonstrates that the ostensibly frivolous subject of male drinking casts new light on the nature of early modern social change, in particular the nature of the ‘civilizing process’.

scholarly journals BIGAMOUS MARRIAGE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
BERNARD CAPP
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Court Records ◽  
The Law

ABSTRACTThough divorce followed by remarriage was illegal in early modern England, a considerable number of people whose marriage had failed or whose spouse had deserted ventured to marry again, either uncertain of the law or choosing to defy it. Bigamy, traditionally a spiritual offence, came to be seen as a significant social problem and was made a felony in 1604. Drawing on ecclesiastical and secular court records and a variety of other sources, this article examines the legal framework, offers a typology of bigamists, and explores the circumstances surrounding their actions. It finds that offenders, predominantly male, ranged from the unlucky or feckless to the cynically manipulative, among them a small number of serial bigamists. It also asks how such offences might come to light in an age of relatively poor communications, and examines the plight of those who had married a bigamist in good faith. Finally it examines the likelihood of conviction, and the punishment of those who confessed or were convicted.

Economies and Strategies of the Northern Rural Poor: the Mitigation of Poverty in a West Riding Township in the Nineteenth Century

Rural History ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
GRAHAM RAWSON
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Major Part ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Rural Poor ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Economic Strategies ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Northern Community

Abstract:In the agricultural township of Rigton, ten miles north of Leeds, three-quarters of labouring households had recourse to poor relief at some stage between 1815 and 1861. The chronology of this microhistory straddles the end of the French Wars, the Sturges Bourne reforms, and, due to the existence of the country's largest Gilbert Unions, the region's laggardly application of the Poor Law Amendment Act. It seeks, by source linkage, to establish the contexts of labour, welfare and the life cycle within a northern community, and place the poor and their experiences of, and strategies against, poverty within that community. A demographic overview introduces the contexts of labouring families' lives, whilst a commentary on expositions of biographical reconstitutions of two generations of a labouring family, forms a major part of this exploration. This argues that whilst relationships with, and mitigation against, poverty were fluid and complex, as the century progressed labouring families had a decreasing interface with the Poor Law, and adopted and developed new economic strategies to add to their portfolio of makeshifts.1

The extent and nature of pauperism in five Oxfordshire parishes, 1786–1832

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD DYSON
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
The South ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
Local Factors ◽  
Rural Parishes ◽  
Low Levels

This article examines the nature of pauperism in the south and east of England during the time of the Old Poor Law by using census material from five predominately rural parishes in Oxfordshire between 1786 and 1832. The proportion of people receiving poor relief was calculated for each parish, together with the types of people receiving such relief. While pauperism was significant in some parishes, others had relatively low levels of people receiving relief, and groups of poor hit by traditional life-cycle poverty were still common. Previous notions of widespread pauperism in the south and east during this period may thus need to be revised, with greater acknowledgement of the influence of local factors.

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.

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