Conclusion: reform and innovation

The first half of this chapter examines the implications of these findings for our understandings of several areas of the poor laws: local ideas and policy transfer, national legislation and policy-making. The second half of the conclusion focuses on the influences upon the development of the poor laws. It examines the role of stakeholders and key actors, each with distinct roles in the policy process across both the old and New Poor Law eras. The chapter finishes by discussing more broadly how the policy process approach can be applied to understand reform and innovation in the broader field of social and public policy.

Policies from knowledge networks

This chapter sets out to develop an understanding of how social policies were disseminated between welfare officials. The first half demonstrates that, before the creation of the Poor Law Commission, there was no central welfare authority to suggest ways in which parishes could cope with the increasing demand on poor relief, resulting in parish officials seeking solutions from one another. The information they passed originated at a specific location, but it was presented and promoted as ‘best practice’. Knowledge was transferred between officials in a number of ways; they conducted correspondence, went on trips to workhouses and published, read and referred to pamphlets detailing workhouse practice. Locally derived knowledge was not insignificant after the passage of the Amendment Act. The Commission was proactive in seeking local precedents and encouraging Boards of Guardians to adopt particularly beneficial practices. In addition, regardless of the presence of a central welfare authority, evidence can be found of local officials continuing the tradition of conferring with one another, without the interference of the Commission. In short, the policy process was not constrained by parish boundaries before 1834, nor controlled by the Commission thereafter.

Policies from scandal

This chapter examines the role of welfare scandals in policy-making after the passage of the Amendment Act. The post-1834 relief system opened the policy-making process to a number of other stakeholders to make their own demands on the relief system, such as the medical profession. These ‘stakeholders’, and notable ‘key actors’ from the anti-New Poor Law movement shaped the direction of social policies during the early years of the New Poor Law, not the Commission alone. The existence of a central authority, to hold the local authorities to account, ensured that policies developed in ways which would resolve problems encountered nationally. This meant that the experiences of the poorest played a role in the policy-making process when their voices were carried to the ears of authority. There was, essentially, a feedback mechanism between policy implementation and policy evaluation and change stages of the policy process under the New Poor Law. The creation of a centralised welfare authority brought with it centralised accountability for local relief administration.

Restricting relief: the impact of Sturges Bourne’s reforms

The second chapter about ‘enabling acts’ examines the impact of Sturges Bourne’s Acts of 1818 and 1819. Sturges Bourne’s Acts permitted parishes to employ an assistant overseer whose main task was to inspect the poor and distribute relief, and allowed for the appointment of a Select Vestry to take charge of policy decisions and relief claimants. The chapter first examines why and when the policies were adopted in southern England. These permissory acts allowed parishes to tighten up the distribution of poor relief. As such whilst the retrenchment of relief provision was an inevitable consequence of the Act, the sheer variety of ways in which it was implemented is examined in the chapter. It is argued that the reforms re-drew the distinction between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, ultimately changing individuals' and families' entitlement to relief under the old poor laws.

Introduction: pauper policies

The opening chapter explains the book’s purpose, to understand the practice of the poor laws in England. It provides a history of the main poor laws, paying particular attention to the period 1780 to 1850. The introduction will explain why this research does not follow the direction of recent research about individuals’ experiences of welfare receipt, instead making the case for the rethinking and repositioning of the importance of relief administration. The book unpicks the dynamism of pauper policies: how they emerged, were taken up, implemented and developed in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This is achieved using a ‘policy process’ approach developed by social scientists, which allows for an understanding of the dynamism of policy, as well as for the identification and examination distinct parts of the policy process. The chapter then introduces the context of the research, southern England, an area of varied employment opportunities but immense poverty in the late eighteenth century. The introduction finishes with descriptions of the remaining chapters, guiding the reader through the book.

Gilbert’s Act: workhouses for the vulnerable

This is the first of two chapters which examine poor law ‘enabling acts’. This chapter considers the importance of Thomas Gilbert’s Act, passed in 1782. Gilbert’s Act was passed with the intention that those parishes adopting it would place the ‘vulnerable’ sections of the poor within a workhouse and allocate employment and distribute outdoor relief to the able-bodied. The Act also intended to promote industry and good morals amongst the poor, allowing parish officers to require them to work within the workhouse and embark on teaching programmes for children. This chapter examines the adoption of the Act in southern England, and then its implementation. As the eighteenth century drew to a close, and the pursuit of more economical modes of relieving the poor became ever more important, the Act was adapted in ways which could have actually contradicted Gilbert’s intentions.

A policy process approach to the poor laws

This chapter provides a detailed thematic analysis of the historiographical shifts in the study of the poor laws. It starts with an examination of how an emphasis by historians on the lives and experiences of the poor grew from the ‘history from below’ approach over the last 50 years. Recent analyses of the experiences of the poor have claimed we have paid too much attention to the administration of the poor laws. It questions what we mean by administration, and argues that knowledge of how pauper policies worked is actually pivotal to our knowledge of the poor laws, especially if we are to understand how individuals, including the poor, could influence pauper policies. Then, using a ‘policy process’ model developed in the social sciences, it presents an analysis of what we already understand, and what has remained ill-understood, about the poor laws. The focus is on several themes: policy-making, policy implementation and policy development and change. The main themes which arise from this analysis are explored in the rest of this book.