British Course Essay
Apart from slight amendments like the laws of settlement and gilberts act, the poor law of 1601 had remained in place right until 1834. The system was very old and outdated and was becoming increasingly more expensive. In 1831, 7 million pounds had been spent on provision for the poor. Not only that but the system lacked unity and 10 per cent of the population were paupers. The government was facing more and more criticism from intellectuals and writers because inefficient systems like the Speenhamland system which subsidised low wages based on how many children, labourers had and the price of bread. Subsidies like this and other old systems only encouraged corrupt land owners to lower wages. In 1832 a commission had been set up to investigate the old system and make recommendations. Of all the parishes in England and Wales, only 10 per cent had been investigated. Although for a time of very primitive bureaucratic procedures it needs to be recognised that such a survey in itself groundbreaking. However aside from that it is debated that the commission already had a conclusion before it even began its investigation and merely set out to support the recommendations they had decided on. The commission wanted to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor and wanted to stop exploitation of an over generous solution and relieving the burden on the rate payer. They wanted to achieve this by creating central uniform system across the country. Parishes were to group together to form poor law unions and each union was to set up a harsh work house as a deterrent for relief. Outdoor relief was to be abolished for the able-bodied poor. This was to create a modern and efficient centralised system. In 1834 the government responded to the commission by drawing up a bill which broadly reflected the recommendations in the report. The four main mechanisms to achieve this were: The establishment of a central authority to regulate the poor law; the grouping together of parishes to form poor law unions in order to provide relief efficiently; the establishment of a workhouse in each union in which the conditions would be worse of those of the poorest worker, so that people would be deterred from entering them; and the reduction of abolishment of “outdoor relief” for the able bodied poor so that those seeking poor relief would have to go to a work house. For the records their aims were achieved because costs did go down and not as much was being spent on provision for the poor. This pleased the middle and upper classes which was obvious because they were the ones with the right to vote. It wasn’t total success as it took a while to implement the act nationally. Not just trouble implementing, but although poor relief was reducing, poverty was not.
