The aims of the Poor Law were very simple. Firstly to cut the cost of relief, this was done by no longer providing Outdoor relief for the able-bodies poor; secondly in order to make larger and more efficient units, parishes were to be grouped together to make Unions, each Union have a separate workhouse for the able-bodied, impotent and idle poor; thirdly conditions in the workhouses were to be made as unattractive as possible so that the poor would made every effort possible to try and find work, this was called “less eligibility”; and thirdly each Union was to have paid officials to operate the system, who were appointed by the voluntary Board of Commissioners.
In many ways, the Law was successful, but the main question that many Historians ask is how successful in meeting the needs of the poor. At the time, the social classes were prominently rich or poor, if you were poor you were very poor but if you were rich you were very rich. The poor lived in poverty and inhumane conditions, whilst the rich lived in luxury, but the Poor Law was a success in meeting the needs to an extend. Between 1830-4 the average annual expenditure on poor relief had been around £7 million, however, by 1935-9 it had reduced to £4.5 million. This was also very popular with the tax payers as they had to give less to the poor. The Law was also effective as it showed that the Government/state was responsible for the poor and was able to set up a uniformed system, instead of 15,000 different systems for each Parish. The system did allow the sick, impotent or old to be looked, and discourages poor people to have any more children which long term did keep population between poor people down. The system also was designed to be a deterrent and not so much a punishment to the poor which many believed, the act in operating was not as tuff as the terms of the act, as an example outdoor relief was still given out in cities because of the amount of poor it would’ve been impossible not to give any help.
Conversely, there were many faults in the system which still did not solve the problems for the poor; many historians assumed that the Law dealt with the effects of the poor and not the causes of poverty. The new system ignored the causes of poverty and unemployment, and believed that the poor were themselves to blame, due to lack on imitative, motivation, laziness or drunkenness. Lamentably this theory made no allowances for the regular trade recessions and caused a sudden slump of unemployment. In the south a great stoppage of outdoor relief for the able-bodied caused an immense hardship, thousands of labourers were full-time but receiving no wages which caused their wives and children to find a job and avoid possible starvation. It proved impossible not to give out relief to the poor in the north as thousands would have starved and there were far too many to be accommodated in the workhouses.
Although by 1838 over 13,400 of the 15,000 existing parishes had been grouped together to form 573 Unions, the majority of them seemed too expensive to provide separate workhouses. As well as each parish within the Union still had to pay for its poor, the poorest parishes faced the largest expensive. It was not until 1865 that the system was changes so that parishes were to split the cost within the Unions more equally. However, this meant that in the years strictly after 1834, many children in the workhouse were congregated with criminals, prostitutes and lunatics. There were such a shortage of assistant commissioners that a workhouse was likely to be inspected at the most twice a year, this allowed freedom of the master of the workhouse to run as they whished. You would have had to of been really desperate to go into the workhouses, not just because of the social stigma associated to it, but because many families were split and being poorly treated like convicts. There would have also been psychological damage as many found it hard to leave the workhouse as well as going into the workhouses. Even though the uniformed system was in place, it was not usually applied correctly, different places had different poverty and the uniformed system did not allow any adjustments for this, such as in the cities. In the south, depressions in agriculture meant high unemployment in the late 1803’s and resultant in high cost of relief, whether indoor or outdoor. The response of many working people to the obligation of the so called “starvation Law” was to disagree that the only way to improve their living conditions was through Parliament that fully symbolize working people.
In conclusion I believe that the Poor Law amendment act was a good first attempt of helping the poor in poverty and inhumane conditions and showed that the responsibility of the poor was still the Government. Nevertheless, the Law was seen as a punishment and did not deal with the causes of poverty, in many cases made the situation even worse. As you can see in this essay there were still many unanswered questions and the poor remained in poverty, unemployed and desperate.
