How far were changing attitudes towards the poor between 1834 – 1900 due to the work of individuals?
How far were changing attitudes towards the poor between 1834 - 1900 due to the work of individuals?
In the first half of the Nineteenth century, the attitudes towards the poor were dominated by three major ideas. Firstly, that poverty was the fault of the poor. Secondly that the poor could help themselves, and finally, that it was no business of the government to hand out relief to help the poor. However, these three old ideas began to be ousted by three other ideas that poverty was not the fault of the poor, society had let the poor down, and that the government should help provide relief. A number of factors; the work of individual writers - Mayhew, Booth and Rowntree, and the work of artists, and novelists such as Dickens and Doré brought about these changes of ideas. Other factors such as the growth of the electorate, the decline of Laissez-faire, and the changes in world economics however, merely provided the context to which these individuals could work and therefore bring about a change of attitudes towards the poor. In this essay I will explore the extent of how far individual writers contributed to the changing attitudes towards the poor between 1834 - 1900.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, many people believed that the poor were poor because they were lazy, drunken, extravagant, and profligate. This old idea stimulated the poor law Amendment Act, as it was thought therefore, that poverty was the fault of the poor. It was also widely thought that by working hard, saving, and not drinking, they could help themselves and therefore gain respectability, and so because of this, the Government should not hand out relief. These Old attitudes however, began to change very gradually once people began to become more aware of the working classes and the conditions that they lived in, which was mainly due to the work of individuals.
Concern about the condition of the working classes arose out of the publication of evidence resulting from more 'scientific' investigations of poverty that began to appear in the 1800's. Charles Booth, a shipping Magnate, published details of his investigation into the London District of Tower Hamlets in 1887. He believed that it was possible to categorise society on the basis of employment, income, and life styles. Through his investigation he found that London society consisted of 8 categories. Category A were the occasional workers, the 'savages and barbarians', category B were the casual low paid workers who were capable of bettering themselves. Categories C and D were the people on low incomes who could survive but only just, they were still poor. Categories E and F were the artisans, those who lived a comfortable life, and finally categories G and H were the extremely comfortable upper and middle classes. Booth concluded that one third of the population was living below the poverty line; these were those in categories A - D. His reference to income therefore, reflected the idea of a poverty line. Booth went on to conduct a series of investigations between 1891 and 1903. He was a Conservative politically, and a firm believer in individual enterprise, indeed it is therefore surprising that he found that the chief factor in poverty was family size and that the number of children in a family was more significant element in determining living standards than unemployment itself. Indeed Booth had written that the "lives of the poor lay hidden from view behind curtains on which were painted terrible pictures; starving children, suffering women, overworked men". However, it was Booth who challenged the old idea that the poor were poor were poor due to their own faults, and showed they were poor due to social and economic conditions and through no fault of their own.
Charles Booths work was paralleled by the study of poverty in York undertaken by Seebohm Rowntree and published in 1901. Through interviews, observations, and calculations in an attempt to test Booths findings, he calculated the absolute minimum income for a family to exist at "mere physical efficiency" he found that for a family of 5 it was 21s and 8p. This scientific result was stressed with his investigations into the causes of poverty, which Rowntree found that over half were poor due to low wages, and the rest due to unemployment, size of family, old age, and irregularity of work. Rowntree developed Booths idea of a poverty line and recognised that it fluctuated on a life cycle. Overall Rowntree showed that poverty was national, and his statistics to define a poverty line gave his work a scientific authority; "The fixing of my primary poverty line depends absolutely on a money basis". Like Booth he showed that the causes of poverty were circumstantial and if you were one of the 10% in primary poverty, not even saving could you escape. He was, in my opinion, the individual who contributed the most to changing attitudes regarding the poor in 1900.
The journalist, Henry Mayhew aimed to present a scientific analysis of the structure of working class London, seeing himself as an intermediary. Through his surveys, and interviews with those who 'would' work, those who 'cant' work, and those who 'wont' work he drew certain conclusions. The main one was that the level of poverty that the London street folk lived in was extremely desperate and couldn't be considered acceptable. He also found that there was a very real threat of social revolution if the plight of the poor were ignored. Finally and most importantly, Booth found that the primary reason for this poverty was low wages, unemployment, and physical and mental handicap. He noted that the living of the London dockers should be "as fickle as the breeze itself" as they relied upon the weather conditions to be able to earn money. However, Booths book had an immediate impact, and his pamphlets sold around 13'000 a week and others were inspired to embark on similar surveys.
Overall, it shows how Mayhew challenged the 'old' accepted idea that the poor were responsible for their own poverty, and he warned the consequences of inaction, and indeed he did have an major influence on changing attitudes towards the poor in this period as he did inspire others - Charles Dickens, for example. But the overall work of social investigators, Mayhew, Booth, and Rowntree together had an enormous impact on changing the prominent old attitudes towards the poor.
The social surveys of Mayhew, Booth, and Rowntree had a great significance in moving forward the debate about the ...
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Overall, it shows how Mayhew challenged the 'old' accepted idea that the poor were responsible for their own poverty, and he warned the consequences of inaction, and indeed he did have an major influence on changing attitudes towards the poor in this period as he did inspire others - Charles Dickens, for example. But the overall work of social investigators, Mayhew, Booth, and Rowntree together had an enormous impact on changing the prominent old attitudes towards the poor.
The social surveys of Mayhew, Booth, and Rowntree had a great significance in moving forward the debate about the causes of poverty. They went beyond the head counting of census takers, the 'number crunching' of statisticians and the selective evidence of commissions. They had a real impact on the contemporary understanding about the nature of poverty. Mayhew challenged the accepted orthodoxy that the poor were authors of their own misfortune. Booth showed that in London poverty was the result of a low income, and so squalor set in. Rowntree attempted a sophisticated analysis of poverty by using indices like diet, housing, and clothing to determine a minimum income on both a primary and secondary scale.
Overall, Mayhew, Booth and Rowntree showed that low earnings, irregular employment, large families, sickness and old age, NOT drunkenness and idleness were the root causes of poverty in the nineteenth century. These social surveys did have an enormous impact because of their use of statistics. Because this was a scientific age, people were more likely to believe the results of the surveys due to the scientific manner on which they were conducted, and the empirical and scientific results that they
produced. It did therefore give a certain authenticity, and was a breakthrough in research into the poor. Rowntree's study was more scientific and empirical than Booth or Mayhew's, due to the fact that he studies wages, and concluded with a 'poverty line' and set the bare minimum of living at earning 21s 8d a week. Compared to Booths subjective study showing 28% of the population in poverty, Rowntree was therefore more scientific and so therefore more believable. However, the criticisms of these social
investigations by Helen Bosanquet, a prominent member of the 'Charities Organisations Society' harks back to the old ideas and attitudes regarding the poor, she believed that the poor were poor because they were lazy, idle, and bad managers of money. She believed that there was still the distinction between deserving and undeserving poor, and she deeply criticised the work of the individuals. For example she criticised Booths methodology, which overestimated the extent of poverty and his definition of a poverty line was too loose. Rowntree's findings were criticised by her for setting the poverty line too high! This shows that despite the slow and gradual change in attitudes brought about by the work of individuals, people still believed in the old ideas about the poor throught the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Bosanquet is a prime example of this 'ignorance'. However these social investigations were prompted partly by genuine humanitarian concerns, and partly by violent demonstrations by unemployed men in the mid 1880's coinciding with one of the periodic economic slumps. They were intended to provide factual evidence about poverty, in contrast to the rather emotional and sensational accounts that were becoming rather common in the 1880's.
These emotional and sensational accounts were brought about mainly by the artists and novelists of the period 1834 - 1900. They included Charles Dickens, Mary Gaskell, and the artist Gustav Doré. Gustav Doré, a talented French artist, illustrated over 100 books throughout his career. Widely known, in 1869 Blanchard Gerald suggested they work together to produce a comprehensive portrait of London. Doré signed a 5year project with his publishers, and paid £10'000 a year for his proposed artwork. His book 'London; A Pilgrimage' with 180 drawings by Doré was published in 1872. Although this was a success, he was criticised for concentrating too much on the poverty within London. Pictures such as "Houndsditch" and "Bluegate Fields" show with dramatic realism the real life misery that the poor had to live in. It added to the belief that society had let these people down. Therefore although these pictures graphically portrayed poverty, they had a great impact in changing attitudes.
However, books humanised poverty. Novels, circulating during 1834 - 1900, brought about the humanisation of poverty. Charles Dickens, who was extremely sympathetic to the poor, was vigorously opposed to the Poor law Amendment Act. Dickens also emphasised the importance of Mayhews observations. In his novels such as Oliver Twist, Bleak House and Nicholas Nickleby he humanised poverty to a wide-ranging audience. Lines in "Bleak House" such as: "To see the horses, dogs, and cattle, go by me, and to know that in ignorance I belong to them, and not to the superior beings in my shape, whose delicacy I offend!" struck deep and made the experience of poverty more real to his audience of a literate class. Mary Gaskell also wrote emotional novels; "it does not take much to reduce them (the poor) to worn, listless, diseased creatures." Therefore novels were very effective in slowly changing attitudes, as Dickens and Gaskell humanised poverty to a wide-ranging audience.
Other individuals also played a part in the changing of attitudes towards the poor during 1834 - 1900. William Booth, founder of the salvation Army, published a pamphlet in 1890 entitled 'In Darkest England and the Way Out' in which he portrayed the working class districts as more remote than darkest Africa in terms of their remoteness from the experience of the Upper and Middle classes. This idea therefore led to that the feeling that the condition of the working classes posed some kind of nameless threat to civilised standards, proved a potent force in promoting the acceptability of social reform to benefit the poor. Another influential individual working in the period 1834 - 1900 was the 'New Liberal' David Lloyd George. Speaking in 1890, he proclaimed; "what are the real causes of poverty among the industrial classes? Old age, bad health, the death of the breadwinner and unemployment due to the running down of industries or the depressions in trade" this however, is clearly astounding, as it was said almost 10 years before the work of Rowntree was published and indeed summarises his findings, and so when Rowntrees work was published, it clearly had more influential power to change attitudes due to it. However, despite the influence that all the individuals clearly exerted towards the changing attitudes towards the poor during 1834 - 1900, they acted in favourable circumstances, working in a context that clearly helped them.
The first factor that clearly benefited the work of the individuals was the growth of the electorate. The 1832 Reform Act made little difference to the attitudes towards the poor. It was supposed to give the middle class the vote, get rid of rotten boroughs, and to give seats to the industrial centres, and to finally break the power of the Tory landowners. Despite the middle classes gaining the vote, rotten boroughs still existed, power still remained with the landowners, Mill owners and iron-masters hadn't the time or influence to become MP's, and the working class still had no representation. Therefore in 1832 there was no real change to help the poor. However, the 1832 Reform Bill was brought about by popular protest, as ordinary people brought about the change. It wouldn't have been passed so quickly if there hadn't have been an urgency for reform. This implies that because the reform bill was brought about by popular protest, they may have been motivated to change other things too, the experience of poverty, for example. The second reform act of 1867 expanded the vote to 1 million more men, including skilled working class artisans, and in 1884, the third reform act brought about a ratio of 6 out of 10 men having the privilege to vote. This shows that the wider electorate led to the inclusion of social legislation in the governments programme. The government therefore needed the working class vote. There was an added incentive of a fear and threat of a revolution and socialism from the new political parties. The Social Democratic federation and the Independent Labour party added an extra weight to the government wanting to gain support from the working class and therefore adopting principles that would favour the lot of the working class to encourage voting for them and not separatist revolutionary and 'unsavoury groups'. So therefore they government would be encouraged to help the poor and not exclude it from the political atmosphere. However, it was only with the growth of the electorate that gave a climate for the work of individuals to have an impact on changing old attitudes.
The Government helping the poor due to the growth in the electorate, and not excluding them from issues in Parliament clearly breaks the Laissez Faire principle. Laissez Faire was a policy that was supposed to be adopted by the government in the nineteenth century that intended to 'leave alone' matters that involved its citizens, its economy, and its problems; this therefore also includes the issue of poverty. However, this policy, I believe never did exist in its purest form. There is plenty of evidence of weakening Laissez - Faire policy throughout the nineteenth century. The Industrial revolution of nineteenth century, forced what had once been isolated and private problems, such as destitution, illness, a low life expectancy, into large scale and public issues. This is shown in Dicey's book "Law and Public opinion in England during the Nineteenth century" published in 1905, and saw the previous century as being divided into three. In 1800 - 1830, was an era dominated by Tory Paternalism, so people had to believe that the Government was working in the best interests for them, but doing so without proper consultation or permission. The second period of 1830 - 1860 was dominated by Utilitarian reform, dominated by the concept of 'Individualism', therefore people had to take responsibility for their own poverty, and could, through individual effort, improve their life. This is when the Poor law Amendment Act came into power and workhouses were built in order to rectify the problem of the rising cost of outdoor relief, and house the deserving poor at the same time. This intervention by the government was indeed a breech of the Laissez - Faire principle, dominated by the idea of Utilitarianism (The greatest good of the greatest number). There were other reforming acts of parliament too, for example the 1842 Mines Act preventing women and Children from working down the mines, the factory acts of the 1840's, and the permissive 1848 Public health Act. The final period of 1865 - 1900 was when collectivism and more state intervention took over. This is when the idea that people working together is the real key to change. This period is marked with great state intervention, for example a compulsory Public Health Act, the 1870 Forster's Education Act, and in 1880 there was a compulsory Education Act. However, taking the Permissive 1848 Public Health act and comparing it to the 1875 Compulsory Public one can assume that there was clearly a weakening of Laissez Faire principle during the nineteenth century. This clearly shows the Government felt a duty to protect the lot of the working classes, politicians wanted to stop the anarchy against a state that did nothing from happening, and therefore the weakening of the Laissez-Faire allowed legislation to deal with the poor.
However, although the weakening of the Laissez Faire principle did allow legislation to deal with the poor, it was pushed to help due to a main factor being the changes in world economics. In 1851 the Great exhibition was used with propagandist intent to show that Great Britain was the world leader in territory, science, industry and the like. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, Germany and The United States had overtaken Great Britain's productivity. The cheap corn from the USA damaged Britain's economy, and this did not help the already worsening economic situation of the British cotton exports that were falling. As a result of this, Manufacturers found themselves in financial difficulties, and a popular idea in this context was that maybe the poor were poor because of the same reasons. That if a manager of a business was suffering financial problems due to economic circumstances, then maybe the poor were suffering because of this too. This was given more support by the findings of Booth and Rowntree. The debate about National Efficiency found that unemployment was rising, and in 1895 the House of Commons conducted a select committee on 'distress from want of employment' (Poverty due to unemployment). Because Great Britain was losing the economic race therefore, a decline in efficiency may lead to a decline in the population. It was therefore thought that the reason why the country was in an economic decline was due to the population being in physical decline in the 1890's. This idea was given even more support with the publication of Darwin's Theory of "survival of the fittest" and the 35% of the population being turned down due to physical unfitness in the Boer War of 1899 merely increased the idea that the state must do something in social welfare in order to enable national Survival. This was again given more support and emphasis from the findings of social investigators who claimed that poverty was due to a breakdown of industries or the depression in trade. Because of this and the changes in world economics, the Government was more willing to act.
Overall, changing attitudes towards the poor between 1834 - 1900 were mainly due to the wok of individuals, although other circumstances must be taken into account. The government became increasingly interested in the lives of the poor throughout the nineteenth century, there were over 100 Royal and parliamentary Commissions enquiring into things like the employment of children in factories, the workings of the old poor law and sanitary commissions of large towns. The growth of the electorate was important in changing attitudes regarding the poor, as a wider electorate led to the desire to gain popularity and support and so led to the inclusion of social legislation that was designed to help the poor, and so prevent people voting for anarchist groups. Although the growth of the electorate gave a climate for the work of the individuals to have an impact. The decline of Laissez Faire throughout the century provided the government the opportunity to protect the lot of the working classes, and so legislation could be drafted in order to deal with the poor. Changing attitudes also had a part in this weakening of Laissez Faire. Finally, the changes in world economics enabled the changing in attitudes towards the poor, as because of a recession in trade, manufacturers did do badly, and so this led to the thought that if
they were doing badly due to the world economy, then maybe the poor were suffering too. It is in this period too that the Victorians begin to recognise the connection between a boom and bust economy, when times are good there isn't as much poverty as when times are bad. In my view, the changes in world economics did the most in changing attitudes towards the poor in this period. However, despite the impact that the external factors had in slowly and gradually changing attitudes towards the poor, it is against this background and within this context that the work of individuals must be considered.
The work of individuals portrayed, and humanised poverty in imaginative, and scientific ways. They greatly helped change the old attitudes regarding the poor. Together they showed not only the causes of poverty, but the nature and experience of it. It was individuals who showed that the rich, prosperous Victorian society had failed the poor; they showed how the poor weren't responsible for their own condition, that they were merely the victims of circumstance such as unemployment, sickness, and casual labour. Although writers such as Mayhew recognised that the poor did indeed have failings, he showed how the poor would lead respectable lives if they could. Therefore individuals were extremely effective in changing attitudes towards the poor, although some individuals still believed that the poor were poor due to their own fault, they could help themselves, and that the government should not hand out relief. Helen Bosanquet was a firm believer of this right up to 1900. These individuals then, act in a way and accordance to promote the new ideas. These three new ideas and attitudes towards the poor did not have an immediate impact. In 1859 Samuel Smiles thought that people should help themselves and not rely on the government. In 1869, Boasanquets COS gave "only enough charity to put them on their feet" and finally in 1871 there was a renewed crackdown on the able bodied poor.
However, although not everyone took on board the slow changes in attitudes towards the poor after 1834, by 1900 people recognised that society had let the poor down, that the poor weren't responsible for their own condition, and that if poverty was caused by social and economic conditions, then the government ought to provide a role in providing relief. Individuals however, mainly brought this about. So despite individuals being successful in changing the old attitudes towards the poor, along with political and economical changes, these changes only partly changed attitudes towards the poor.
The greatest use of these political and economical changes were providing context that actually aided the highly influential individuals to work and change the old ideas. But due to the work of these individuals, working in a context that was actually helping them, people became more aware that the poor couldn't get themselves out of poverty by themselves, they needed help. Therefore this was a great shift in attitudes from the poor being idle, profligate, lazy and poor because of their own faults. The new attitudes regarding the poor were followed up by the 'New Liberal' Government of 1906 who regarded the absence of attempts to tackle poverty as a moral wrong, and due to the genuine fear of socialism, were more than willing to attempt to improve the conditions of the poorer working classes after the landslide victory in 1906.
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