In 1834, the Whig government passed the Poor Law Amendment Act, which significantly changed the nature of poor relief in Britain. Broadly speaking, the Royal Commission was the main influence on the terms of this act

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History Module Essay

In 1834, the Whig government passed the Poor Law Amendment Act, which significantly changed the nature of poor relief in Britain. Broadly speaking, the Royal Commission was the main influence on the terms of this act, although the Whig party itself and threat of violence also played a role in defining the new law.

The Royal Commission was dominated by utilitarian political economists such as Chadwick and Senior, who were subscribers to the views of economic theorists like Smith, Ricardo and Malthus. Smith was a pioneer of laissez-faire thinking, and he believed that government intervention in economic matters should be kept to a minimum, whilst Malthus warned against over-population by making the poor dependent on handouts.

The main concern of the Commission had been the spiralling cost of the Poor Law. By 1831, the annual expenditure was equivalent to 80% of local rates – nearly £7 million. Chadwick in particular wanted to cut this dramatically; through increasing the efficiency of the whole system and eradicating the ‘able bodied poor’ from relief, he hoped to reduce the financial burden on ratepayers. These aims can be seen in the terms of the act, through the creation of the central Poor Law Board and the introduction of the idea of ‘less eligibility’ which would allow local authorities to reduce costs by providing poorer living conditions to discourage relief claimants.

The commission recommended the establishment of the central Poor Law Board to co-ordinate relief on a national scale. In 1831, there were over 15,000 parishes, very few of which had amalgamated into Poor Law unions; some were using outdoor relief, others the Speenhamland system, and Indoor relief was also employed. Senior and Chadwick believed that a centrally controlled system would be more cost-efficient through the use of economies of scale, and that the level of provision would also be standardised; leading to an overall drop in conditions inside workhouses and therefore a drop in overall expenditure.

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Aiming to reduce the dependency on the state, due to government economic intervention was another key aspect to the Royal Commission’s report. Under the previous system, local authorities usually ‘made up’ labourers’ wages to subsistence level; thus, farmers paid low wages, safe in the knowledge that their labourers would still get enough money to survive. Chadwick and Senior wanted to change this scenario as it conflicted with Smith’s ideas on laissez-faire and non-intervention. They proposed the establishment of workhouses with poor conditions for inhabitants, to reduce dependency on the state – this was the concept of less eligibility.

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