Outdoor relief remained the most common method of support to the poor because it was easy to administer and could be applied flexibly. It provided payments for a range of needs, or relief in kind such as clothing and food, with the intent of enabling the able-bodied poor to remain at home. The workhouse was described by the Cotton Times (2007) as “a public institution which housed and fed people who were unable to support themselves”. (Cotton Times – Workhouses). However, from about 1750, industrialisation, a sequence of bad harvests and the Napoleonic wars almost brought the Poor Law system to breaking point. Central government did nothing to address the problems that the parishes were facing.
The Speenhamland system was introduced in 1795. It was a system of providing support calculated by linking the minimum wage of labourers to the price of bread. Unfortunately the system was never given official backing, which led to the complete abandonment of it.
Most people believed that reform was necessary but there were many different solutions to the problem of the poor. Thomas Malthus, an economist, encouraged the abolition of the Poor Law as he believed that it would reduce the number of children poor families had and in turn wages would rise because the poor rate would be levied and employers could afford to pay more, therefore everyone would gain from it. David Ricardo, a political economist, agreed with Malthus stating that any attempts to subsidise incomes would have a distorting effect on the economy, forcing more and more people into poverty. According to Read (1994), Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher, believed that the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” (Ch. 7 p. 129) could be achieved if wages and prices found their true level in a free market and the Poor Law was controlled centrally to agreed standards. Tom Paine, a writer and republican, criticised the Poor Law saying it was inadequate because the wealthy did not contribute enough. Robert Owen was a radical factory owner who blamed the capitalist economic system for creating poverty. He proposed that if workers were employed in cooperative communities everyone would share the profits. So the harder they worked the greater their income would be therefore they would have no need for poor relief and then it would be only the impotent poor that needed care. Edwin Chadwick developed Bentham’s ideas in that he believed the able-bodied poor should be placed in workhouses where the conditions would not be as attractive as that of the poorest labourer outside the workhouse. Effectively a person who was able-bodied had to be destitute in order to qualify for poor relief.
A general election in 1831 saw a change in government. As a reforming party, the Whigs set up a Commission of Enquiry into the operation of the Poor Law. The main long-term issue was the escalating costs of poor relief. The other issues were the growing belief that the committees were corrupt and the fear that systems of relief encouraged large families and perpetuated a cycle of poverty. The immediate problems the government faced were riots in agricultural areas in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Also the fact that France was again entangled in revolution had, demonstrated by Evans (1994), “briefly threatened to disturb the tranquility of Europe” (Ch. 7 p. 46).
The Commissioners worked with a view of reforming the old Poor Law. The report, published in early 1834, recommended radical changes, which were designed to save money and improve efficiency. Separate workhouses were to be provided for the aged and infirm, children, able-bodied females and able-bodied males. Parishes were to group into unions to provided workhouses. A new central authority was to be formed to enforce regulations concerning the workhouse system and lastly, all outdoor relief would stop. The conditions inside the workhouse would need to be made so dire that no one would readily choose to enter them. The Poor Law Amendment Act gained royal assent in August 1834. All bar one of the recommendations were included in the act. Outdoor relief for the able-bodied poor was to be discouraged but was not abolished because the workhouses would be overcrowded and ultimately it would cost more.
A central Poor Law Commission was established to administer the Poor Law Amendment Act throughout the country. The first task was to establish parish unions. They worked under immense pressure due to the urgency to reduce costs and because from 1837 the new unions were being used to administer births, deaths and marriages. However, many parishes refused to re-amalgamate and poor relief was being driven by unions formed under previous legislations such as Gilbert’s Act of 1782 and the Sturge-Burne Act of 1819. This also meant that the commissioners had, supported by Rees (2001) “no powers to insist the new unions built a workhouse, although they could insist that alterations were made to an existing one” (Ch. 4 p.36).
The Poor Law policy, after 1834, had two priorities. The first was to move people from rural areas to towns and cities where work could be easily found and the second was to protect urban ratepayers from the demands of migrant workers before obtaining regular employment. The less eligibility principle drove potential paupers to find work rather than entering the workhouse and settlement laws prevented people claiming relief other than in their own parish.
The Poor Law Amendment act was always meant to address the treatment of able-bodied men. It was extremely difficult to manage workhouses to be both a deterrent to the able-bodied poor and a humane refuge for the sick and helpless. As Digby (1982) confirmed, ‘the cruelty of the workhouse did not reside in its material deprivation but in its psychological harshness” (Ch. P. 17). Although the workhouses were designed to deter entry, there were some clear benefits of being in a workhouse. Children got a basic education followed by an apprenticeship. People were fed with a diet, which was often better than what would be available outside. Each workhouse developed a system of routine and regulations. On entering a workhouse, families or couples were split up, stripped, bathed and given a workhouse uniform. The inmates were occupied with work but there were problems with this as the work given could not damage employment opportunities in the community and the cost had to be no more than it took to care for a pauper. The women and children usually maintained the workhouse but staff were required for the workhouse to function efficiently. There were also teachers, medical officers and chaplains who had to be paid but the rates of pay were very low compared to that of prison workers.
By 1847 opposition to the Poor Law had died down. Those seeking relief knew what to expect and those paying for it knew what was being provided. The Andover workhouse scandal brought some of the worst abuses of the new Poor Law system to the attention of Parliament and the public, which resulted in the abolition of the Poor Law Commission and the formation of the Poor Law Board. It was intended to rid the administration of the Poor Law of arrogance and rigidity, but also to shift from independent governance to parliamentary control. This reflected a change in public attitude to poverty in general from disgrace to misfortune. Society was seen to have a duty of care towards its vulnerable citizens. The irony of the poor rate was that parishes with the highest number of poor had to charge more than the prosperous parishes, which resulted in increased hardship and prosperity. The situation was resolved by the 1865 Union Chargeability Act, which according to Rees (2001) “placed the financial burden of relief on the union as a whole” (Ch. 6 p. 63). Each union paid into a common fund based on property value and not the number of paupers for who the parish was responsible.
From 1847 anyone claiming outdoor relief had to do the same monotonous work as those claiming indoor relief had to do. The Local Government Board supported local authorities when they took a harsh line with the able-bodied poor asking for relief. They also authorised boards of guardians to take part in emigration schemes, whereby groups of paupers were sponsored to emigrate. In 1866, the president of the Local Government Board John Chamberlain advised all boards of guardians to provide paid schemes such as street cleaning for the able-bodied poor.
In 1906, the Liberal Party claimed victory in the general election. Both Booth and Rowntree’s findings had a vast influence on liberal politicians. They had found that poverty had been much more widespread than previously thought and that low wages caused poverty as well as idleness. William Gladstone’s Liberal Party had stood for low taxation and laissez faire meaning minimal interference by the state in the everyday lives of its citizens. Progressive reformers such as Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill all believed that the issue of poverty had to be tackled.
The 1906 Education (Provision of Meals) Act produced a private member’s Bill, which allowed the state to take over the role of the parent where their direct needs were concerned. Pubic money was to provide free meals for children of needy parents. The 1907 Education (Administrative Provisions) Act saw the set up of a school medical service, which was run by local authorities. Medical inspectors would provide treatment as well as inspection. The 1908 Children and Young Persons’ Act was designed to oversee the protection of children. Parents would face prosecution for neglect and children’s homes would be regulated and inspected.
The first part of the 1911 National Insurance Act as stated by Rees (2001) “was an attempt to support the poor when ill health struck the main breadwinner” (Ch. 7 p. 91) by employers, employees and the state contributing to the health insurance scheme. It would supply a weekly income and include free medical treatment and maternity care. This was the most unpopular of the Liberal’s welfare reforms due to payment being flat-rate, everyone had to pay the same, the poorer workers were hit the hardest. The 1909 Labour Exchange Act set up a series of labour exchanges that were intended to help the unemployed find work. The second part of the 1911 National Insurance Act dealt with insurance against unemployment. Workers could claim unemployment benefits but no claim could be paid if unemployment resulted from a person being dismissed for misconduct.
The welfare state aimed to provide central support for all British citizens. The ranges of reform introduced by the Liberals were remarkable. They depended on local government and local services to deliver them. Beneficiaries of the two major schemes, health and unemployment insurance, were expected to contribute to the schemes. However, the Liberal reforms did not cover everyone. Payments were not universal and thousands of people were deliberately excluded. Still, the most important impact the Liberal reforms had were the shift in attitudes to poverty, paupers and the role the state had to assume for its people. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act saw that poverty was a misfortune rather than self-inflicted. It ensured that all aspects of poverty, employment and idleness were being improved and would eventually free people from poverty.
Bibliography
BBC History. (2011) ‘British History in Depth: Poverty in Elizabethan England’. Available from [Accessed 9 January 2012]
Cotton Times. (2007) ‘Workhouse - a fact of life in the Industrial Revolution’ Available from [Accessed 10 January 2012]
Digby, A. (1982). The Poor Law in Nineteenth Century England and Wales. London: The Historical Association.
Englander, D. (1998). Poverty and Poor Law Reform in Nineteenth Century Britain, 1834-1914: From Chadwick to Booth (Seminar Studies In History). Essex: Addison Wesley Longman Limited.
Evans, E.J. (1994). The Great Reform Act of 1832 (2nd Ed.). London: Routledge.
Read, D. (1994). The Age of Urban Democracy: England 1868-1914 – Revised Edition. New York: Longman Publishing.
Rees, R. (2001). Poverty and Public Health 1815-1948. Essex: Heinemann Educational Publishers.
Slack, P. (1990). The English Poor Law 1531-1782 (New Studies in Economic and Social History). Cambridge: The Economic History Society.