Why was the Old Poor Law reformed in 1834 and why was the New Law so easily passed?

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Unit Title: Social Change and Reform in the Nineteenth Century                      Kayleigh Giles-Johnson

Why was the Old Poor Law reformed in 1834 and why was the new law so easily passed?

In this essay we will be looking at the Poor Law of 1834 and how it came to be reformed, focusing on one of the main reasons the bill was so easily passed. First we will be looking at the old Poor Law and the problems it had, and then looking at development of the reformation before analysing some of the factors behind how its reformation.

The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 was put in place to provide emergency poor relief to those in acute distress. The responsibility lay in the parishes to collect money for their own poor, of which an appointed official was in charge. He would use the money to help the poor in two ways, either by distributing a weekly allowance to them as they continue to live in their own houses, known as ‘outdoor relief’, or helping them by placing them in poorhouses, known as ‘indoor relief’. An important feature of this system was that it was flexible between parishes, allowing them to develop their own systems of distribution. One such example is that of the ‘Speenhamland System’, where families received an allowance based on how many members there were in them and what the current price of food was. When the cost of a loaf of bread rose, so did the amount of money they were allocated (Martin, 2000, p.54).

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However despite such measures being introduced, the law was struggling to cope with costs. More people were beginning to rely on the relief as a result of many factors, such as the rise of the population, commercialisation of farming and bad harvests. The 1792-1815 war with France further shortened food supplies and due to inflation prices were higher than ever before. The attitude towards poor people had relaxed, no longer being seen as a result of immoral lifestyle, and the system was beginning to be abused by outdoor relief poor deliberately having large families in order to gain more allowance ...

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