The New Poor Law Of 1834 Coursework Assignments - Study Source P; use the sources, and your knowledge, to explain whether the cartoonist (Source P) gives an accurate representation of the changes brought about by the Poor Law Act of 1834.

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The New Poor Law Of 1834 Coursework Assignments

Question 6

Study Source P; use the sources, and your knowledge, to explain whether the cartoonist (Source P) gives an accurate representation of the changes brought about by the Poor Law Act of 1834.

Source P gives an exaggerated depiction, comparing the effect of the New Poor Law before and after 1834. The drawing that shows a workhouse room before 1834 is obviously incorrect. The man is displayed as opulent, which would certainly not be the case in a Workhouse. All people who would have entered would have been poor. The man is wearing wealthy clothes, with a tablecloth and an expensive table with fine cutlery and plates. This particular portrayal is inaccurate; the inmates would have in fact worn uniforms and would not have had a tablecloth or such fine cutlery. The conditions are very comfortable for the man in the supposed earlier drawing. In a real workhouse of this time the conditions would have been better than when the New Poor Law was introduced, but not as affluent as in the drawing.

The picture on the right shows an eviscerated inmate with an obese master, to show a stark contrast between the two. The drawing depicts a prison like cell, with bars on the windows and manacles on the wall. This is completely false, the buildings from the outside were designed to look like prisons but that is as far as the likeness went. The inmate is shown in rags, trying to invoke sympathy in the viewer. They would have actually worn a uniform, and no their own clothes.

The food on the table is only a piece of bread, not a Christmas meal. The workhouse diet, in Source C, states that they would have been given a 'special fare of beef, plum pudding and beer'. It would have provided a bland but filling diet, which would keep them at an appropriate weight. The man is very skeletal, this is an incorrect portrayal, because the meals were specifically designed to give the inmate suitable nutrients and energy for the work they carries out day-to-day. All meals were eaten together, so the pictures version of the man's solitary confinement is unrealistic.

The inmate seems to be sitting on a block of stone or a bench. This is also untrue; they would have all had chairs and wooden tables to eat at during meal hours. A possible explanation for the solitary confinement and restricted diet of the man may be because he committed a refractory offence. Source D states that any 'Refractory pauper shall be punished by confinement to a separate room for 24 hours with alteration of diet', although this can explain why the man is in solitary confinement the diet would have not been restricted as far as a single loaf of bread. The refractory room, shown in Source B, would have not had manacles or bars on the windows.
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Both depictions show the segregation experiences by the inmates at the workhouses throughout Britain, this was the worst part of workhouse life. There were many petty rules and regulations that the inmates had to follow. The uniform which they had to wear was another way of institutionalising the poor who entered the workhouse, to demoralise them into becoming one of many.

The rule where they had to be in bed by eight, meant that they could lead no normal life, their own lives were no longer their own, it also felt like they were children. The ...

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