Poverty and Poor Law Reform in Nineteenth-Century Britain, 1834-1914

Poverty and Poor Law Reform in Nineteenth-Century Britain, 1834-1914 PDF Author: David Englander
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317883217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 is one of the most important pieces of social legislation ever enacted. Its principles and the workhouse system dominated attitudes to welfare provision for the next 80 years. This new Seminar Study explores the changing ideas to poverty over this period and assesses current debates on Victorian attitudes to the poor. David Englander reviews the old system of poor relief; he considers how the New Poor Law was enacted and received and looks at how it worked in practice. The chapter on the Scottish experience will be particularly welcomed, as will Dr Englander's discussion of the place of the Poor Law within British history.

Poor Relief in England, 1350–1600

Poor Relief in England, 1350–1600 PDF Author: Marjorie Keniston McIntosh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503650
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved toward a more coherent and comprehensive network of support. Marjorie McIntosh's study, the first to trace developments across that time span, focuses on three types of assistance: licensed begging and the solicitation of charitable alms; hospitals and almshouses for the bedridden and elderly; and the aid given by parishes. It explores changing conceptions of poverty and charity and altered roles for the church, state and private organizations in the provision of relief. The study highlights the creativity of local people in responding to poverty, cooperation between national levels of government, the problems of fraud and negligence, and mounting concern with proper supervision and accounting. This ground-breaking work challenges existing accounts of the Poor Laws, showing that they addressed problems with forms of aid already in use rather than creating a new system of relief.

Obligation, Entitlement and Dispute under the English Poor Laws

Obligation, Entitlement and Dispute under the English Poor Laws PDF Author: Peter Jones
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443886610
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
With its focus on poverty and welfare in England between the seventeenth and later nineteenth centuries, this book addresses a range of questions that are often thought of as essentially “modern”: How should the state support those in work but who do not earn enough to get by? How should communities deal with in-migrants and immigrants who might have made only the lightest contribution to the economic and social lives of those communities? What basket of welfare rights ought to be attached to the status of citizen? How might people prove, maintain and pass on a sense of “belonging” to a place? How should and could the poor navigate a welfare system which was essentially discretionary? What agency could the poor have and how did ordinary officials understand their respective duties to the poor and to taxpayers? And how far was the state successful in introducing, monitoring and maintaining a uniform welfare system which matched the intent and letter of the law? This volume takes these core questions as a starting point. Synthesising a rich body of sources ranging from pauper letters through to legal cases in the highest courts in the land, this book offers a re-evaluation of the Old and New Poor Laws. Challenging traditional chronological dichotomies, it evaluates and puts to use new sources, and questions a range of long-standing assumptions about the experience of being poor. In doing so, the compelling voices of the poor move to centre stage and provide a human dimension to debates about rights, obligations and duties under the Old and New Poor Laws.

Welfare's Forgotten Past

Welfare's Forgotten Past PDF Author: Lorie Charlesworth
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135179638
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 561

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Book Description
That ‘poor law was law’ is a fact that has slipped from the consciousness of historians of welfare in England and Wales, and in North America. Welfare's Forgotten Past remedies this situation by tracing the history of the legal right of the settled poor to relief when destitute. Poor law was not simply local custom, but consisted of legal rights, duties and obligations that went beyond social altruism. This legal ‘truth’ is, however, still ignored or rejected by some historians, and thus ‘lost’ to social welfare policy-makers. This forgetting or minimising of a legal, enforceable right to relief has not only led to a misunderstanding of welfare’s past; it has also contributed to the stigmatisation of poverty, and the emergence and persistence of the idea that its relief is a 'gift' from the state. Documenting the history and the effects of this forgetting, whilst also providing a ‘legal’ history of welfare, Lorie Charlesworth argues that it is timely for social policy-makers and reformists – in Britain, the United States and elsewhere – to reconsider an alternative welfare model, based on the more positive, legal aspects of welfare’s 400-year legal history.

The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century

The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century PDF Author: Derek Fraser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Includes a chapter on Scotland.

The English Poor Law, 1531-1782

The English Poor Law, 1531-1782 PDF Author: Paul Slack
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521557856
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
A concise synthesis of past work on a unique and important system of social welfare.

English Poor Law History

English Poor Law History PDF Author: Sidney Webb
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Local government
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description


Pauper Capital

Pauper Capital PDF Author: David R. Green
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317082923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Few measures, if any, could claim to have had a greater impact on British society than the poor law. As a comprehensive system of relieving those in need, the poor law provided relief for a significant proportion of the population but influenced the behaviour of a much larger group that lived at or near the margins of poverty. It touched the lives of countless numbers of individuals not only as paupers but also as ratepayers, guardians, officials and magistrates. This system underwent significant change in the nineteenth century with the shift from the old to the new poor law. The extent to which changes in policy anticipated new legislation is a key question and is here examined in the context of London. Rapid population growth and turnover, the lack of personal knowledge between rich and poor, and the close proximity of numerous autonomous poor law authorities created a distinctly metropolitan context for the provision of relief. This work provides the first detailed study of the poor law in London during the period leading up to and after the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources the book focuses explicitly on the ways in which those involved with the poor law - both as providers and recipients - negotiated the provision of relief. In the context of significant urban change in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, it analyses the poor law as a system of institutions and explores the material and political processes that shaped relief policies.

The Solidarities of Strangers

The Solidarities of Strangers PDF Author: Lynn Hollen Lees
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521572613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
A study of English policies toward the poor from the 1600s to the present, showing how clients and officials negotiated welfare settlements.

Report of the Poor Law Commissioners

Report of the Poor Law Commissioners PDF Author: Great Britain. Poor Law Commissioners
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Charities
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description