Theme 1 Paupers and Pauperism 1780-1834

What is meant by proletariat?

The politicised working class

What is the definition of working class?

the lowest class comprised of low paid workers

Pauper

someone who is receiving poor relief

Relief

Support given to paupers to enable them to maintain a basic standard of living
Either outside (in their own homes) or inside (workhouse or poorhouse)

parish

a small administrative district typically having its own church and a priest or pastor.

workhouse

a house in which poor people are lodged and sent to work in return for food or pay

indigence

A person's inability to support themselves i.e the elderly, children, the disabled

What were Henry Mayhew's 3 categories for the poor?

Those who will work
Those who cannot work
Those who will not work

Who fit into Mayhew's category of those who will work?

the able bodied poor who had jobs such as skilled craftsmen and artisans as well as labourers

Who fit into Mayhew's category of those who cannot work?

Those who had no work to do due to industrialisation
Those who had been injured at work
The elderly

Who fit into Mayhew's category of those who will not work?

Beggars and vagrants who Mayhew remarked were mostly men and boys

What was William Booth's way of categorising the poor?

With concentric circles
At the centre where those living in a life of crime
One out was those who lived by vice
The largest circle was the starving/ homeless but honest poor

What was the composition of the 1601 Poor Law?

It was not just one law but a collection of laws that Parliament had just passed over time

What was the 1601 Poor Law depended on?

The parishes and the local officials that ran it

What ideas were behind the 1601 Poor Law?

The idea of dividing the impotent poor and the able bodied poor

What was the system of poor rates in the 1601 Poor Law?

The JPs of the county would set a poor rate and then parish officials would collect the money
The money would then be used by the parish for both indoor and outdoor relief

Where were the impotent poor sent in the 1601 Poor Law?

They were looked after in poorhouses or almshouses

Where were the ablebodied poor sent in the 1601 Poor Law?

They were sent to workhouses where they would work in exchange for food and a bed. They were often quite menial tasks which might have raised some extra money for the parish
This was often seen as a last resort and aimed to break the cycle of relief

Where were the vagrants sent?

Houses of Correction

How were pauper children dealt with under the 1601 Poor Law?

They were apprenticed to a trade which may have separated them from their parents

What was the Workhouse test?

The parishes said to paupers that they were stopping their outdoor relief but could enter a workhouse if they needed to
This aimed to reduce the number of people receiving relief and often saved the parish a lot of money

What were the advantages of the 1601 Poor Law?

- The parish based system was more attuned to local needs and wants
- The local system of poor rates meant that the property owners in the area wouldn't suffer too badly

What were the disadvantages of the 1601 Poor Law?

- Difficult to keep a parish based system consistent as the government
- The changes of Britain between 1601 and 1834 meant that it was unsuitable for modern Britain
- Settlement issues

What did the 1601 Poor Law originally state about settlement?

That all paupers had to be returned to their place of birth in order to receive poor relief
If the place of birth was not known, they were to be returned to the last place they had lived without 'getting into trouble' (claiming relief, begging, crimes etc.)

What did the 1622 Act of Settlement state?

Legal settlement was by birth, marriage, apprenticeship or inheritance
Strangers staying in a parish could be removed if they were not working within 40 days and overseers thought that they may aim to seek poor relief
In practice, most strangers were left alone until they tried to claim relief

What did the 1697 Act of Settlement state?

Strangers could be banned from entering a parish unless they could produce a settlement certificate issued by their home parish that said they would claim relief from home if they needed it

What did the 1795 Amendment?

It prevented strangers from being removed unless they applied for relief
An amendment to the 1662 Act of Settlement

Who did the parish generally grant outdoor relief to?

Able bodied paupers in their own homes

Why was it important that outdoor relief was flexible?

Families might have had to rely on it for a small period of time such as in times of slump in local industry or if the principal breadwinner was ill
The workhouse would have been an ill-fitting solution for a short term problem

Why was it generally more difficult to provide relief approximately after 1750?

-Lagging wages and increasing food prices due to a series of bad harvests at the end of the 18th century led to thousands more families at the brink of starvation
-Industrialisation and a more mobile population put strain on the local based parish system
- The Napoleonic wars meant that the main breadwinner of the house might have gone to war leaving the family without a main source of income

Why was it necessary for parishes to come up with a solution to outdoor relief?

Central government left it to the parishes and the few proposals that were made where rarely debated in the Commons as it was dominated by landowners who liked the allowance system

What was the Speenhamland system?

It was introduced in 1795 in Berkshire and was the most widely adopted system of outdoor relief
It was a method of subsidising low wages based on the price of bread and the number of dependants in the family
It was the first to establish such a relationships

What were the positives and negatives of the Speenhamland System?

**Positives**

* Some parishes made up the low wages with flour instead of cash, saving money for the parish
* It adjusted for rising inflation and differing family situations

**Negatives**

* It was often modified beyond recognition or abandoned as overseers struggled to cope with the changing economic conditions
* It was not universally applicable as the rural North rarely used an allowance system

What was the Roundsman system?

It was a way of making sure that some work could be found for ablebodied paupers
Paupers were sent on rotation to farmers who paid a wage and then the parish would then make up the difference from the poor rates

What were the positives/ negatives of the Roundsman system?

+In some parishes, the amount paid was linked to the price of bread and number of dependents
+ It enabled the paupers to continue to work and perhaps eventually break the cycle of poverty
- Over time, the amount paid by the farmers reduced and the parish had to make more which put a strain on the relief available for the indignent poor

What were the Labour rate?

It was an agreement between parishioners to pay a labour rate on top of the poor rate
Ratepayers who employed paupers and paid them the set rate would be exempt from the labour rate
Those who didn't pay the paupers the set rate had to pay the difference towards the poor rate 'pot'

What were the positives/negatives of the Labour Rate?

+It prevented the wages from mostly being paid by the parishes
+It was widely adopted with 1/5 parishes operating a form of it by 1832
- It could have an adverse effect on the poor rate available for the impotent poor
- It relied on all the parishioners agreeing to the system which would have got harder as parish populations grew

What were the 3 divisions of the 18th century like in practice?

It wasn't as simple as it wasn't cost effective for each parish to split its poor into categories like this
Some parishes began to combine forces to build workhouses
Outdoor relief was still the most common form

How many indoor relief buildings were there for paupers by 1780 and how many places did they offer?

There were 2000 workhouses throughout England and Wales which provided 90,000 places for paupers

What was the impact of Gilbert's Act (1782) on the provision of poor relief?

-Parishes could combine into Poor Law unions for the purpose of building and maintaining a workhouse if 2/3 of the ratepayers voted yes
- In Gilbert Unions, overseers were to be replaced with paid guardians, appointed by local magistrates and chosen from a list provided by ratepayers
- Able bodied workers were excluded from Gilbert Union workhouses
- The parish guardians was to find work for the able boded poor and only if they couldn't would outdoor relief be administered

What was the extent of change with the Gilbert's Act?

* It was a permissive Act so it didn't apply to all parishes unless specific conditions were met (Gilbert did attempt to make it a mandatory act)
* Parishes were slow to adopt the act and were under no compulsion to do so
* By 1834, 924 parishes have combined into 67 Gilbert Unions

What was the impact of the Sturges-Bournes Acts (1818 and 1819) on the provision of poor relief?

- They were a direct outcome of the House of Commons' Select Committee
- The intention of the Acts was to tie the landowners in the administration of the poor
- The First Act did this by managing voting to select vestries by saying that those occupying land over 50 pounds had one vote and every 25 pounds more had another vote with a max of 6
- The Second Act added the resident clergymen to the members of the vestry with more of a focus on the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor

What was the extent of change caused by the Sturges-Bournes Acts (1818 and 1819) ?

- These acts were permissive and only applied to these parishes whose vestries voted to adopt the new provisions
- By 1825, 46 select vestries had been formed and many experienced a drop in relief
- 2 parishes in Berkshire saw a reduction of 33% in the cost of relief
- Nationally the cost of relief for a select vestry was 9% in the first year

How did the wars with France cause a strain on the poor relief system?

While the men were at war it meant that families lost their main breadwinner so often slipped into needing relief

Post war distress meant that more men than ever, once they returned from war, started to claim relief
Some then began to see relief as a right due to the role they played in the wars
There was a dislocation of trade also

How did good European harvests lead to increased strain on the poor relief systems?

Between 1813 and 1815, farmers began to suffer financially and so were unable to employ more labourers

Why were the Corn Laws introduced?

The government hoped that it would help the poor because the boycott of foreign corn would hold the price steady so wages could remain stable

What were the Swing Riots (1830)?

- In rural communities, there was unrest which came to a head in 1830
- The protesters initially wanted higher wages and the removal of steam powered threshers which had reduced employment in the autumn and winter
-As rioting continued, the labourers targeted arson attacks against the overseers of the poor, poorhouses, workhouses and there was demand for further relief
- Petitions and threats were signed Captain Swing which gave the impression of an organised revolt under a single leader
- The authorities were fearful of revolution so the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, asked for the rioters to be dealt with harshly
-19 were sentenced to death, 400 transported, 644 imprisoned, 7 fined, 1 whipped and 800 acquitted
- They created a climate where reform was seen as necessary +

What did Thomas Malthus argue about poverty?

- He argued that population had an inbuilt propensity to rise and outstrip all available food supplies
- The poor law only made this worse as it encouraged the poor to have more and more children to claim further relief
- He favoured the abolition of the poor law altogether in order to keep pauper families small
-He believed this would cause wages to rise as the poor rate would no longer be in place

What did David Ricardo argue about poverty?

- He argued for an iron law of wages believing that there was a fund that wages and poor relief was paid out of
- He thought that since more and more relief was being paid, this caused lower wages and the only way to stop this issue was to abolish the poor law altogether

What did Thomas Paine believe about poverty?

He proposed a property tax on the very rich should be used on support systems for the poor such as pensions
-He had a problem with able-bodied paupers and argued that they should go into the workhouse before they are able to claim relief

What did Robert Owen believe about poverty?

- He blamed the capitalist economic system for creating poverty and abuse of the factory system
- He created a community mill at New Lanark in order to prove his ideas with sick pay, limited hours and school for pauper children
- he suggested that if these communities were adopted widescale only the impotent poor would need to be looked after

What did Jeremy Bentham believe about poverty?

- He followed the concept of utilitarianism which went on to influence many politicians and policymakers
- Relief was a public responsibility that should be organised by central government
- There should be a government responsible for keeping statistics and outside the workhouse
-All outdoor relief should be abolished and support should only be given to those prepared to enter a workhouse
- There should be no discrimination between deserving and undeserving poor but only the destitute
- He wanted to avoid revolution in order to keep the greatest amount of happiness

What were the Six Acts (1919)?

These acts prohibited meetings of more than 50 people
Increased stamp duties on newspapers
Made the publication of seditious material a transportable offence
Forbade military training by citizens
Limited the right of an accused person to delay a trial in order to prepare a defence
Gave magistrates powers to search private houses for arms

What were the general reasons for the reforms of the Old Poor Laws?

Public attitudes
Influence of individuals
Political change
Ideological arguments
External pressures
Financial arguments