Medieval Poor Laws (pictured), when labour was in short supply, were concerned with making the able-bodied work. (Also see:
Sturdy beggar) The earliest medieval Poor Law was the
Ordinance of Labourers of
King Edward III, issued in 1349 and revised in 1350. The ordinance was issued in response to the 1348–1350 outbreak of the
Black Death in England, when an estimated 30–40% of the population died. The decline in population left surviving workers in great demand in the agricultural economy. Workers saw these shortage conditions as an opportunity to flee employers and become freemen, so Edward III passed additional laws to provide for the punishment of the wave of escapee workers. In addition, the
Statute of Cambridge, passed in 1388, placed restrictions on the movement of labourers and beggars. Early legislation was concerned with
vagrants and making the
able-bodied work, especially while labour was in short supply following the
Black Death.
Tudor attempts to tackle the problem originated during the reign of
Henry VII. In 1495, Parliament passed the
Vagabonds and Beggars Act, ordering that "vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the
stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of Town. Every beggar suitable to work shall resort to the
Hundred where he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and there remain upon the pain aforesaid." Although this returned the burden of caring for the jobless to the communities producing more children than they could employ, it offered no immediate remedy to the problem of poverty; it was merely swept from sight, or moved from town to town. Moreover, no distinction was made between vagrants and the jobless; both were simply categorised as "
sturdy beggars", to be punished and moved on. In 1530, during the reign of
Henry VIII, a proclamation was issued, describing idleness as the "mother and root of all vices" and ordering that whipping should replace the stocks as the punishment for vagabonds. This change was confirmed in the
Vagabonds Act 1530 the following year, with one important change: it directed the
justices of the peace to assign to the impotent poor an area within which they were to beg. Generally, the licences to beg for the impotent poor were limited to the disabled, sick, and elderly. An impotent person begging out of his area was to be imprisoned for two days and nights in the stocks, on bread and water, and then sworn to return to the place in which he was authorised to beg. An able-bodied beggar was to be whipped, and sworn to return to the place where he was born, or last dwelt for the space of three years, and there put himself to labour. Still no provision was made, though, for the healthy man simply unable to find work. All able-bodied unemployed were put into the same category. Those unable to find work had a stark choice: starve or break the law. In 1535, a bill was drawn up calling for the creation of a system of
public works to deal with the problem of
unemployment, to be funded by a tax on income and capital. A law passed a year later allowed vagabonds to be whipped. In London, there was a great massing of the poor, and the Reformation threatened to eliminate some of the infrastructure used to provide for the poor. As a result, King Henry VIII consented to re-endow
St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1544 and
St. Thomas' Hospital in 1552 on the condition that the citizens of London pay for their maintenance. However, the city was unable to raise enough revenue from voluntary contributions, so it instituted the first definite compulsory Poor Rate in 1547, which replaced Sunday collections in church with a mandatory collection for the poor. In 1555, London became increasingly concerned with the number of poor who could work, but yet could not find work, so it established the first
House of Correction (predecessor to the
workhouse) in the
King's Palace at Bridewell where poor could receive shelter and work at cap-making, feather-bed making, and wire drawing. For the able-bodied poor, life became even tougher during the reign of
Edward VI. The
Vagabonds Act 1547 was passed that subjected
vagrants to some of the more extreme provisions of the criminal law, namely two years servitude and branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offence, and death for the second. Justices of the Peace were reluctant to apply the full penalty. In 1552, Edward VI passed the
Poor Act 1551 which designated a position of "Collector of Alms" in each parish and created a register of licensed poor. Under the assumption that parish collections would now relieve all poor, begging was completely prohibited. The government of
Elizabeth I, Edward VI's successor after
Mary I, was also inclined to severity. The
Vagabonds Act 1572 called for offenders to be burned through the ear for a first offence, and that persistent beggars should be hanged; however, the Act also made the first clear distinction between the "professional beggar" and those unemployed through no fault of their own. Early in her reign, Elizabeth I also passed laws directly aimed at providing relief for the poor. For example, in 1563, her
Act for the Relief of the Poor required all parish residents with ability to contribute to poor collections. Those who "of his or their forward willful mind shall obstinately refuse to give weekly to the relief of the poor according to his or their abilities" could be bound over to justices of the peace and fined £10. Additionally, the 1572 Act further enabled Justices of the Peace to survey and register the impotent poor, determine how much money was required for their relief, and then assess parish residents weekly for the appropriate amount. The
Poor Act 1575 required towns to create "a competent stock of wool, hemp, flax, iron and other stuff" for the poor to work on and houses of correction for those who refused to work where recalcitrant or careless workers could be forced to work and punished accordingly.
A new colonial solution In the early 1580s, with the development of English colonisation schemes, initially in
Ireland and later in
North America, a new method to alleviate the condition of the poor would be suggested and utilised considerably over time. Merchant and colonisation proponent
George Peckham noted the then-current domestic conditions; "there are at this day great numbers which live in such
penurie & want, as they could be content to hazard their lives, and to ser[v]e one yeere for meat, drinke and apparell only, without wages, in hope thereby to amend their estates." With this, he may have been the first to suggest what became the institution of
indentured service. At the same time
Richard Hakluyt, in his preface to
Divers Voyages, likens
English planters to "Bees...led out by their Captaines to swarme abroad"; he recommends "deducting" the poor out of the realm. Hakluyt also broadens the scope and additionally recommends to empty the prisons and send them off to the New World. By 1619
Virginia's system of indentured service would be fully developed, and subsequent colonies would adopt the method with modifications suitable to their different conditions and times. is sometimes referred to as the "43rd Elizabeth" as it was passed in the 43rd year of the reign of
Elizabeth I of England (pictured). In 1597,
a session of Parliament was called to deal with the issues of increased poverty and vagrancy, among other things. This session culminated in the passage of several Acts referred to as the "Poor Laws of 1598". Among them were the
Poor Relief Act 1597 and the
Vagabonds Act 1597. These laws were further refined and formalized by
the next session of Parliament, primarily in the
Poor Relief Act 1601. Together, these Acts of 1598 and 1601 came to be known as "The Elizabethan Poor Laws." The more immediate origins of the Elizabethan Poor Law system were deteriorating economic circumstances in sixteenth-century England. Historian
George Boyer has stated that England suffered rapid inflation at this time caused by population growth, the debasement of coinage and the inflow of American silver. The
Poor Relief Act 1601 created a system administered at parish level, Relief for those too ill or old to work, the '
impotent poor', was in the form of a payment or items of food ('the parish loaf') or clothing also known as
outdoor relief. Some aged people might be accommodated in parish
alms houses, though these were usually private charitable institutions. Meanwhile, able-bodied beggars who had refused work were often placed in
Houses of Correction or even subjected to beatings to mend their attitudes. Provision for the many able-bodied poor in the
workhouse was relatively unusual, and most workhouses developed later. The 1601 Law made parents and children responsible for each other, so elderly parents would live with their children. The
Old Poor Law was a parish-based system; there were around 15,000 such parishes based upon the area around a parish church. The system allowed for despotic behaviour from the
overseers of the poor, but as they would know their paupers, they were considered able to differentiate between the deserving and undeserving poor, making the system both more humane and initially more efficient. greater mobility and regional price variations. The 1601 act sought to deal with 'settled' poor who had found themselves temporarily out of work—it was assumed they would accept
indoor relief or outdoor relief. Neither method was then deemed harsh. The act was intended to deal with beggars who were considered a threat to civil order. The act was passed at a time when poverty was considered necessary as fear of poverty made people work. In 1607 a
House of Correction was set up in each county. However, this system was separate from the 1601 system which distinguished between the settled poor and '
vagrants'. There was much variation in the application of the law and there was a tendency for the destitute to migrate towards the more generous parishes, usually situated in the towns. This led to the Settlement Act 1662 also known as the
Poor Relief Act 1662, which allowed relief only to established residents of a parish; mainly through birth, marriage and
apprenticeship. Unfortunately, the laws reduced the mobility of labour and discouraged the pauper from leaving his parish to find work. They also encouraged industry to create short contracts (e.g. 364 days) that did not make an employee eligible for poor relief. However, this practice soon fell into disuse. The workhouse movement began at the end of the 17th century with the establishment of the
Bristol Corporation of the Poor, founded by the Bristol Poor Act in 1696. The corporation established a
workhouse which combined housing and care of the poor with a house of correction for petty offenders. Following the example of
Bristol, some twelve further towns and cities established similar corporations in the next two decades. As these corporations required private acts, they were unsuitable for smaller towns and individual parishes. Starting with the parish of
Olney,
Buckinghamshire in 1714 several dozen small towns and individual parishes established their own institutions without any specific legal authorization. These were concentrated in the
South Midlands and in the county of
Essex. From the late 1710s the
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge began to promote the idea of parochial workhouses. The society published several pamphlets on the subject, and supported
Sir Edward Knatchbull in his successful efforts to steer the
Workhouse Test Act through Parliament in 1723. The act gave legislative authority for the establishment of parochial workhouses, by both single parishes and as joint ventures between two or more parishes. More importantly, the act helped to publicise the idea of establishing workhouses to a national audience. By 1776 some 1,912 parish and corporation workhouses had been established in England and Wales, housing almost 100,000 paupers. Perhaps one million people were receiving some kind of parish poor relief by the end of the century. Although many parishes and pamphlet writers expected to earn money from the labour of the poor in workhouses, the vast majority of people obliged to take up residence in workhouses were ill, elderly, or children whose labour proved largely unprofitable. The demands, needs and expectations of the poor also ensured that workhouses came to take on the character of general social policy institutions, combining the functions of creche, and night shelter, geriatric ward and orphanage. In 1782,
Thomas Gilbert finally succeeded in passing the
Relief of the Poor Act that established poor houses solely for the aged and infirm and introduced a system of outdoor relief for the able-bodied. This was the basis for the development of the
Speenhamland system, which made financial provision for low-paid workers. Settlement Laws were altered by the
Poor Removal Act 1795 which prevented non-settled persons from being moved on unless they had applied for relief. passed the
Corn Laws to keep the price of
grain artificially high. 1815 saw great social unrest as the end of the French Wars saw industrial and agricultural depression and high
unemployment. Social attitudes to poverty began to change after 1815 and overhauls of the system were considered. The Poor Law system was criticized as distorting the
free market and in 1816 a parliamentary select committee looked into altering the system which resulted in the
Sturges-Bourne's Act being passed. 1817 also saw the passing of the
Public Works Loans Act 1817 (
57 Geo. 3. c. 34),
"to authorise the issue of Exchequer Bills and the Advance of Money out of the Consolidated Fund, to a limited Amount, for the carrying on of Public Works and Fisheries in the United Kingdom and Employment of the Poor in Great Britain". By 1820, before the passing of the
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 workhouses were already being built to reduce the spiralling cost of poor relief.
The Royal Commission on the Poor Law argued for greater centralization of the Poor Law system. The
1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws was set up following the widespread destruction and machine breaking of the
Swing Riots. The report was prepared by a commission of nine, including
Nassau William Senior, and served by
Edwin Chadwick as Secretary. The royal commission's primary concerns were with
illegitimacy (or "bastardy"), reflecting the influence of
Malthusians, and the fear that the practices of the
Old Poor Law were undermining the position of the independent labourer. Two practices were of particular concern: the "
roundsman" system, where overseers hired out paupers as cheap labour, and the
Speenhamland system, which subsidised low wages without relief. The commission proposed the
New Law be governed by two overarching principles: When the act was introduced however it had been partly watered down. The workhouse test and the idea of "less eligibility" were never mentioned themselves and the recommendation of the royal commission that
outdoor relief (relief given outside of a workhouse) should be abolished – was never implemented. The report recommended separate workhouses for the aged, infirm, children, able-bodied females and able-bodied males. The report also stated that parishes should be grouped into unions in order to spread the cost of workhouses and a central authority should be established in order to enforce these measures. The
Poor Law Commission set up by
Earl Grey took a year to write its report, the recommendations passed easily through Parliament support by both main parties the
Whigs and the
Tories. The bill gained
royal assent in 1834. The few who opposed the bill were more concerned about the centralisation which it would bring rather than the underpinning philosophy of
utilitarianism.
New Poor Law The
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was passed in 1834 by the government of
Lord Melbourne and largely implemented the findings of the royal commission which had presented its findings two years earlier. The
New Poor Law is considered to be one of the most "far-reaching pieces of legislation of the entire Nineteenth Century" This included the forming together of small parishes into
poor law unions and the building of workhouses in each union for the giving of poor relief. Although the legislation sought to reduce costs to rate payers, one area not reformed was the system's continued financing via "poor rates" on property owners. Although the
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 did not ban all forms of
outdoor relief, it stated that no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a
workhouse. Conditions in workhouses were to be made harsh to discourage people from claiming. Workhouses were to be built in every parish, or in poor law unions. The
Poor Law Commissioners were to be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the act. Various reasons prevented the application of some of the act's terms.
Less eligibility was in some cases impossible without starving paupers, and the high cost of building workhouses incurred by rate payers meant that outdoor relief continued to be a popular alternative. Despite efforts to ban outdoor relief, parishes continued to offer it as a more cost-effective method of dealing with pauperism. The
Outdoor Labour Test Order and
Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order were both issued to try to prevent people receiving relief outside of the workhouse. When the new amendment was applied to the industrial North of
England (an area the law had never considered during reviews), the system failed catastrophically as many found themselves temporarily unemployed, due to recessions or a fall in stock demands (so-called '
cyclical unemployment') and were reluctant to enter a workhouse, despite its being the only method of gaining aid.
Nottingham also was allowed an exemption from the law and continued to provide outdoor relief. The abuses and shortcomings of the system are documented in the novels of
Charles Dickens and
Frances Trollope and later in
The People of the Abyss by
Jack London. Despite the aspirations of the reformers, the New Poor Law was unable to make the Workhouse as bad as life outside. The primary problem was that in order to make the diet of the workhouse inmates "less eligible" than what they could expect outside, it would be necessary to starve the inmates beyond an acceptable level. where conditions in the
Andover Union workhouse were found to be inhumane and dangerous, prompted a government review and the replacement of the
Poor Law Commission with a
Poor Law Board. Now, a committee of Parliament was to administer the Poor Law, with a cabinet minister as head. Despite this
another scandal occurred over inhumane treatment of paupers in the
Huddersfield workhouse.
After the New Poor Law and other
Poor Law Commissioners was one reason for an overhaul of Poor Law administration. After 1847 the
Poor Law Commission was replaced with a
Poor Law Board. and led to workhouses being inspected more often. The
Union Chargeability Act 1865 was passed in order to make the financial burden of pauperism be placed upon the whole unions rather than individual parishes. Most boards of guardians were middle class and committed to keeping poor rates as low as possible. After the
Reform Act 1867 there was increasing welfare legislation. As this legislation required local authorities' support the Poor Law Board was replaced with a
Local Government Board in 1871. The
Local Government Board led a crusade against outdoor relief supported by the
Charity Organisation Society, an organization which viewed
outdoor relief as destroying the self-reliance of the poor. This was in part due to the expense of providing "mixed workhouses"
Decline and abolition which were implemented outside of the Poor Law system and paved the way for the eventual abolition of the Poor Law The Poor Law system began to decline with the availability of other forms of assistance. The growth of
friendly societies provided help for its members without recourse to the Poor Law system. Some
trade unions also provided help for their members. The
Medical Relief Disqualification Removal Act 1885 meant that people who had accessed medical care funded by the poor rate were no longer disqualified from voting in elections. In 1886 the
Chamberlain Circular encouraged the Local Government Board to set up work projects when unemployment rates were high rather than use workhouses. The Conservatives passed the
Unemployed Workmen Act 1905 which provided for temporary employment for workers in times of unemployment. In 1905 a
royal commission was set up to investigate what changes could be made to the Poor Law. The commission produced two conflicting reports but both investigations were largely ignored by the Liberal government when implementing their own scheme of
welfare legislation. The
welfare reforms of the Liberal government made several provisions to provide social services without the stigma of the Poor Law, including
old age pensions and
National Insurance, and from that period fewer people were covered by the system. From 1911, the term "workhouse" was replaced by "
Poor Law Institution".
Means tests were developed during the inter-war period, not as part of the Poor Law, but as part of the attempt to offer relief that was not affected by the stigma of
pauperism. According to Lees by slowly dismantling the system the Poor Law was "to die by attrition and surgical removals of essential organs". During the
First World War there is evidence that some workhouses were used as makeshift hospitals for wounded servicemen. Numbers using the Poor Law system increased during the interwar years and between 1921 and 1938 despite the extension of unemployment insurance to virtually all workers except the self-employed. Many of these workers were provided with outdoor relief. One aspect of the Poor Law that continued to cause resentment was that the burden of poor relief was not shared equally by rich and poor areas but, rather, fell most heavily on those areas in which poverty was at its worst. This was a central issue in the
Poplar Rates Rebellion led by
George Lansbury and others in 1921. Lansbury had in 1911 written a provocative attack on the workhouse system in a pamphlet entitled
"Smash Up the Workhouse!".
Poverty in the interwar years (1918–1939) was responsible for several measures which largely killed off the Poor Law system. The
Board of Guardians (Default) Act 1926 was passed in response to some
Boards of Guardians supporting the miners during the
General Strike.
Workhouses were officially abolished by the
Local Government Act 1929, In 1948 the Poor Law system was finally abolished with the introduction of the modern
welfare state and the passing of the
National Assistance Act. == Opposition ==