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An Economic History of the English Poor Law 1750-1850
AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH POOR LAW 1750-1850 GEORGE R. BOYER Cornell University The right of the University of Cambridge to print anil sell all manner of hooks was granted by Henry Vlll in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge New York Port Chester Melbourne Sydney 1990 CONTENTS Acknowledgments page xi Introduction 1 1. The Development and Administration of the Old Poor Law in Rural Areas, 1760-1834 9 1. The Administration of Poor Relief 10 2. Timing of Changes in Poor Law Administration 23 3. Changes in the Economic Environment 31 4. Conclusion 43 Appendix A: Agricultural Laborers' Wages, 1750-1832 43 Appendix B: Labor Rate for Wisborough Green 49 2. The Old Poor Law in Historical Perspective 51 1. The Historiography of the Poor Law Before 1834 52 2. The Poor Law Report of 1834 60 3. Fabian Interpretations of the Poor Law 65 4. Polanyis Analysis of the Poor Law 71 5. The Revisionist Analysis of the Poor Law 75 6. Conclusion 83 3. An Economic Model of the English Poor Law 85 1. The Effect of Seasonally on the Rural Labor Market 86 2. Seasonality in English Agriculture 88 3. The Parish Vestry and the Financing of the Poor Rate 94 4. An Economic Model of the Rural Labor Market 99 5. The Effect of Migrant Labor on the Rural Labor Market 113 6. Conclusion 118 Appendix 119 vii viii Contents 4. The Old Poor Law and the Agricultural Labor Market in Southern England: An Empirical Analysis 122 1. -
The Poor Law Report Reexamined Mark Blaug
Mark Blaug TheJournal Poor of Economic Law HistoryReport, vol. Reexamined 24, n° 2, June 1964 N AN earlier article, I pleaded for a reappraisal of the Old Poor I Law.1 Despite what all the books say, the evidence that we have does not suggest that the English Poor Law as it operated before its amendment in 1834 reduced the efficiency of agricultural workers, promoted population growth, lowered wages, depressed rents, destroyed yeomanry, and compounded the burden on rate- payers. Beyond this purely negative argument, I tried to show that the Old Poor Law was essentially a device for dealing with the problems of structural unemployment and substandard wages in the lagging rural sector of a rapidly growing but still under- developed economy. It constituted, so to speak, "a welfare state in miniature," combining elements of wage-escalation, family allow- ances, unemployment compensation, and public works, all of which were administered and financed on a local level. Far from having an inhibitory effect, it probably contributed to economic expansion. At any rate, from the economic point of view, things were much the same after 1834 as before. The Poor Laws Amendment Act of 1834 marked a revolution in British social administration, but it left the structure of relief policy substantially unchanged. In the earlier article, I criticized the commissioners who prepared the famous Poor Law Report of 1834 for the manner in which they marshaled the evidence against the existing system, noting that the elaborate questionnaire which they circulated among the parishes was never analyzed or reduced to summary form. -
Wage Subsidisation: Some Historical Reflections
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF WAGE SUBSIDISATION: SOME HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS ESRC Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge Working Paper No. 201 By Frank Wilkinson Centre for Business Research, and Department of Applied Economics Austin Robinson Building Sidgwick Avenue Cambridge CB3 9DE Tel: 01223 335262 e-mail: [email protected] June 2001 This Working Paper forms part of the CBR Research Programme on Corporate Governance, Contracts and Incentives Abstract Economists explain welfare dependency of the unemployed and in-work poverty by the low labour market quality of the poor. Work can be made to pay by working family tax credits. But these might lower wages and price non- recipients out of the market, widening the eligibility for the wage supplementation and raising social welfare bills. This was precisely the effect of the Speenhamland system of wage supplementation of the early 19th Century which permanently affected labour markets, and attitudes to welfare and the poor. The possibility of working family tax credit having a similar effect cannot be ruled out. JEL Codes: J58, J78, J4, I38 Keywords: Wage supplementation, welfare to work and labour markets. 2 THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF WAGE SUBSIDISATION: SOME HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS 1. Introduction The view in government circles is that the economy has now been bought under control by prudent macroeconomic management. A major remaining problem is the high level of poverty resulting from the persistence of high unemployment and the growth in the number of the working poor. The policy response to this is to make the payment of social welfare dependent on labour market participation by a variety of means, including topping up earnings to some minimum level by means of tax credits. -
A History English Agricultural Labourer
A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER W. HASBACH Translated by Ruth Kenyon With a preface by Sidney Webb The first edition published in German by Messrs . Duncker and Humblot in 1894. TABLE OF CONTENTS. First English edition was published in 1908 by P . S . King & Son PAO E PREFACE ... ... ... ... ... v.. ... vi i . INTRODUCTION ..a ... ... ... ....... xiii . CHAPTER I . THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FREE LABOURINO CLASS ... ... Introductory ... ... ... ... ... i. The Manor as an Organisation of Labour ... ... ii . The Transition to an Organisation based on Rent ... iii . The Break-down of the Manor ... ... ... iv . The Transition Period ... ... ... ... CHAPTER I1. THE DSVELOPMENT OF AN AGRICULTURAL PROLETARIAT ... i. The Village of the Eighteenth Century before the Enclosures. the Engrossing of Farms. and the Revolution in Prices ... ... ... ... ii . The Break-up of the Village ... ... ... iii . The Position of the Labourer. 1760 to 1800 ... ... iv . Contemporary Opinion ... ... ... ... CHAPTER 111. THE DENIORALISATION OF THE LABOURER ... ... ... i. The Laws of Settlement and Removal ... ... ii . The Labourer in the period of high Corn Prices ... iii . The Labourer in the period of low Corn Prices and the old Poor Law ... ... ... ... ... iv . The Gang System ... ... ... ... ... v . Wages and Moral Conditions up to 1834 ... ... CHAPTER IV . FROM THE POOR LAW AMENDMENT ACT. 1834. TO THE EDUCATION ACTS ... ... ... ... ... i . The new Poor Law and its effects ... ... ... ii . Allotments ... ... ... ... ..a iii . The Introduction of Free Trade ... ... ... iv . The Condition of the Labourer in the Sixties ... v. The Gangs Act and the Education Acts ... ... CHAPTER V . *~RICULTURAL LABOUR UNIONS AND THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT. 1872 to 1894 ... ... ... ... ... i . Agricult~ralLabour Unions ... ... ... (a) Introductory ... ... ... ... ... (b The Period of Triumph .. -
Material Lives of the Poor and Their Strategic Use of the Workhouse During the final Decades of the English Old Poor Law
Continuity and Change 30 (1), 2015, 71–103.©Cambridge University Press 2015. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:10.1017/S0268416015000090 Material lives of the poor and their strategic use of the workhouse during the final decades of the English old poor law JOSEPH HARLEY* ABSTRACT. This article is the first to use a combination of three different types of inven- tories from Dorset to examine the material lives of paupers inside and outside Beaminster workhouse. It argues that life was materially better for paupers on outdoor relief, compared with workhouse inmates and with paupers in the moments before they entered the workhouse. The article also examines how the poor used admission into the workhouse as part of their economy of makeshifts. The evidence demonstrates that the able-bodied poor used the workhouse as a short-term survival strategy, whereas more vulnerable inmates struggled to use this tactic. This article therefore furthers our understanding of the nature of poor relief and adds further weight to re- cent historical work that has emphasised pauper agency. 1. INTRODUCTION By the 1830s public opinion had turned against the way in which workhouses were managed.1 On one side, people viewed workhouses as the location of misery and injustice due to overcrowding, poor management and their prison- like character; others conversely viewed workhouses as institutions which made the poor idle and immoral, owing to the lack of discipline and the rela- tive material abundance found within the workhouse.2 A Royal Commission was set up in 1832 to investigate the state of the poor laws. -
The Justices of the Peace and the Administration of Local
THE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE EAST AND WEST RIDINGS OF YORKSHIRE BETWEEN 1680 AND 1750. Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The School of History, Michael Eric Watts Maddison. The University of Leeds. April 1986. ABSTRACT. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the criminal, civil and administrative work of the county magistrates of the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire between 1680 and 1750. There is a distinct lack of regional studies for this period, though much has been written about the county community during the era of the English Revolution of the mid seventeenth century and about the effect upon local society of the industrialisation of the late eighteenth century. This is a serious omission for late Stuart and early Georgian times comprise a vital period in the development of local government. It was a time when the country gentlemen who acted as Justices of the Peace were most autonomous. Yet it was also a period which witnessed some fundamental and permanent changes in the organisation and administration of local government. The thesis is divided into two. The first section contains four chapters and deals with the structure of local government. The general organisation at county level is explained, and the backgrounds, interests and attitudes of the actual individuals who served as magistrates are closely examined. An analysis is also undertaken of the relationship between the Justices and central government, and special emphasis is placed on the attitudes of the Crown and Privy Council towards the membership of the commission of the peace and on the role of the Lords Lieutenant and the Assize Judges. -
Copyright (C) 1996 Akron Law Review
Copyright (c) 1996 Akron Law Review Akron Law Review Fall, 1996 30 Akron L. Rev. 73 LENGTH: 33551 words ARTICLE: FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OF ENGLISH POOR LAWS, 1349-1834: REGULATING THE WORKING AND NONWORKING POOR by WILLIAM P. QUIGLEY * * Associate Professor and Director of the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center, Loyola University School of Law. SUMMARY: ... Like other and more famous English institutions, the making and administration of the English Poor Law was a growth, not a creation. ... This article will review how the working and the nonworking poor were regulated by 500 years of English poor laws. ... The only exception for the employers was the hiring of someone else's servant, which had a penalty of imprisonment. ... Finally, the law made it a crime, punishable by fine, to give money or lodging to any strong or able-bodied beggar. ... It assumed the central legal position for laborers that the 1601 Poor Law assumed for the nonworking poor. ... The history of the search for a consistent source of funding is best set out in the following by Sir George Nicholls: ... Manufacturing and commercial interests "who wanted to slash, if not terminate, public assistance in order to force poor displaced agricultural workers into the newly forming industrial wage earning class" gained power through the electoral reforms of 1832 and spurred parliament to create a Royal Poor Law Commission for Inquiring into the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Laws. ... This principle supported the reintroduction of the workhouse and other penal approaches to poor relief. ... As a consequence, the status quo, economic and societal, need not be disturbed in legislating regulations for working and nonworking poor people. -
Mortality in the North Dublin Union During the Great Famine
Yale University EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale Discussion Papers Economic Growth Center 5-1-2001 Mortality in the North Dublin Union During the Great Famine Timothy W. Guinnane Cormac Ó Gráda Follow this and additional works at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/egcenter-discussion-paper-series Recommended Citation Guinnane, Timothy W. and Ó Gráda, Cormac, "Mortality in the North Dublin Union During the Great Famine" (2001). Discussion Papers. 837. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/egcenter-discussion-paper-series/837 This Discussion Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Economic Growth Center at EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Discussion Papers by an authorized administrator of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ECONOMIC GROWTH CENTER YALE UNIVERSITY P.O. Box 208269 New Haven, CT 06520-8269 CENTER DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 829 MORTALITY IN THE NORTH DUBLIN UNION DURING THE GREAT FAMINE Timothy W. Guinnane Yale University and Cormac Ó Gráda University College, Dublin May 2001 Note: Center Discussion Papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussions and critical comments. We thank Catherine Cox, Margaret Preston, and Peter Solar for suggestions and for sharing data, and Colin Pan for research assistance. Carolyn Moehling provided valuable comments on an earlier draft. We also thank seminar participants in the economic history workshop at UCLA for comments and suggestions. The underlying databases form part of the Irish National Famine Research Project. The paper was revised while Guinnane was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. -
An Experiment with Basic Income Page 2 of 5
An Experiment with Basic Income Page 2 of 5 TWITTER FEED 5.11.15 RT @FlipChartRick: The gig economy: don’t give up your day job https://t.co/NnezdC1mzq https://t.co/uNhScahTXu 4.11.15 RT @NIESRorg: The world economy is expected to grow by 3.0% in 2015 forecast, according to NIESR's latest forecast out today https://t.co/j… 3.11.15 RT @HarvardBiz: Peter Drucker's writings about automation are still relevant decades later: https://t.co/kpPiTF4lF3 https://t.co/6HC52qfe0H 3.11.15 AN EXPERIMENT WITH BASIC INCOME Design Thinking and the Workplace Experience - Posted by Frances Coppola on Jan 12th 2014, 10 Comments https://t.co/8dmwD2rGse In 1795, the parish of Speen, in Berkshire, England, embarked on a radical new system of 2.11.15 After Brexit: how important would UK trade be to poor relief. Due to the ruinous French wars and a series of poor harvests, grain prices were the EU? - by @jdportes https://t.co/pq9MLV6Pic rising sharply. As bread was the staple food of the poor, rising grain prices increased poverty and caused unrest. Concerned by the possibility of riots, the parish decided to provide FOLLOW US subsistence-level income support to the working poor. The amounts paid were anchored to the price of bread. Each member of a family qualified for a payment, so the larger the family, FIND US ON FACEBOOK the more they received. In effect, it was a system of in-work benefits. Subsistence-level income support already existed for the non-working poor. -
An End to Welfare Rights: the Rediscovery of Independence
An End to Welfare Rights: The Rediscovery of Independence Civitas Choice in Welfare No. 49 An End to Welfare Rights: The Rediscovery of Independence David G. Green London First published March 1999 © Civitas 1999 All rights reserved ISBN 0-255 36452-0 ISSN 1362-9565 Typeset by the IEA Health and Welfare Unit in Century Schoolbook 10.5 point Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Contents Page The Author vi Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Summary 3 1. New Labour’s Strategy for the Workless 8 2. Changing Attitudes to Poverty and Independence: From the Poor Law to Beveridge 29 3. The Rise and Decline of Egocentric Collectivism 50 4. Poverty, Work and Public Policy 67 Figure 1 Tax Break-Even Point, 1949-1998 105 Notes 106 The Author David G. Green’s books include Power and Party in an English City, Allen & Unwin, 1980; Mutual Aid or Welfare State, Allen & Unwin, 1984 (with L. Cromwell); Working-Class Patients and the Medical Establishment, Temple Smith/ Gower, 1985; The New Right: The Counter Revolution in Political, Economic and Social Thought, Wheatsheaf, 1987; Reinventing Civil Society, IEA, 1993; Community Without Politics, IEA, 1996; and Benefit Dependency, IEA, 1998. He wrote the chapter on ‘The Neo-Liberal Perspective’ in The Student’s Companion to Social Policy, Blackwell, 1998. vi Acknowledgements I am very grateful to two anonymous referees for some very useful comments and to Lord Harris of High Cross for intellectual inspiration over the years. I am also indebted to Alan Deacon and Lawrence Mead for occasional, but invaluable, discussions over the last year or two. -
Has Poor Relief Declined in Jamaica? a Preliminary Investigation
HAS POOR RELIEF DECLINED IN JAMAICA? A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION Philip D. Osei Abstract This paper studied the changing fortunes of Poor Relief, a prototype social security benefit that was officially instituted in Jamaica in 1886, and managed by the local authorities. It was discovered that although a number of public inquiries have been conducted into the conditions in which poor people lived, in general, and into the management of poor relief in particular, management of the policy did not keep abreast with developments in modern management. Poor relief has been surpassed by other politically visible modern programmes of poverty reduction. A general deterioration in economic fortunes of the country has also had a negative impact on the supply and real value of public investments in poor relief. Poor relief as a public programme, therefore, requires a serious review. INTRODUCTION Poor relief is a prototype social security benefit that is paid to eligible persons under the law in Jamaica. It was administered as part of the institutions of local government transplanted by the British colonialists from the metropolis to the Caribbean. In spite of its presence in the region for over a century, there is a paucity of academic research on the subject. The most important academic research on poor relief is that done by L P Fletcher (1992) on the system inherited from nineteenth century Barbados, tracing the evolution and administration of the policy from 1900 to 1969. For Jamaica too, poor relief has been an important plank of social and local governance policies for over one and a quarter centuries. -
Politics & Society
Politics & Society http://pas.sagepub.com In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law Fred Block and Margaret Somers Politics Society 2003; 31; 283 DOI: 10.1177/0032329203252272 The online version of this article can be found at: http://pas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/2/283 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Politics & Society can be found at: Email Alerts: http://pas.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://pas.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Downloaded from http://pas.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on February 2, 2010 10.1177/0032329203252272POLITICSBLOCKARTICLE and & SOMERS SOCIETY In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law FRED BLOCK MARGARET SOMERS In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu- nities Reconciliation Act that ended the entitlement of poor families to government assistance. The debate leading up to that transformation in welfare policy occurred in the shadow of Speenhamland—an episode in English Poor Law history. This arti- cle revisits the Speenhamland episode to unravel its tangled history. Drawing on four decades of recent scholarship, the authors show that Speenhamland policies could not have had the consequences that have been attributed to them. The article ends with an alternative narrative that seeks to explain how the Speenhamland story became so deeply entrenched. Keywords: poverty; welfare; social policy; Polanyi; Old Poor Law “Speenhamland” is not a well-known term. Those who know the reference are most likely to have read about it in Karl Polanyi’s classic work, The Great Trans- formation.1 But even most of those who are familiar with the reference would be The ordering of names indicates equal responsibility.