Pauper Capital

Pauper Capital PDF

Author: David R. Green

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-13

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1317082931

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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.

A Pauper's History of England

A Pauper's History of England PDF

Author: Peter Stubley

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2015-09-30

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 1473871611

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A unique tour through British history—from the perspective of the peasants and the poverty-stricken. The past is traditionally told from the viewpoint of kings and queens, politicians and pioneers. But what about the people struggling to survive at the very lowest levels of society? A Pauper’s History of England covers a thousand years of poverty, from Domesday right up to the twentieth century, via the Black Death and the English Civil War. It paints a portrait of what life was like for the peasants, paupers, beggars, and working poor as England developed from a feudal society into a wealthy superpower. Experience the past from a different perspective: Tour the England of the Domesday Book Make a solemn Franciscan vow of poverty Join the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 Converse with Elizabethan beggars and learn their secret language Meet the inmates of Bedlam Hospital and Bridewell Prison Enjoy a gin-soaked Georgian night of debauchery Spend the night in a workhouse Go slumming in Victorian London, and more!

In Their Own Write

In Their Own Write PDF

Author: Steven King

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2022-12-15

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0228015367

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Few subjects in European welfare history attract as much attention as the nineteenth-century English and Welsh New Poor Law. Its founding statute was considered the single most important piece of social legislation ever enacted, and at the same time, the coming of its institutions – from penny-pinching Boards of Guardians to the dreaded workhouse – has generally been viewed as a catastrophe for ordinary working people. Until now it has been impossible to know how the poor themselves felt about the New Poor Law and its measures, how they negotiated its terms, and how their interactions with the local and national state shifted and changed across the nineteenth century. In Their Own Write exposes this hidden history. Based on an unparalleled collection of first-hand testimony – pauper letters and witness statements interwoven with letters to newspapers and correspondence from poor law officials and advocates – the book reveals lives marked by hardship, deprivation, bureaucratic intransigence, parsimonious officialdom, and sometimes institutional cruelty, while also challenging the dominant view that the poor were powerless and lacked agency in these interactions. The testimonies collected in these pages clearly demonstrate that both the poor and their advocates were adept at navigating the new bureaucracy, holding local and national officials to account, and influencing the outcomes of relief negotiations for themselves and their communities. Fascinating and compelling, the stories presented in In Their Own Write amount to nothing less than a new history of welfare from below.

A Caring County?

A Caring County? PDF

Author: Steven King

Publisher: Univ of Hertfordshire Press

Published: 2013-11-01

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1909291153

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This comparative study gathers together new research by local historians into aspects of welfare in Hertfordshire spanning four centuries and focusing on towns and villages across the county, including Ashwell, Cheshunt, Hertford, Pirton, and Royston, amongst many others. In so doing it makes a valuable contribution to the current debate about the spatial and chronological variation in the character of welfare regimes within single counties, let alone more widely. As well as viewing poor relief geographically and chronologically, the book also considers the treatment of particular groups such as the aged, the mad, children, and the unemployed, and shows how, within the constraints of the relevant welfare laws, each group was dealt with differently, giving a more nuanced picture than has perhaps been the case before. The overarching question that the book attempts to answer is how effectively Hertfordshire cared for those in need. With chapters on madhouses, workhouses, certified industrial schools, the Foundling Hospital, pensions, and medical care, the book covers a very broad range of topics through which a complex picture emerges. While some officials seem to have been driven by a relatively narrow sense of their obligations to the poor and vulnerable, others appear to have tailored welfare packages to their precise needs. Naturally, self-interest played a part: if the weakest citizens were well managed, vagrancy might be lessened, the spread of disease contained, and control maintained over the cost of looking after the poor and sick. It seems that Hertfordshire was relatively nimble and sensitive in discovering and treating its people's needs. Evidence is beginning to emerge, in other words, that Hertfordshire was in essence a caring county.

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