Historiography of the Poor Laws facts for kids
The history of the Poor Laws is about how people have studied and written about the old systems that helped poor people in Britain. Over time, historians' ideas about these laws have changed a lot.
Contents
Early Ideas About the Old Poor Law
At first, many historians focused on what they thought was wrong with the Old Poor Law. This system gave help to poor people. One early critic was Joseph Townsend in 1786. He didn't like the Speenhamland system, which was a way of giving money to poor workers to make sure they earned enough.
Another very important critic was Thomas Malthus. In his famous book, Essay on the Principle of Population, he wrote about the Poor Law. Many of his ideas were used in a big report in 1834. This report led to major changes in how poor people were helped.
New Ways of Looking at History
Later, historians started to challenge the old ideas about the Poor Law. This is called "revisionism" – it means looking at history in a new way.
First New Ideas
The first real challenge came in 1911 with a book called The Village Labourer by John and Barbara Hammond. They said the Speenhamland system was a way to deal with changes in land ownership.
Later, in 1927, Beatrice and Sydney Webb published their book English Local Government. They made important points about the Poor Law. They were the first to say that giving "outdoor relief" (help given outside a workhouse) to able-bodied people became common before 1795. They also were the first historians to criticize the 1834 report.
Another new idea came from Karl Polanyi. He argued that the Speenhamland system was put in place to keep an old system of organizing workers going.
Modern Revisionism
A big change in how historians saw the Poor Law came from Mark Blaug. In 1963, he wrote a paper called “The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the making of the New.”
Blaug disagreed that outdoor relief had a terrible effect on workers in the countryside. He argued that it actually helped workers be more productive. This was very different from what the 1834 report said. Daniel Baugh's work, which looked at poor relief in some English counties between 1790 and 1834, supported Blaug's ideas.
The New Poor Law
There's also a lot of discussion about why the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed. This act created the New Poor Law.
Different Views on the New Poor Law
Some historians, following a Marxist view, believe that the middle classes, who had recently gained the right to vote in 1832, used this law to control working-class people. They think the law made conditions in workhouses worse and made it harder for people to get help. This also meant less tax for the rich. Working-class people couldn't vote then, so they couldn't stop it. The workhouse system kept poor people under strict control. Some feared that the old system of outdoor relief could lead to a rebellion, like the French Revolution.
A more traditional view is that the new system wasn't that different from the old one. It was just the rich trying to keep control when there was unrest.
A newer, "revisionist" view combines these ideas. It suggests that the rich did try to keep control, but they did it through a new economic system that many saw as unfair to the working class.
Putting the New Poor Law into Action
How the Poor Law Amendment Act was actually put into practice is also debated. Rose argued that some local areas managed to avoid the Act and kept giving outdoor relief. Williams, however, looked at numbers showing fewer able-bodied people getting outdoor relief and more workhouses being built. He concluded that outdoor relief was mostly gone by 1850. Lees found that in some parts of the country, it was still possible to get outdoor relief even after 1850.
See also
