From its beginnings in the fourteenth century, up to the inauguration of the National Health Service in 1948, the evolution of England's poor laws is the story of one of the most significant and far-reaching strands of the nation's social policy and administration.
The history of the poor laws is conveniently divided into the Old Poor Law — crystallised in the 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor, and the New Poor Law — heralded by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.
The Old Poor Law can be broadly characterised as being parish-centred, haphazardly implemented, locally enforced, and with some of its most significant developments (e.g. the operation of workhouses) being completely voluntary. The New Poor Law, based on the new administrative unit of the Poor Law Union, aimed to introduce a rigorously implemented, centrally enforced, standard system that was to be imposed on all and which centred on the workhouse.
At a more profound level, the New Poor Law saw a fundamental change in the way that the poor were viewed by many of their "betters". The traditional attitude had been one of poverty being inevitable (exemplified by the oft-quoted biblical text "For the poor always ye have with you"), the poor essentially victims of their situation, and their relief a Christian duty. The 1834 Act was guided by a growing view that the poor were largely responsible for their own situation and which they could change if they chose to do so.
Not everything changed in 1834, however. One important and complex piece of poor law legislation which originated in 1662, and which did not finally disappear until 1948, was the Settlement Act. Remarkably, parts of the 1601 Poor Law Act were not finally repealed until 1967.
The origins of parochial poor relief extend back at least as far as the fifteenth century. With the decline of the monasteries, and their dissolution in 1536, together with the breakdown of the medieval social structure, charity for the poor gradually moved from its traditional voluntary framework to become a compulsory tax administered at the parish level.
Legislation prior to this point largely dealt with beggars and vagabonds. In the aftermath of the Black Death (1348-9) labour was in short supply and wages rose steeply. To try and keep this in check, several Acts were passed aimed at forcing all able-bodied men to work and keep wages at their old levels. These measures led to labourers roaming around the country looking for an area where the wages were high and where the labour laws not too strictly enforced. Some took to begging under the pretence of being ill or crippled. In 1349, the Ordinance of Labourers (36 Edw.III c.8) prohibited private individuals from giving relief to able-bodied beggars.
In 1388, the Statute of Cambridge (12 Rich.II c.7) introduced regulations restricting the movements of all labourers and beggars. Each county "Hundred" became responsible for relieving its own "impotent poor" — those who, because of age or infirmity, were incapable of work. Servants wishing to move out of their own Hundred needed a letter of authority from the "good man of the Hundred" — the local Justice of the Peace — or risked being put in the stocks. Following this Act, beggars could pretend neither to be labourers (who needed permission to wander), nor to be invalids (who were also forbidden to wander). The 1388 Act is often regarded as the first English poor law. However, lack of enforcement limited its impact and effect.
Further legislation followed over the next two centuries. In 1494, the Vagabonds and Beggars Act (11 Henry VII c.2) determined 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." Worse was to come — the 1547 Statute of Legal Settlement (1 Edw. VI. c.3) enacted that a sturdy beggar could be branded or made a slave for two years (or for life if he absconded). The Act condemned "...foolish pity and mercy" for vagrants. On a more positive note, cottages were to be erected for the impotent poor, and they were to be relieved or cured.
The seeds of the future direction of the poor laws in a short-lived Act of 1536 which required Churchwardens in each parish to collect voluntary alms in a 'common box' to provide handouts for those who could not work. At the same time, the idle and the able-bodied poor were obliged to perform labour, with punishment for those who refused. The Act also placed a prohibition on begging and on unofficial almsgiving. In the following decades, compulsory poor-taxes were established in London, Cambridge, Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich, and York. This principle was adopted nationally in 1572 with the introduction of a local property tax, the poor rate, which was assessed by local Justices of the Peace and administered by parish overseers. The money raised was to be used to relieve 'aged, poor, impotent, and decayed persons'.
An Act of 1564 aimed to suppress the 'roaming beggar' by empowering parish officers to 'appoint meet and convenient places for the habitations and abidings' of such classes — one of the first references to what was subsequently to evolve into the workhouse. This was followed in 1576 by an Act For Setting the Poor on Work which provided that stocks of materials such as wool, hemp, and flax should be provided and premises hired in which to employ the able-bodied poor.
In 1597, an Act For the Relief of the Poor (39 Eliz. c.3) required every parish to appoint Overseers of the Poor whose responsibility it was to find work for the unemployed and to set up parish-houses for those incapable of supporting themselves.
1601, the 43rd year of the reign of Elizabeth I, saw the passing of An Acte for the Reliefe of the Poore (43 Eliz. I c.2) which, although it was essentially a refinement of the 1597 Act, is often cited as marking the foundation of the Old Poor Laws.
Opening section of the 1601 Act.
Under the 1601 Act, each parish was obliged to relieve the aged and the helpless, to bring up unprotected children in habits of industry, and to provide work for those capable of it but who were lacking their usual trade.
The main objectives of the 1601 Act were:
Collection of the poor rates was done by the parish overseers who were unpaid and elected annually by the parish vestry. This was never a popular job and even missing one of their regular monthly meetings could result in an overseer receiving a hefty one pound fine. The poor-rates were dispensed to the needy of the parish as 'out-relief', usually in the form of bread, clothing, fuel, the payment of rent, or money.
You can read the full text of the 1601 Act.
The 1601 Act empowered parish overseers to raise money for poor relief from the inhabitants of the parish, according to their ability to pay. The poor-rate was originally a form of local income tax, but over time evolved into the rating system — a property tax based on the value of real estate. In general, the poor-rate was paid by the tenant of a property rather than its owner.
Failure to pay the poor-rate would result in a summons to appear before a Justices of the Peace who could impose a fine or the seizure of property, or even prison.
Example of a poor rate summons from 1822.
In 1662, another highly significant piece of legislation An Act for the better Relief of the Poor of this Kingdom (13&14 Car. II c.12) — otherwise known as the Settlement Act — was passed. In fact, the principle behind this Act was not really new and had its origins in the 1388 Statute of Cambridge. The new Settlement Act allowed for the removal from a parish, back to their place of settlement, of newcomers whom local justices deemed "likely to be chargeable" to the parish poor rates. Exemption was given if the new arrival was able to rent a property for at least £10 a year, but this was well beyond the means of an average labourer.
A child's settlement at birth was taken to be the same as that of its father. At marriage, a woman took on the same settlement as her husband. Illegitimate children were granted settlement in the place they were born — this often led parish overseers to try and get rid of an unmarried pregnant woman before the child was born, for example by her transporting to another parish just before the birth, or by paying a man from another parish to marry her.
A further Act in 1691 (3 William & Mary c.11) specified aditional ways in which settlement could be acquired. If a boy was apprenticed, which could happen from the age of seven, his parish of settlement became the place of his apprenticeship. Another means of qualifying for settlement in a new parish was by being in continuous employment for at least a year. To prevent this, hirings were often for a period of 364 days rather than a full year, or with a small amount of unpaid holidy included. Conversely, labourers might quit their jobs before a year was up in order to avoid being effectively trapped in a disagreeable parish.
Example of a settlement paper from 1747.
You can read the full text of the 1662 Settlement Act. Interestingly, the Act was the first ever to mention the term "workhouses".
In 1697, an Act For supplying some Defects in the Laws for the Relief of the Poor (8&9 Will II c.30) gave newcomers with certificates from their own parish protection until they actually became chargeable on the poor rate. A century later, in 1795, An Act to prevent the Removal of Poor Persons until they shall actually become chargeable (35 Geo. III c. 101) extended this protection to all except pregnant unmarried women. Parishes made these the least welcome because they were considered the most expensive to support.
Example of a removal notice from 1836.
The 1697 Act also required the "badging of the poor" — those in receipt of poor relief were required to wear, in red or blue cloth on their right shoulder, the letter "P" preceded by the initial letter of their parish. Badging was taken up by some parishes and not by others, and the procedure was eventually discontinued in an Act of 1810 (50 Geo. III c.10).
Pauper's badge for Ampthill parish
The operation of the Settlement Act, and its subsequent amendments, proved complex, confusing and contentious. Expensive legal battles often took place between a parish attempting to remove a pauper whom it claimed it had no duty to support, and the parish that it claimed did have responsibility. For example, early in 1837 a man called William Withers was travelling from Bristol to London when he became stricken with severe rheumatism and had to spend six weeks in the parish workhouse at Walcot in Bath. Eventually, Walcot decided to remove him to Clerkenwell and at 6pm he was put aboard the outside of a coach open to the wind and snow. After seven hours, at the halfway point at Newbury, he had to be lifted off the coach and revived with a little brandy and water. When he arrived in Clerkenwell, he had lost virtually all use of his hands and feet and was a bedridden invalid. A court then decided that, due to a technicality, his removal from Walcot had been illegal. However, to rectify matters, he would have to return there for removal proceedings to be reconducted. In the meantime, Clerkenwell could pass on the cost of Withers' upkeep to Walcot, and so treated him like a king, to the tune of five shillings a week. The ratepayers of Walcot had had to stump up £500 in legal costs plus the initial removal expenses and the cost of his keep until he was fit to return to Bath whereupon he could be removed again — legally — back to London.
Although various amendments continued to be made to the settlement and removal laws, notably an 1846 statute (9&10 Vic. c.66) which granted settlement after five years' residence, and the 1865 Union Chargeability Act (28&29 Vic. c.79) when all settlement powers were placed in the hands of the Poor Law Union and its Board of Guardians, the law was not finally abolished until 1948.
Between 1732 and 1744 a number of changes took place in how the law treated the responsibility for illegitimate children:
Sir Edward Knatchbull's Act of 1722-3 — For Amending the Laws relating to the Settlement, Imployment and Relief of the Poor (9 Geo. I c.7) enabled workhouses to be set up by parishes either singly, or in combination with neighbouring parishes.
An abstract of Knatchbull's Act is given below:
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The Church-Wardens and Overseers of the Poor of any Parish, with the Consent of the Major Part of the Parishioners, in Vestry, or other Publick Meeting for that purpose assembled, upon usual notice given, may purchase or hire any House or Houses in the Parish or Place, and Contract with Persons for the Lodging, Keeping and Employing of poor Persons; and there they are to keep them, and take the Benefit of their Work and Labour, for the better Maintenance and Relief of such Persons. And in case any poor Person shall refuse to be Lodg'd, Kept and Maintain'd in such House or Houses, such Person shall be put out of the Parish Books, and not entituled to Relief. Where Parishes are small, two or more such Parishes, with the Approbation of a Justice of the Peace, may unite in Purchasing or Hiring Houses for the Purposes aforesaid. And Church-Wardens, etc. of one Parish, with the Consent of the Major Part of the Parishioners, may contract with the Church-Wardens, etc. of any other Parish, for the Lodging and Maintenance of the Poor. But no poor Persons, or their Apprentices, Children, etc. shall receive a settlement in the Parish, Town, or Place to which they shall be removed, by Virtue of this Act. Note. This is a General Law, and extends to all England. |
You can read the full text of the Knatchbull's Act
Knatchbull's Act was also the first legal embodiment of the workhouse test — that the prospect of workhouse should act as a deterrent and that relief should only be available to those who were desperate enough to accept its regime. According to the Webbs' English Poor Law History the workhouse test probably owes its origin to Matthew Marryott, a workhouse manager from Buckinghamshire, who opened his first establishment at Olney in 1714. Marryott promoted the operation of many workhouses in the south of England. He may also have had a hand in the writing of the 1725 publication An Account of Several Workhouses for Employing and Maintaining the Poor, which described the operation of over 100 workhouses and the financial benefits to a parish of their introduction.
By 1732, following Knatchbull's Act, it is estimated (Slack, 1990) that about 700 workhouses were in operation. Parliamentary reports in 1776-7 list a total of almost 2,000 parish workhouses in operation in England and Wales — approximately one parish in seven.
Following Knatchbull's, the actual running of workhouses was not necessarily undertaken by the parish itself. It could instead be contracted out to a third party who would undertake to feed and house the poor, charging the parish a weekly rate for each inmate. The contractor would also provide the inmates with work and could keep any income generated. This system was known as 'farming' the poor. The contract was usually awarded to the bidder offering the best price for the job which might take a variety of forms, for example maintaining all the paupers in a parish, or just managing the workhouse, or just a particular group of paupers such as infants and children, or lunatics, or providing medical relief.
Eden, in his 1797 survey of the poor in England, described the operation of "farming" in the Farnham workhouse:
The contractor is allowed the use of the house and furniture, and the earnings of the Poor, and receives £1,000 a year for which he is bound to maintain the Poor of every description, but not bear the expense of removals, appeals, or other law contests. There are at present (Oct., 1795) 124 inmates, of whom 50 are old and infirm, and generally about the same in winter. There are a few out-pensioners, but the payments are very trifling, as it is more for the interest of the contractor to offer the Poor who apply for relief no alternative but the house. The infirm who can work are employed in picking wool, the children attend the carding machine, spin, etc., and are taught to read twice a day. Boys and girls, men and women sleep in different quarters of the house. The contractor says he keeps no account of expenses or earnings.
Thomas Gilbert's Act — For the Better Relief and Employment of the Poor (22 Geo. III c.83) was passed in 1782. It aimed to organize poor relief on a county basis with each county being divided into large districts corresponding to a Hundred (an old administrative unit within a county) or other large group of parishes. Such unions of parishes could set up a common workhouse although this was to be for the benefit only of the old, the sick and infirm, and orphan children. Perhaps most significantly, able-bodied paupers were not to be admitted but found employment near their own homes, with land-owners, farmers and other employers receiving allowances from the poor rates to bring wages up to subsistence levels.
Gilbert's Act also introduced significant changes in the administration of poor relief. Gilbert Unions were controlled by a board of Guardians, one from each member parish, elected by ratepayers and appointed by local magistrates. This represented a major shift in power from the parish to the landed gentry. The Guardians' work was to be supervised by a Visitor, also appointed by magistrates. The Act also provided model rules for the running of a workhouse.
Although groups of parishes — notably in East Anglia — had formed Local Act incorporations prior to Gilbert's Act, it made the formation of such unions much simpler and cheaper to undertake. However, Gilbert's scheme never took off in a big way and less than a hundred Gilbert's Unions were ever formed.
You can read the full text of Gilbert's Act
In 1795, Sir William Young introduced An Act to Amend so much of an Act... as prevents the distributing occasional relief to poor persons in their own houses, under certain circumstances and in certain cases. (36 Geo. III c.23). This Act repealed some of the provisions of Knatchbull's Act and gave greater powers to local magistrates to order outdoor relief. This was not a universally popular measure and may have encouraged some parishes to form Gilbert's Unions which were exempt from such measures.
In 1796, Jeremy Bentham, the great legal reformer and utilitarian philosopher, published a grandiose scheme for 'Pauper Management'. This early example of privatisation proposed the formation of a National Charity company that would construct a chain of 250 enormous workhouses, financed by a large number of small investors. Each workhouse would hold around two thousand inmates who would be put to profitable work and fed on a spartan diet.
Although it had its origins in the 1782 Act, the growing practice around this time of supplementing low wages from the poor rate became known as the Speenhamland system, named after the Berkshire parish of that name. It was here, in 1795, that magistrates decided to supplement wages on a scale that varied with price of bread and number of children:
Thus, if the price of bread rose to 1s.3d., a married man with two children would be guaranteed a wage of 3s.9d for himself plus three times 1s.9d., giving a total of 9 shillings a week.
Although never sanctioned by formal legislation, this practice, in various forms, became widespread. However, it was held in some quarters that the system led to able-bodied labourers believing that they were entitled to parish relief when out of work, and lacking industry and respect for their employer when in work.
In an effort to improve the administration of poor-relief (and reduce costs) the Sturges Bourne Acts: The 1818 Act for the Regulation of Parish Vestries (58 Geo. III c. 3) and the 1819 Act To Amend the laws for the Relief of the Poor (59 Geo. III c. 12). These acts allowed parishes to appoint small committees, or Select Vestries, to scrutinise relief-giving. Election to Select Vestries was by parish ratepayers given votes (up to six) in proportion to the value of their property. In addition, a rate could be raised specifically to build or enlarge a workhouse. To help the parish overseer (a unpaid post) with the growing administrative burden imposed by poor relief, a salaried assistant overseer could also be appointed.
However, by the late 1820s, there was growing dissatisfaction with the whole system, particularly from the well represented land-owning classes who bore the brunt of the growing poor-rate burden. There was also growing unrest amongst the poor, particularly in rural areas, which even lead to rioting and the attacking of poorhouses, notably from those who identified themselves as supporters of the shadowy figure of Captain Swing. In 1832 the British Government decided to appoint a Royal Commission to review the whole poor relief system.
The Royal Commission, under the chairmanship of the Bishop of London, conducted a detailed survey of the state of poor law administration and prepared a report. This was largely the work of two of the Commissioners, Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick. The report took the view that poverty was essentially caused the indigence of individuals rather than economic and social conditions. Thus, the pauper claimed relief regardless of his merits: large families got most, which encouraged improvident marriages; women claimed relief for bastards, which encouraged immorality; labourers had no incentive to work; employers kept wages artificially low as workers subsidized from the poor rate.
The Royal Commission published its report in March, 1834, and made a series of 22 recommendations which were to form the basis of the new legislation that followed in the same year. Its main legislative proposal was that:
In addition, it recommended:
The report also revived the workhouse test — the belief that the deserving and the undeserving poor could be distinguished by a simple test: anyone prepared to accept relief in the repellent workhouse must be lacking the moral determination to survive outside it.
In the wake of the Royal Commission's report came the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 — An Act for the Amendment and better Administration of the Laws relating to the Poor in England and Wales (4 & 5 Will IV c. 76) which received Royal Assent on August 14th, 1834.
You can read the full text of the 1834 Act
Title page of the 1834 Poor Law Act
© Peter Higginbotham.
The 1834 Act was largely concerned with setting up the legal and administrative framework for the new poor relief system. At its heart was the new Poor Law Commission which was given responsibility for the detailed policy and administration of the new regime. Three Poor Law Commissioners were appointed (George Nicholls, John Shaw-Lefevre and Thomas Frankland Lewis) with Edwin Chadwick as their Secretary. The Commission was based at Somerset House in London.
The seal and signatures of the Poor Law Commissioners.
© Peter Higginbotham.
One of the Commission's first tasks was to set about dividing the 15,000 or so parishes of England and Wales into new administrative units called Poor Law Unions each run by a locally elected Board of Guardians. (Local Act Incorporations and Gilbert Unions were exempted from the new scheme, something that was to irritate the Commission and its successors for many years.) The funding of each Union and its workhouse continued to come from the local poor rate with each parish contributing in proportion to its poor relief expenditure over the previous three years. Following the principle established by the 1818 Sturges Bourne Act, ratepayers were given votes (up to six) in proportion to the value of their property.
The creation on the new unions was undertaken by a team of Assistant Commissioners visiting each area and conducting meetings with local parish officials and landowners. In some areas, landowners with large estates were able to achieve considerable influence over the groupings of parishes forming each union. Landowners generally preferred to keep their estates within a single union which would allow them the maximum of influence on its Board of Guardians. The new Potterspury union in Northamptonshire, for example, ended up with only eleven member parishes, eight of which were owned entirely or in part by the Duke of Grafton.
The overall working and implementation of the new system was put into practice by means of a large volume of orders and regulations issued by the Commission which specified every aspect of the operation of a Union and its workhouse. The Commission had the power to issue 'General Orders' which would apply to a number of unions, and 'Special Orders' which were specific to one. General Orders required parliamentary approval, while Special Orders did not. The Commission got around this restriction by repeatedly issuing identical 'special' orders to multiple individual unions. It was not until 1841 that the first General Orders were submitted for parliamentary approval. Many of the previous special orders were subsequently revised and reissued an general orders culminating in the issue in 1847 of the Consolidated General Order which became the 'bible' of the system's operation.
One of the most controversial parts of the Act was the 'Bastardy Clause' (actually a sequence of several clauses) which made the obtaining of affiliation orders much more difficult and expensive than had formerly been the case. Previously, such orders were obtained through local Petty Sessions courts but after 1834 had to be heard at county Quarter Sessions and could only be initiated by Overseers or Guardians. Evidence of paternity claims now also had to be "corroborated in some material particular", something that was often impossible to achieve. The Act effectively made illegitimate children the sole responsibility of their mothers until they were 16 years old. If mothers of such children were unable to support themselves and their offspring, they would have to enter the workhouse. The 1834 Act, it was hoped, would make the consequences sufficiently unattractive to deter women from risking extra-marital pregnancy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was a highly unpopular and contentious measure and was diluted in 1839 by an Act (2&3 Vic. c.85.) which allowed affiliation claims to again be heard by local magistrates at Petty Sessions. The clause was effectively overturned by a further Act in 1844 (7&8 Vic. c.101) which enabled an unmarried mother to apply for an affiliation order against the father for maintenance of the mother and child, regardless of whether she was in receipt of poor relief.
One other important change relating to bastardy in the 1834 Act was that an illegitimate child now took its mother's settlement until it reached the age of sixteen or acquired settlement in its own right. The previous system, where such a child gained settlement from its place of birth, had sometimes led parishes to try and remove from within their borders heavily pregnant single women so that their children would not be a burden on the ratepayers.
The 1832 Royal Commission had proposed a simplification of the settlement laws so that birth in a parish would become the only means of acquiring settlement. However, this suggestion was not taken up, although the 1834 Act removed a year's hiring and service in a parish office as options to gain settlement. A provision to allow a union, rather than its individual parishes, become the area of settlement was only taken up by one parish, Docking in Norfolk.
In 1846, the already complex settlement laws were further complicated by an Act which introduced the new concept of 'irremovability'. Amongst other things this gave protection against removal to anyone who had been resident in a parish for five years. This privilege was not, however, available to those living outside their home parish and who were in receipt of non-resident poor relief from that parish. In order to prevent a flood of new relief claims from those poor who discovered that they were now irremovable, 'Bodkin's Act' was passed shortly afterwards to place the cost of such claims on the union's common fund rather than on individual parishes. From 1865, one year's continuous residence in a union would qualify a person as being irremovable.
Despite these changes, issues of settlement and removal continued to occupy a significant amount of unions' time and money. In 1907, more than 12,000 individuals were removed from one union to another in England and Wales, the larger number of these being from London and other large cities.
The 1834 Act received much criticism, including from The Times which on 30th April 1834 (prior to its enactment) claimed that bill would "disgrace the statute-book."
Within weeks of its opening, the first new workhouse built under the new law at Abingdon was in the news when its master had been the subject of a murder attempt.
In the north of England, partly fuelled by economic depression, an Anti Poor Law movement took hold. In places such as Huddersfield, led by Richard Oastler, its supporters even included members of the Board of Guardians who obstructed the operation of the new Act by refusing to elect a Union Clerk, without whom no business could take place. In August 1842, the Stockport union workhouse was the subject of an attack by a mob of unemployed workers.
Stockport workhouse under attack, 1842.
© Peter Higginbotham.
In Wales, particularly in the central and north-western regions, resistance to the building of workhouses was strong. By 1847, seventeen out of 47 unions had still not opened workhouses. One union, Rhayader, held out against erecting one until 1877. Attacks also took place on the workhouses at Llanfyllin where the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry prevented a mob from destroying the building, and at Narberth where special constables were employed to protect the site after a mob attempted to burn down the new workhouse.
However, at the heart of opposition to the new law was the hardship and brutality it engendered. In 1841, GR Wythen Baxter published his famous The Book of the Bastiles — a somewhat lurid compilation of newspaper reports, court proceedings, correspondence and so on, which graphically illustrated some of the horror stories relating to the New Poor Law. For example:
Two years later, in 1843 the satirical magazine Punch reported how in Bethnal Green "An infant, only five weeks old, had been separated from the mother, being occasionally brought to her for the breast."
In the Huddersfield Union, where five small old workhouses were still in use, there was public outcry in 1848 at conditions in the Huddersfield township workhouse. Conditions in the workhouse were appallingly cramped and unhygienic, with up to 10 children sharing a bed. The inmates' diet was miserable, even by workhouse standards. Conditions in the infirmary were even worse — a living patient occupied the same bed with a corpse for a considerable period after death, and the sick were left unwashed for days on end, in some cases besmeared in their own excrement.
The most notorious scandal was that at Andover Workhouse in 1845 where, it emerged, conditions were so harsh that inmates had resorted to scavenging for decaying meat from the bones that they had been set to crush. This case received enormous publicity and the fall-out from this was considerable.
The Poor Law Commission devoted much energy to the abolition of outdoor relief to the able-bodied, which was a lynch-pin of the 1834 Act. This had proved particularly difficult in the industrial north. Outdoor relief was the subject of two important General Orders issued by the Commission:
The Labour Test Order was alone in force in 32 unions, mostly in the industrial north. The Prohibitory Order was alone in force in 396 unions. In 81 unions, both Orders were in force, allowing the Guardians some discretion in how to administer out-relief.
In 1847, following the Andover scandal and other bad publicity, reports of internal quarrels and divisions, together with a desire by the government to make the poor law administration more directly accountable to parliament, the Poor Law Commission was abolished and replaced by a new Poor Law Board, with George Nicholls as its permanent secretary for the first three years of its life.
In 1852, the Poor Law Board attempted to standardise the regulations relating to the provision of out-relief. In August, it issued an Outdoor Relief Regulation Order which, unlike previous orders on the subject, included restrictions relating to the sick, aged and widows. Following numerous protests from Boards of Guardians who felt their discretionary powers were being interfered with, a revised Order was issued in December. This reverted to dealing with able-bodied males, but extended the conditions under which out-relief could be given in such cases.
In 1865, the Union Chargeability Act shifted the cost of poor relief from the parish to the union — each parish now contributed to a union fund based on its rateable value not on the number of paupers it had. The union, rather than the parish, became the area of settlement and the period of residency required for irremovability was reduced to one year.
In the 1860s, increasing concern about the state of London's workhouses, and in particular their medical facilities, led to pressure for changes in their management. In 1865, things came to a head when the medical journal The Lancet published revealed the appalling conditions in many workhouse infirmaries. Two years later, in 1867, the Metropolitan Poor Act was passed and the care on London's sick poor was brought under the care of a new body, the Metropolitan Asylums Board. Some reorganisation of London's unions was carried out, and all unions were now required to provide hospital accommodation on sites separate from the workhouse. The MAB erected a number of its own institutions for the care the city's fever, smallpox, and tuberculosis patients, and for what were then termed "imbeciles". The MAB's institutions were effectively England's first state hospitals.
In 1871, the Poor Law Board was replaced by the Local Government Board which included a much broader range of responsibilities such as sanitation and public health.
In the 1870s, the Local Government Board mounted a campaign to reduce the levels of out-relief expenditure. It also increased the pressure on the few remaining unions such as Todmorden, Rhayader and Presteigne who had held out against the building workhouses. It was assisted in this by The Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act, 1876 (39&40 Victoria c.61). The primary aim of this Act was to enable the Board to tidy up the boundaries of unions, particularly those that had parishes detached from the main area of the union or that crossed county borders. However, the Act also empowered the Board to dissolve any union "when it is expedient to do so for the purpose of rectifying or simplifying the areas of management, or otherwise for the better administration of relief...". Under the threat of dissolution, Todmorden and Rhayader finally agreed to build workhouses, with Rhayader taking in its first inmates in August 1879, making it the last union in the whole of England and Wales to do so.. Presteigne, however, was dissolved in 1877 and its constituent parishes distributed to adjacent unions.
The Local Government Board Offices, Whitehall.
© Peter Higginbotham.
On 31 July 1838, following a report by George Nicholls, an Act for the more effectual Relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland was passed. It was based for the most part on the same model that existed for England and Wales with relief centred on the workhouse. Initially, 130 Irish unions were created, with an additional 33 being added in 1848-50. For more information see the separate page on Ireland.
In January 1843, a Commission of Enquiry was appointed to consider the operation of poor laws in Scotland. Their report, delivered on 2nd May 1844, noted that poor relief in Scotland was generally confined to the old, infirm, disabled, mentally ill and so on. Relief to the able-bodied was rare. They therefore proposed to broadly keep relief organized at the parish level although parishes, particularly in urban areas, should be united for settlement and poor-relief purposes, including the establishment of united poorhouses. They also proposed the creation of a Board of Supervision to oversee the management of each parish's poor relief. These proposals were put into effect on 4th August 1845 in an Act for The Amendment and better Administration of the Laws Relating to the relief of the Poor in Scotland (8 & 9 Vic. c. 83). For more information see the separate page on Scotland. You can also read the full text of the 1845 Act.
Prior to 1918, acceptance of poor relief disqualified the recipient from voting. However, from the 1870s there was an increasing use of workhouse medical facilities by those for whom admission to the main institution was not appropriate. In 1885, the Medical Relief Disqualification Removal Act (48&49 Vic. c.46) meant that anyone who was in receipt only of poor-rate-funded medical care no longer lost their vote.
By the start of the twentieth century, change was in the air. Two factors contributed to this. The first was the election of a significant number of women as Guardians - since the 1860s women had been active in improving workhouse conditions, particularly through bodies such as the Workhouse Visiting Society. The second, in 1892, was the lowering to £5 of the property rental value qualifying for Guardian election which enabled the election of working-class people as Board members.
In December 1905, a Royal Commission on the Poor Law and the Unemployed was appointed:
"To inquire: (1) Into the working of the laws relating to the relief of poor persons in the United Kingdom; (2) Into the various means which have been adopted outside of the Poor Laws for meeting distress arising from want of employment, particularly during periods of severe industrial depression; and to consider and report whether any, and if so what, modification of the Poor Laws or changes in their administration or fresh legislation for dealing with distress are advisable."
Over the next four years it carried out the most extensive investigation since the Royal Commission of 1832. Its 18 members included: C.S. Loch (Secretary of the London Charity Organization Society), William Smart (Professor of Political Economy at Glasgow University), Octavia Hill (campaigner for housing reform and co-founder of the National Trust), socialist reformers George Lansbury and Beatrice Webb (wife of Sidney Webb), former Guardians, Poor Law officials and clergymen.
The Commission was famously split and its recommendations were published as:
The Report was also published in a modestly priced Fabian edition and had a spectacular sale. A great propaganda campaign was organized by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in support of its recommendations for the prevention of destitution by the break-up of the Poor Law.
In 1911, George Lansbury, who in 1892 had become one of the first working-class Guardians in Poplar, wrote a pamphlet provocatively entitled Smash up the Workhouse. This argued that few, particularly able-bodied, people should need to be in workhouses. For those who had no alternative, there should be a softening of the workhouse regime.
Although no new legislation directly resulted from the Commission's work, a number of significant pieces of social legislation took place in its wake. Jan 1st 1909 saw the introduction of the old age pension for those over 70 (up to 5s. a week for a single person, 7s.6d. for a married couple) although until 1911, anyone who had received poor relief in the previous twelve months was denied a pension. In 1911 unemployment insurance and health insurance began in a limited form.
Some of the first receipients of the old age pension, 1909.
© Peter Higginbotham.
From 1913 onwards, the term "workhouse" was replaced by "poor law institution" in official documents but the institution itself was to live on for a good many years yet.
During the First World War, many Boards of Guardians offered workhouse premises for military use, mostly as hospitals (for example at Bristol and Birmingham) but also for accommodating military personnel, prisoners of war (for example Banbury) and "aliens" (for example Islington).
The general depression in the years following the First World War, culminating in the miners' strike of 1926, put a tremendous strain on the system with some unions effectively becoming bankrupt. In some areas, where colliery owners also had influence with local Boards of Guardians, there were allegations that relief was deliberately reduced to break the strike. Conversely, where miners and union officials dominated a Board, there were complaints that the rates were being used to supplement strike funds.
Neville Chamberlain, Health Minister in the 1925 Conservative government, believed that that the poor-law system needed reforming and in 1926 pushed through a Board of Guardians (Default) Act which enabled the dismissal of a Board of Guardians and its replacement with government officials. This was followed by a further Poor Law Act in 1927, and in 1928 he introduced The Local Government Act which would in many respects bring about many of the measures proposed by the Royal Commission's Report in 1909. Essentially, this would abolish the Boards of Guardians and transfer all their powers and responsibilities to local councils. These were required to submit administrative schemes to end "poor relief" as such — "as soon as circumstances permit" — and provide more specific "public assistance" on the basis of other legislation such as the Public Health Act, the Education Act, and so on. The Act was passed on 27th March 1929 and came into effect on 1st April 1930 — a day which supposedly marked the end of the road for 643 Boards of Guardians in England and Wales.
Although the workhouse was officially no more, many institutions carried on into the 1930s virtually unaltered. Objections from Boards of Guardians and councils meant that changes were very slow in taking place. Ultimately, the 1929 Act did not succeed in abolishing the Poor Law — it merely reformed how it was administered and changed a few names. Poor Law Institutions became Public Assistance Institutions and were controlled by a committee of "guardians". However, physical conditions improved a little for the inmates, the majority of whom continued to be the old, the mentally deficient, unmarried mothers, and vagrants.
The National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force on 5th July 1948. Even the sweeping changes that came with this had less impact than might be imagined. Institutions now came under the control of Hospital Management Committees under Regional hospital Boards but many still carried the stigma from their workhouse days. Many of these new "hospitals" also maintained "Reception Centres for Wayfarers", i.e. casual wards for vagrants, until the 1960s.
This page () is copyright Peter G Higginbotham. Last updated 21-Oct-2009
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