English Poor Laws
The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief in England and Wales that developed out of the codification of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws in 1587–1598. The system continued until the modern welfare state emerged in the late 1940s.
English Poor Law legislation can be traced back as far as 1536, when legislation was passed to deal with the impotent poor, although there were much earlier Plantagenet laws dealing with the problems caused by vagrants and beggars. The history of the Poor Law in England and Wales is usually divided between two statutes: the Old Poor Law passed during the reign of Elizabeth I and the New Poor Law, passed in 1834, which significantly modified the system of poor relief. The New Poor Law altered the system from one which was administered haphazardly at a local parish level to a highly centralised system which encouraged the large-scale development of workhouses by poor law unions.
The Poor Law system fell into decline at the beginning of the 20th century owing to factors such as the introduction of the Liberal welfare reforms and the availability of other sources of assistance from friendly societies and trade unions, as well as piecemeal reforms which bypassed the Poor Law system. The Poor Law system was not formally abolished until the National Assistance Act 1948, with parts of the law remaining on the books until 1967.
History
Medieval Poor Laws
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. Landowners had to face the choice of raising wages to compete for workers or letting their lands go unused. Wages for labourers rose, and this forced up prices across the economy as goods became more expensive to produce. An attempt to rein in prices, the ordinance required that everyone who could work did; that wages were kept at pre-plague levels; and that food was not overpriced. 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.Tudor Poor Law
The origins of the English Poor Law system can be traced back to late medieval statutes dealing with beggars and vagrancy, but it was only during the Tudor period that the Poor Law system was codified. Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the Tudor Reformation, monasteries had been the primary source of poor relief, but their dissolution resulted in poor relief moving from a largely voluntary basis to a compulsory tax that was collected at a parish level. 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 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 sere 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. English penal transportation would be implemented soon afterwards, and evolve into a subsidized government endeavour with the Transportation Act 1717.
Old Poor Law
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. Poor harvests in the period between 1595 and 1598 caused the numbers in poverty to increase, while charitable giving had decreased after the dissolution of the monasteries and religious guilds.
The Poor Relief Act 1601 created a system administered at parish level, paid for by levying local rates on rate payers. Relief for those too ill or old to work, the 'impotent poor', was in the form of a payment or items of food 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. The population was then small enough for everyone to know everyone else's circumstances, so the idle poor would be unable to claim on the parishes' poor rate. The system provided social stability yet by 1750 needed to be adapted to cope with population increases, 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 that did not make an employee eligible for poor relief.
A pauper applicant had to prove a settlement. If he could not, he was removed to the parish nearest to his birthplace, or where he prove some connection; some paupers were moved hundreds of miles. Although the parishes he passed through en route had no responsibility for him, they were supposed to supply food and drink and shelter for at least one night. An act of 1697 required beggars to wear a badge of red or blue cloth on the right shoulder with an embroidered letter "P" and the initial of their parish. 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. An investigation of the history and current state of the Poor Laws was made by Michael Nolan in his 1805 Treatise of the Laws for the Relief and Settlement of the Poor. The work would go on to three subsequent editions in Nolan's lifetime, and stoked the discussion both within and outside of Parliament.
During the Napoleonic Wars it became difficult to import cheap grain into Britain which resulted in the price of bread increasing. As wages did not also increase, many agricultural labourers were plunged into poverty. Following peace in 1814, the Tory government of Lord Liverpool 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, "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. Boyer suggests several possible reasons for the gradual increase in relief given to able-bodied males, including the enclosure movement and a decline in industries such as wool spinning and lace making. Boyer also contends that farmers were able to take advantage of the poor law system to shift some of their labour costs onto the tax payer.