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The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws being codified in 1587–98. The Poor Law system was in existence until the emergence of the modern welfare state after the Second World War.
The Poplar Rates Rebellion, or Poplar Rates Revolt was a tax protest that took place in Poplar, London, England, in 1921. It was led by George Lansbury, the previous year's Labour Mayor of Poplar, with the support of the Poplar Borough Council, most of whom were industrial workers. The protest defied government, the courts, and the Labour Party leadership. George Lansbury would later go on to be the leader of the Labour Party.
In England and Wales, a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment. The earliest known use of the term workhouse is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that "wee haue erected wthn our borough a workehouse to sett poore people to worke".
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (PLAA), known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the Poor Law of 1601 and attempted to fundamentally change the poverty relief system in England and Wales. It resulted from the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws, which included Edwin Chadwick, John Bird Sumner and Nassau William Senior. Chadwick was dissatisfied with the law that resulted from his report. The Act was passed two years after the 1832 Reform Act extended the franchise to middle class men. Some historians have argued that this was a major factor in the PLAA being passed.
The Poor Relief Act 1601 was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601, popularly known as the Elizabethan Poor Law, "43rd Elizabeth" or the Old Poor Law was passed in 1601 and created a poor law system for England and Wales.
The Labour Rate was a system of poor relief, used in England from 1832 to 1834, where workers were paid at a given rate. If this was not met then the rest had to be made up by the parish's poor relief. It was authorised by the Agricultural Labourers Act 1832, and adopted in about 1 in 5 parishes until it was replaced by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834.
The workhouse test was a condition of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. It stated that anyone who wanted to get poor relief must enter a workhouse. The condition was never implemented in Britain and outdoor relief continued to be given.
In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of helping the poor. Alongside ever-changing attitudes towards poverty, many methods have been attempted to answer these questions. Since the early 16th century legislation on poverty enacted by the English Parliament, poor relief has developed from being little more than a systematic means of punishment into a complex system of government-funded support and they were and protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state.
The Outdoor Labour Test Order was a piece of policy issued by the Poor Law Commission on 13 April 1842 which allowed the use of outdoor relief to the able-bodied poor. The order was issued after there was some opposition to the Commission's previous order stating that only indoor relief should be used. During times when the manufacturing industries were performing poorly this became impractical - however the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 had aimed to prevent the use of outdoor relief and replace it with indoor relief.
From the reign of Elizabeth I until the passage of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 relief of the poor in England was administered on the basis of a Poor Law enacted in 1601. From the start of the nineteenth century the basic concept of providing poor relief was criticised as misguided by leading political economists and in southern agricultural counties the burden of poor-rates was felt to be excessive. Opposition to the Elizabethan Poor Law led to a Royal Commission on poor relief, which recommended that poor relief could not in the short term be abolished; however it should be curtailed, and administered on such terms that none but the desperate would claim it. Relief should only be administered in workhouses, whose inhabitants were to be confined, 'classified' and segregated. The Poor Law Amendment Act allowed these changes to be implemented by a Poor Law Commission largely unaccountable to Parliament. The Act was passed by large majorities in Parliament, but the regime it was intended to bring about was denounced by its critics as (variously) un-Christian, un-English, unconstitutional, and impracticable for the great manufacturing districts of Northern England. The Act itself did not introduce the regime, but introduced a framework by which it might easily be brought in.
The 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws was a group set up to decide how to change the Poor Law systems in England and Wales. The group included Nassau Senior, a professor from Oxford University who was against the allowance system, and Edwin Chadwick, who was a Benthamite. The recommendations of the Royal Commission's report were implemented in the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834.
The Majority Report by the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws was published in 1909. The commission was set up to work out the best way to relieve the poor of economic and societal hardship. It was made up of members of the Charity Organisation Society such as Helen Bosanquet as well as Local Government Boards, Trade Unions and social researchers such as Charles Booth.
The Scottish Poor Laws were the statutes concerning poor relief passed in Scotland between 1579 and 1929. Scotland had a different Poor Law system to England and the workings of the Scottish laws differed greatly to the Poor Law Amendment Act which applied in England and Wales.
The Historiography of the Poor Laws can be said to have passed through three distinct phases. Early historiography was concerned with the deficiencies of the Old Poor Law system, later work can be characterized as an early attempt at revisionism before the writings of Mark Blaug present a truly revisionist analysis of the Poor Law system.
Poor Law policy after the New Poor Law concerns the time period c. 1847–1900 after the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act until the beginnings of the decline of the Poor Law system at the start of the 20th century.
The following article presents a Timeline of the Poor Law system from its origins in the Tudor and Elizabethan era to its abolition in 1948.
The Poor Law (Scotland) Act 1845 was an Act of Parliament that reformed the Poor Law system of Scotland.
The Scottish poorhouse, occasionally referred to as a workhouse, provided accommodation for the destitute and poor in Scotland. The term poorhouse was almost invariably used to describe the institutions in that country, as unlike the regime in their workhouse counterparts in neighbouring England and Wales residents were not usually required to labour in return for their upkeep.
The Poplar Rates Rebellion Mural is a mural in Poplar, London, on the wall of the depot of Tower Hamlets Parks Department on Hale Street, E14
References
- ↑ Workhouse.orgs article on the order Archived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine .
Poor Laws of the British Isles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Poor Laws by territory |  Nantwich workhouse | |
| Old Poor Law | ||
| Relief systems | ||
| New Poor Law | ||
| Changes after 1834 | ||
| Decline and abolition | ||
| Other | ||