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Workhouses
In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that "we have erected wthn our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work". The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Statute of Cambridge 1388, which attempted to address the labour shortages following the Black Death in England by restricting the movement of labourers, and ultimately led to the state becoming responsible for the support of the poor. However, mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers in particular, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established system of poor relief was proving to be unsustainable. The New Poor Law of 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workhouse Nantwich
In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that "we have erected wthn our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work". The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Statute of Cambridge 1388, which attempted to address the labour shortages following the Black Death in England by restricting the movement of labourers, and ultimately led to the state becoming responsible for the support of the poor. However, mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers in particular, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established system of poor relief was proving to be unsustainable. The New Poor Law of 183 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 after the Second World War. 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 (1558–1603) 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Act For The Relief Of The Poor 1601
The Poor Relief Act 1601 (43 Eliz 1 c 2) 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. It formalised earlier practices of poor relief distribution in England and Wales and is generally considered a refinement of the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1597 that established Overseers of the Poor. The "Old Poor Law" was not one law but a collection of laws passed between the 16th and 18th centuries. The system's administrative unit was the parish. It was not a centralised government policy but a law which made individual parishes responsible for Poor Law legislation. The 1601 act saw a move away from the more obvious forms of punishing paupers under the Tudor system towards methods of "correction". Several amending pieces of legislation can be considered part of the Old Poor Law. These include: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
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 Relief Act 1601'' and attempted to fundamentally change the poverty relief system in England and Wales (similar changes were made to the poor law for Scotland in 1845). 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 ''Representation of the People Act 1832'' extended the franchise to middle class men. Some historians have argued that this was a major factor in the PLAA being passed. The Act has been described as "the classic example of the fundamental Whig-Benthamite reforming legislation of the period". Its theoretical basis w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relief Of The Poor Act 1782
The Relief of the Poor Act 1782 (22 Geo.3 c.83), also known as Gilbert's Act, was a British poor relief law proposed by Thomas Gilbert which aimed to organise poor relief on a county basis, counties being organised into parishes which could set up poorhouses or workhouses between them. However, these workhouses were intended to help only the elderly, sick and orphaned, not the able-bodied poor. The sick, elderly and infirm were cared for in poorhouses whereas the able-bodied poor were provided with poor relief in their own homes. Gilbert's Act aimed to be more humane than the previous modification to the Poor Law, the Workhouse Test Act. During the 1780s, there was an increase in unemployment and underemployment due to high food prices, low wages and the effects of enclosing land. This caused poor rates to increase rapidly, which wealthy landowners found unacceptable. The Act was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1871. Attempts to pass legislation Thomas Gilbert attempte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Relief
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 protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state. Tudor era In the late 15th century, parliament took action on the growing problem of poverty, focusing on punishing people for being "vagabonds" and for begging. In 1495, during the reign of King Henry VII, Parliament enacted the Vagabond Act. This provided for officers of the law to arrest and hold "all such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classifications Of Poor Used In The Poor Law System
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 protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state. Tudor era In the late 15th century, parliament took action on the growing problem of poverty, focusing on punishing people for being "vagabonds" and for begging. In 1495, during the reign of King Henry VII, Parliament enacted the Vagabond Act. This provided for officers of the law to arrest and hold "all such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workhouse Test Act 1723
The Workhouse Test Act 1723 (9 George 1, c.7) also known as the General Act or Knatchbull's Act was poor relief legislation passed by the British government by Sir Edward Knatchbull in 1723. The "workhouse test" was that a person who wanted to receive poor relief had to enter a workhouse and undertake a set amount of work. The test was intended to prevent irresponsible claims on a parish's poor rate. Knatchbull's legislation For Amending the Laws relating to Settlement, Employment and Relief of the Poor marked the first emergence of the workhouse test although this principle was adopted more fully after the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act. Under the act parishes could provide relief as an individual parish, combine with other parishes or poor relief could be sub-contracted out to those that would feed, clothe and house the poor in return for a weekly rate from the parish. Between 1723 and 1750, 600 parish workhouses were built in England and Wales as a direct result of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speenhamland System
The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law. It was created as an indirect result of Britain's involvements in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). Operation The system was named after a 1795 meeting in Speenhamland, Berkshire, where local magistrates devised the system as a means to alleviate the distress caused by high grain prices. The increase in the price of grain may have occurred as a result of a poor harvest in the years 1795–96, though at the time this was subject to great debate. Many blamed middlemen and hoarders as the ultimate architects of the shortage. The Speehamland scale read, "When a gallon loaf of bread cost one shilling:... every Poor and Industrious Man should have for his own Support 3s weekly, either produced by his Family's Labour, or an Allowance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poorhouse
A poorhouse or workhouse is a government-run (usually by a county or municipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy. Workhouses In England, Wales and Ireland (but not in Scotland), ‘workhouse’ has been the more common term. Before the introduction of the Poor Laws, each parish would maintain its own workhouse; often these would be simple farms with the occupants dividing their time between working the farm and being employed on maintaining local roads and other parish works. An example of one such is Strand House in East Sussex. In the early Victorian era (see Poor Law), poverty was seen as a dishonourable state. As depicted by Charles Dickens, a workhouse could resemble a reformatory, often housing whole families, or a penal labour regime giving manual work to the indigent and subjecting them to physical punishment. At many workhouses, men and women were split up with no communication between them. Furthermore, these workhouse systems we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Gilbert (politician)
Thomas Gilbert ( – 18 December 1798) was a British lawyer, soldier, land agent and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1773 to 1794. As one of the earliest advocates of poor relief, he played a major part in the Relief of the Poor Act of 1782. Early life Gilbert was the son of Thomas Gilbert of Cotton, Staffordshire. He entered Inner Temple in 1740 and was called to the bar in 1744. In 1745 he accepted a position in the regiment created by Lord Gower, the brother-in-law of the Duke of Bridgewater. His first wife was named Miss Phillips whom he married between December 1761 and January 1762. When he married her he bought her a lottery ticket, and she won one of the largest prizes in the country. She died on 22 April 1770 and he married secondly to Mary Crauford daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel George Crauford. Political career Gilbert was a Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1763 to 1768 and for Lichfield from 1768 to 1795. He held many tit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Frederick Eden, 2nd Baronet
Sir Frederick Morton Eden, 2nd Baronet, of Maryland (18 June 1766 – 14 November 1809) was an English writer on poverty and pioneering social investigator. Early life Frederick Morton Eden was the eldest son of Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet, of Maryland, and his wife Caroline Calvert, sister of the last Lord Baltimore and niece of Thomas Bladen's wife. His father was governor of Maryland and was created a baronet in 1776. Frederick inherited the baronetcy on the death of his father in 1784. Eden studied at Christ Church, Oxford. He was one of the founders of the Globe Insurance Company and later its chairman. in 1809 he died suddenly at the office of the company he founded at the early age of 43. Career Eden’s reputation as a social investigator rests on '' The State of the Poor, '' published in 3 volumes in 1797. He explained the circumstances that led him to do the research: The difficulties which the labouring classes experienced, from the high price of grain, and of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
