The English Poor Laws were a system of

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 hel ...

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

that developed out of the codification of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws in 1587–1598. The system continued until the modern

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...

emerged after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. English Poor Law legislation can be traced back as far as 1536, when legislation was passed to deal with the

impotent poor 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 he ...

, although there were much earlier

Plantagenet The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in batt ...

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 Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

(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

workhouse 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'' ...

s 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 The Liberal welfare reforms (1906–1914) were a series of acts of social legislation passed by the Liberal Party after the 1906 general election. They represent the emergence of the modern welfare state in the United Kingdom. The reforms demons ...

and the availability of other sources of assistance from

friendly societies A friendly society (sometimes called a benefit society, mutual aid society, benevolent society, fraternal and service organisations, fraternal organization or Rotating savings and credit association, ROSCA) is a mutual association for the purpo ...

and

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

s, as well as piecemeal

reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

s which bypassed the Poor Law system. The Poor Law system was not formally abolished until the

National Assistance Act 1948 The National Assistance Act 1948 is an Act of Parliament passed in the United Kingdom by the Labour government of Clement Attlee. It formally abolished the Poor Law system that had existed since the reign of Elizabeth I, and established a social ...

, 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 The Ordinance of Labourers 1349 (23 Edw. 3) is often considered to be the start of English labour law.''Employment Law: Cases and Materials''. Rothstein, Liebman. Sixth Edition, Foundation Press. p. 20. Specifically, it fixed wages and impose ...

which was issued by King

Edward III of England Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring ro ...

on 18 June 1349, and revised in 1350. The ordinance was issued in response to the 1348–1350 outbreak of the

Black Death in England The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic, which reached England in June 1348. It was the first and most severe manifestation of the second pandemic, caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' bacteria. The term ''Black Death'' was not used until the l ...

,Cartwright, Frederick F. 1991. ''Disease and History''. New York: Barnes & Noble. pp. 32–46. when an estimated 30–40% of the population had died. ''The Plague and England'', Cardiff University. Retrieved on April 11, 2009. The decline in population left surviving workers in great demand in the agricultural economy of Britain. 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 (and subsequent acts, such the

Statute of Labourers The Statute of Labourers was a law created by the English parliament under King Edward III in 1351 in response to a labour shortage, which aimed at regulating the labour force by prohibiting requesting or offering a wage higher than pre-Plague st ...

of 1351) 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 punish escaped workers. In addition, the Statute of Cambridge was passed in 1388 and 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 The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

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 Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

and making the

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