Talk:English Poor Laws

"poorhouse" vs. "workhouse"?
The section "The act of 1601" makes use of both the word "poorhouse" and the word "workhouse". The text implies they are not the same thing, but does not give a good sense of how they would differ. Could someone clarify this?


 * In England, "poorhouse" was often used fairly synonymously with "workhouse" to refer to pre-1834 parish workhouses, although perhaps more so for establishments where little or no work was required of the inmates. In Scotland, and to some extent the north of England, "poorhouse" was the usual name for a workhouse. (Poorhouses established under the 1845 Scottish Poor Law Act never took in the the able-bodied.)


 * In other countries, e.g. the USA, there was a much clearer distinction between the poorhouse (for the destitute, old and sick) and the workhouse (a place where hard labour was required of able-bodied paupers, including petty criminals serving a short sentence there). Peter Higginbotham


 * I've tried to respond to this by adding more on the development of the Elizabethan laws. Able-bodied paupers would be "set on work" but did not receive accommodation unless they were effectively imprisoned in a house of correction.  The first "workhouse" was not established until 1697, through a private Act of Parliament.  -  Paul Spicker


 * "Workhouses" were certainly around before 1697, e.g. see [www.workhouses.org.uk/Abingdon/] - Peter Higginbotham


 * I stand corrected - Peter Higginbotham's evidence on Abingdon is clear. I had believed that the Bristol workhouse was the first; it was not. I have amended the main article to reflect this, but perhaps Peter has more to say? - PS.

Requests
There's a request for a page on the "New Poor Law of 1834" on the requests page. Should that be redirected to this page or should there be a separate page covering the Poor Law Amendment Act in more detail? - Cherry blossom tree 13:03, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

20th Centuary Poorhouses
Does anyone have anything to add on the poorhouses that existed into the 1940's? matturn 11:17, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Redirect
A short article on Poor Law Unions was set up without links to this one. I have moved the few additional facts and links (which are good ones) into this, as it makes more sense to describe Unions in the context of the Poor Law overall, and redirect on the term. Ditto (Guardians). 217.206.130.66 17:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Separate Workhouses entry
Might it be an idea to create a separate Workhouses page detailing condition in UK workhouses and in similar systems else where in the world instead of having Workhouses link to this article?
 * I agree, so long as I don't have to do it. Also, please sign posts by using " ~ " Cutler 00:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I would like to second this idea. The Workhouse and they're associated institutions played a major part in the UK welfare system prior to 1945 and this article doesn't do it justice.  S.Skinner 19:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Support I agree that this article does not do justice to the Workhouses or the local Unions. Scope needs to be made to indicate where the Workhouses were in the UK, the parishes they covered and their government. It could also cover the 19th century literature illustrating the different uses, fears etc. such as Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew. DonBarton 14:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * There definitely should be a separate workhouse page. There is a really good website on this subject--Moonlight Mile 00:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Strong support It is definitely a good Idea to have a separat page. If anyone is good at german, de-wikipedia has a page on 'Arbeitshäusen' a lot of which is about english workhouses! I could help with translation. Englishnerd 17:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I have created a separate entry but it needs expanding (a lot!).--Moonlight Mile 00:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

"Outdoor relief"
The article should probably explain the term "outdoor relief" or link the term to an article that explains it. --Jim Henry &#124; &#91;&#91;User talk:Jim Henry&#124;Talk]] 20:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've linked outdoor relief, which is a redirect to social security. I'm not sure how well that article covers the grounds, to be honest. See that talk page for relevant thoughts. --Cherry blossom tree 21:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added a section explaining the difference between outdoor and indoor relief - please edit if you want joseph_2166 22:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Good stuff all round there. The article Outdoor relief still redirects to social security (indoor relief doesn't exist.) Maybe both of them should be redirected to Differences between indoor and outdoor relief (or something with a less clumsy title) which would contain that section? I imagine it is relevant in other contexts too, so having it in its own article seems a good idea. Thoughts?--Cherry blossom tree 23:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Amendment of 20th December: Someone had questioned the statements that the Poor Law had responsibility for public health, and that it was a foundation for local government. Both are correct. Where there were existing local authorities, such as the boroughs, they were able to take responsibility for issues like sewers and public nuisances. In much of the country there were no such authorities and the responsibilities were given formally to the Guardians. The formation of Local Government Board, and subsequently of the system of local councils, led to the gradual transfer of the main responsibilities from the Guardians to local government.

The iron law of wages is falsely attributed to David Ricardo - it is, in fact, the product of a radical critique of capitalism. This should be fixed - it can be squared with the wiki article on Ricardo

Scotland and Ireland
I have inserted information on the Poor Laws in Ireland. Can someone do the same for Scotland? This article should be about the entire UK, not just England and Wales.


 * I know very little about either the Scottish Poor Laws or the Irish Poor Laws but they are sufficently different to the system in England and Wales to warrent their own articles. Francium12 (talk) 16:32, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Poor Law Act of 2005?
Within the section "The Act of 1601" reads the following:

"The Poor Law Act 2005 formalised earlier practices."

I'm no historian, but surely this cannot be correct. Could someone with a more intimate knowledge of the Poor Law correct the date in this statement?

This article is messy
How about splitting it between the 1601 Law and the 1830s Amendment Act?

The removal of the 1601 and 1834 Acts has damaged this article beyond repair. The 1834 article requires the background from 1780 on to make sense, the introduction to this section beoongs with the 1601 Act, and the material on the end of the Poor Law belongs after the 1834 section. This must be reverted. But the damage done to the article by inappropriate editing is now so extensive that it would require acres of work. Is there a short way of doing it?


 * Quite right, this article is very messy. Although the two Poor Laws do need some historical background to make sense, we don't keep messy articles merged to to so. One could argue the Cold War ghas its background in WW2, but they aren't on the same page. The 1601 and 1834 Poor Laws should be on different pages, and the main 'Poor Law' replaced with a summary of the two.

I suggest we have the following pages:
 * 1) Poor Law - A summary and disambiguation.
 * 2) Poor Law - 1601-1834 - Covers the introduction of the Poor Law and its history to 1834
 * 3) Poor Law - 1834-1948

I think that would be cleaner and less messy. Paj.meister 08:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Poor relief before 1601
I'm pretty sure that the brief summary in this section is wrong but I don't know enough about the subject to rewrite it. Perhaps someone else can?

You are correct. That is because the article has been hopelessly corrupted and someone has stuffed the relevant information into the article on 1601.


 * Is it even viable to rescue this article through a reversion? Yue.san 18:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Any article which tries to cover some 500 years of history is going to be messy. Split! 172.141.230.234 18:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:Poor Law
I have created the category Poor Law to group together a few articles in one place. 172.143.110.31 23:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Within 'History' and under 'Medieval Poor Laws', there is the statement that; 'Wages rose for labourers, and this forced up inflation across the economy, as goods became more expensive to produce.' Yet the value of money can not be moving in two directions (both up and down) at the same time, except in two separate economies . In this case the inflation is likely to have been caused, not by the associated rise in wages, but by the inability to commercially fill the local operational demand for labour, the subsequent disruption to production this caused, and scarcity of produce. A successful operation would then be at a premium increasing its' capital, and only increasing wages in order to maintain their business in an already inflating market, hopefully to exploit the political situation. Hence, requiring the passing of the 'Statute of Labourers' in 1351 as a remedy.Benhr14 (talk) 15:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)Benhr14 (talk) 17:57, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Who is Alcock?
"Alcock complained, in 1752, that 'these marks of distinction have had but little effect, and for that Reasons, I suppose, have been almost everywhere neglected.'"

I think this needs to be cited, so I have added a tag to the Act of 1601 section. A link to the appropriate (author's) article, or at least some clarification of the quote's origin would be helpful. --Yue.san 18:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Poor relief before 1601
"Before the English Reformation it was considered a Christian duty to care for the sick and needy"

This is really a very anti-Protestant statement - and it's followed by another: "the break with Rome some of this attitude was lost"

It gives a reference which leads to a page by "Marjie Bloy" of the National University of Singapore. The reference must be to this statement: "After the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England, many of the old values and moral expectations disappeared so it became necessary to regulate the relief of poverty by law" (http://www.victorianweb.org/history/poorlaw/elizpl.html). Incidentally, Christians in Singapore are almost exclusively Catholic.

So, OK, there's a reference. But Marjie gives no reference herself for this statement, which is being used in this paragraph to give a very negative impression of Protestantism.

It could easily be seen that with the advent of Protestantism in England, Poor Laws were enacted out of a new found sense of social duty.

This view that Marjie gives, and is used here, is far from the conventional one, and I'm removing it.

If anyone feels differently, please add a good reliable reference.

The full sentence being removed: "Before the English Reformation it was considered a Christian duty to care for the sick and needy. With the break with Rome some of this attitude was lost which meant that there needed to be increasing legislation in order that 'deserving poor' should be cared for." Deipnosopher 22:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think I might have quoted these few lines (coinicidently i'm C of E). How about saying that the Protestent suppression of the monastries which were Catholic and dispensed poor relief meant that greater intervention from the state was needed once they were gone? that ok?(http://www.thepotteries.org/dates/poor.htm) 172.159.247.114 00:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The argument that traditional forms of charity went with the break with Rome is the conventional as argued here   Francium12 (talk) 16:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Good article nominee
I have nominated this article for good article status. It has been improved significantly from a year or so ago when it appeared to be trying to cover 500+ years of history in a single page. The splitting was a little messy but we got there in the end Francium12 (talk) 16:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Good Article pass
The GA reviewer has stated his willingness to pass the article on my talk page (User talk:Francium12). Thank you to everyone who helped get this to GA status. Francium12 21:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Clarity
The page doesn't actually say, I think, until some way down, what poor laws actually did. Can the writers please make this clearer in the introduction? In a number of places I think it's the same - when going through the historical acts, there's a tendency to not be specific about what the Acts actually provided for poor people, what they actually established, funding, etc, etc. Otherwise not a bad article at all!  Wik idea  16:53, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * "The Act aimed to reduce the burden on rate payers and can be seen as an attempt by the Whig government to win the votes of the classes enfranchised by the Second Reform Act." Does this sentence actually mean to refer to the Great Reform Act?  Wik idea  17:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Reformation
I see no mention of the monasteries here. Was the lack of charitable support for the poor from religious orders not a reason why the need for the poor law was perceived when it was? Deipnosophista (talk) 15:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Mentioned in the Tudor Poor Law section Ulcerspar12 (talk) 12:57, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

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Proposed merge with Poor Law policy after the New Poor Law
Content overlaps Rathfelder (talk) 07:43, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Decline and abolition of the poor law system
Less content here than in the main article Rathfelder (talk) 07:44, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

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