Modelled after the London Corporation of the Poor of the Interregnum, a welfare experiment begun in 1647, the later Corporations of the Poor in Exeter, Bristol, and Norwich among others were projects between 1698 and 1712 that worked to centralize the systems of poor relief under the direction of parliament. The corporations were entrusted with the responsibility of creating and managing workhouses for the poor as well as hospitals. They involved many men forming committees to make decisions about how to allocate the money from taxes, building centralized workhouses designed to house many people and put them to work. These workhouses kept meticulous records and employed paid officials to administer the workhouses in an effort to curb discretionary charity.

The previous system of welfare in place before the corporations was the parish and the churchwardens. These parishes collected taxes from locals and redistributed them to the poor at the discretion of the churchwardens by means of face-to-face charity, unlike the corporations which distanced the people in power from the ones receiving aid. The taxes collected by the parishes had been rising and one effort of parliament was to set a ceiling on the parish tax rates. Members of parliament created the corporations as an experiment to make poor people productive members of society, minimizing the costs of their welfare. Many of the churchwardens were opposed to this new system of welfare and worked to bring down the corporations.

Carey, John. An account of the proceedings of the corporation of Bristol, in execution of the act of Parliament for the better employing and maintaining the poor of that city. F. Collins in the Old Bailey, 1700.

Slack, Paul. The English Poor Law, 1531-1782. London: MacMillan Education LTD, 1990.

Some considerations offer’d to the citizens of Bristol: relating to the Corporation for the Poor in the said city. Bristol, 1711.

The commission’s principal proposal, which was included almost verbatim in the law, was that “all relief whatever to able-bodied persons or to their families, otherwise than in well-regulated workhouses…shall be declared unlawful.” This reflected the efforts to centralize and streamline management of the poor. As part of the establishment of workhouses, the so-called workhouse test was unofficially implemented: any person willing to accept relief in the workhouse was assumed to lack the willpower to survive outside of the system, as well as to completely lack the means to retain personal autonomy (i.e. children, the elderly and disabled); in many cases this belief simply confirmed pre-existing biases and assumptions about the general lack of industriousness among the poor.

In some respects the New Poor Law resembles the suggestions made by Locke in his An Essay on Poor Law. Under the newly passed legislation, children were treated as dependents of their parents until the age of sixteen, as opposed to Locke’s suggested fourteen. The law also grouped parishes into Poor Law Unions (which resemble Locke’s hundreds and corporations), each run by two commissioners, which oversaw the administration of workhouses. Additionally, the law proscribed residents of the workhouses (they are referred to as inmates in one particular clause) from engaging in normal everyday activities, and they were always under the watchful eyes of the managers.

Sources:

Higginbotham, Peter. “New Poor Law.” Accessed January 9, 2016. http://www.workhouses.org.uk/poorlaws/newpoorlaw.shtml
Higginbotham, Peter. “1834 Poor Law Amendment Act (full text).” Accessed January 9, 2016. http://www.workhouses.org.uk/poorlaws/1834act.shtml
Locke, John, and Mark Goldie. 1997. Locke: Political Essays. Cambridge University Press.

The English civil wars, which spanned from 1642-1649, stemmed from a conflict between King Charles I and Parliament. Since neither Charles I nor Parliament could agree on how to handle their political and religious differences, war was seen as the only viable solution to settle the disagreement. Thus England was divided into two armed camps: the Royalists and the Parliamentarians.

Charles the I, however, was not very popular as a king due to his views on religious conformity, which poorly served the needs of  many.  Social change during this time period included a decline in the influence of the aristocracy alongside the rise of the wealth and influence of the middle class of gentry and merchants. The middle class desired to do away with financial and commercial restrictions and to have a say in religious matters. This meant that parliament found allies in the middle class.

After beheading King Charles, the Commonwealth was created. The Commonwealth was a government administration that claimed legitimacy from the consent of the people, and allowed much more religious diversity. Parliament was able to gain a tremendous amount of political influence during this time period with the expansion of trade, industry, shipping, etc. This republican government lasted until 1653 where it was taken over by Cromwell’s protectorate, another type of government rule that lasted until 1659. The eventual settlement of the dispute between the king and parliament would be further resolved during the Great Revolution in 1688.

Works Cited

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia®. S.v. “English Civil War.” Retrieved February 3 2016 from http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/English+Civil+War.

Kreis, Steven. “The English Civil War.” History Guide. 2002. Accessed February 2, 2016. http://www.historyguide.org/earlymod/lecture7c.html.

Onnekink, David. Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe: (1650 – 1750). Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2011.

The Glorious Revolution was a revolution that happened between 1688 and 1689 in which King James II was overthrown from power William of Orange ascended to the throne of England. The Glorious Revolution is important because it produced the Bill of Rights of 1698, which made the Parliament the permanent ruling power of England and significantly reduced the monarchy’s power to interfere with and affect laws.

James II was disliked by many Parliamentarians and Protestants for being an overt Roman Catholic. James II issued a Declaration of Indulgence, which suspended laws that punished individuals for leaving the Church of England and granted religious freedom to different denominations of Christianity. This led Bishop Crompton along with other politicians to invite William of Orange to come to England and help address James II actions. William came with an army and, after James II fled to France for his safety, called for a Convention Parliament that determined that, by fleeing to France, James II had abdicated to the throne. In January 22, 1689, the Convention Parliament passed the Bill of Rights of 1689, which made William the King, and established Parliament as the permanent ruling power.

The Bill gives Parliament the power to suspend and execute laws, it makes the raising of an army without consent of Parliament illegal, it gives freedom of speech and debate within parliament and outlaws cruel and unusual punishment, and it also states that “[the] election of Parliament members ought to be free.”

Sources:

Eveline Cruickshanks, British History in Perspective: The Glorious Revolution (New York: St. Martin’s Press, INC, 2000).

“Glorious Revolution” Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Last Accessed: January 10, 2016.          http://www.britannica.com/event/Glorious-Revolution.

“English Bill of Rights 1698” The Avalon Project. Last Accessed: January 10, 2016.         http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp.

In 1798, under the Pseudonym of Joshua Johnson, British political economist, Thomas Malthus published the first edition of An Essay on the Principles of Population. Widely read and circulated, Malthus’s essay illustrated a pessimistic outlook on the future due to the repercussions of overpopulation.

In An Essay on the Principles of Population, Malthus highlights that the rate of population growth grows geometrically, while subsistence grows arithmetically. Therefore this inequality in rates would cause the population to outpace food output causing devastating effects such as famines and wars. 

Malthus identified two types of population checks to prevent overpopulation. The first type of check was called the “preventive check”, which advocated that individuals should use self- restraint, such as marrying at a later age or sexual abstinence. The second type of population check was called the “positive check”. Positive checks were checks that occurred naturally due to overpopulation, such as famine, disease and war.  

Written in a period of astounding development and social change, Malthus’s controversial works were extremely influential to British policy-makers. His writings were pivotal in the creation of new enactments that would help shape Britain’s 20th century social policy, such as the creation of the first modern, national UK census, which was conducted in 1801, and the influential passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. 

Sources:

On July 31, 1547, Edward VI issued a royal injunction which decreed that parishes would furnish a chest for the collection of donations to the poor, to be placed near the high altar. This injunction was reflective of the post-Reformation climate in England; while the post-Reformation closing of hospitals and almshouses had left a void in local charity, money from these alms chests proved a more consistent form of aid for the poor, especially given that lay-people were encouraged to donate the money which they would have previously spent on newly banned Catholic practices. Official collections took place on Sundays and holy days, thus integrating almsgiving as a part of the churchgoer’s routine. In 1552, a new statute was passed which emphasized almsgiving further, assigning several parishioners each year to act as Collectors, who were to go about and seek donations from their fellow parishioners. Those who were financially able yet refused to donate were reported to parish officials, who would then continue to pressure the person into donating. In this way, almsgiving became an expected practice, rather than an exceptional outpouring of generosity. These changes would lay the basis for aid practices that would continue in the latter half of the sixteenth century and beyond.

In sharp contrast to the apparent goodwill of almsgiving acts, though, The Vagrancy Act of 1547 imposed a punishment of two years slavery upon vagabonds (a notoriously vague term in the first place). Although this was soon repealed in 1549 for being too harsh, this repeal only marked a regression to the vagrancy statute of 1530-1, which dictated that vagrants were “to be tied naked to a cart” and “whipped out of the town.”

Davies, C. S. L.. 1966. “Slavery and Protector Somerset; the Vagrancy Act of 1547”. The Economic History Review 19 (3). [Economic History Society, Wiley]: 533–49.

Bridewell Prison was the first house of correction in England. Originally built as a royal palace for Henry VIII in 1515, Edward VI gave Bridewell to the City of London in 1553. Bridewell was established to be multipurpose, with a “keeper’s side” serving as a correctional facility and a “steward’s side” for housing orphans. The prison held those who committed minor crimes; usually vice, vagrancy, or prostitution. Rather than a place of incarceration, it was meant to be a place to punish and correct inmates through whippings and hard labor, and most offenders were released within two weeks of their arrival. Bridewell changed greatly during the prison reform era, with the open prison system – prisoners being allowed to interact and possessions allowed in and out – being replaced by a stricter regime.

The orphanage aimed to provide a home for deserving children and offer them a basic education and training in some skill. The program was smaller than the prison, and it was reduced with the decline of apprenticeships in the late 1700s and prison reformers’ concerns about inmates’ corrupting the students.

A Court of Governors and various Committees, who jointly ran Bridewell with Bethlem Hospital, managed the residents and the finances of the institution. A notable aspect of Bridewell’s operations was its particularly comprehensive health system. Because Bridewell served as both an orphanage and a prison, and people wanted to care for the children, both a physician and a surgeon attended to the inmates and orphans.

Over its 300 years of operation, Bridewell became the basis for future orphanages, workhouses, and prisons. Within just three years of its initiation, similar institutions increased immensely all over Europe. The word “bridewell” became synonymous with “large prison”. Bridewell, as the first house of correction, set important precedents for inmate standards and systems of governance of correctional institutions for the rest of the country and world.

Sources:

Fideler, Paul A. Social Welfare in Pre-industrial England: The Old Poor Law Tradition. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 80-82.

Hitchcock, Tim; Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, “Bridewell”, London Lives, 1690-1800. Accessed January 10, 2016. (http://www.londonlives.org/static/Bridewell.jsp#toc6, version, 1.1 17 June 2012).

Hitchcock, Tim; Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, “Houses of Correction”, London Lives, 1690-1800. Accessed January 10, 2016. (http://www.londonlives.org/static/HousesOfCorrection.jsp, version, 1.1 17 June 2012).

Hitchcock, Tim; and Robert Shoemaker. London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800. Cambridge University Press, 2015. Kindle Edition. 306.

Before the passage of the 1598 Act for the Relief of the Poor and the 1601 Poor Relief Act, there existed many iterations of legislation regarding how to address the problem of poverty in England. However, the Acts of 1598 and 1601 marked the completion of the Elizabethan poor laws. These laws established parishes as central administrative authorities, which were charged with setting local tax rates, relieving the impotent, setting the able-bodied people to work, and apprenticing poor children. Each member of the community was required to pay a poor-tax or risk punishment, and all begging and almsgiving became illegal unless sanctioned by the parish. Unpaid officials called Overseers of the Poor saw to the daily operations of the poor law, such as providing the necessary materials to put paupers to work, while supervised loosely by Justices of the Peace. These Justices also oversaw the construction of places of habitation for those who could not care for themselves and houses of correction in order to incarcerate criminals, vagabonds, and those able-bodied people who refused employment. There currently does not exist a definitive explanation for the rise of English poor laws, which distinguished England from countries without similar systems (such as France). However, likely contributing factors include rising population pressure, an evolving conception of what governments should do for the poor, driven by humanism, Protestantism or Puritanism, and the political ambitions of various members of the government who wished to control their subjects.

Sources:

Slack, Paul., and Economic History Society. The English Poor Law, 1531-1782. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1990.

Smart, Hentry. “THE ELIZABETHAN POOR LAWS.” The Practical Teacher 25, no. 11 (1905): 572-574.

In the early nineteenth century, the relationship between skilled workers and factory and machinery owners was very strained. During and after Britain’s wars with Napoleonic France, there were many attacks on machines by a group of skilled workers called the Luddites. They were skilled workers protesting the labor economizing technology because it threatened their position in the factory. In their view, it would lead to the loss of their jobs and the hiring of less skilled workers to operate this new machinery. They posed an internal danger to Britain after the war in 1812, and they would attack machines and machinery owners, and such hosiery centers in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham.

The Swing Riots, occurring in 1830-1832, grew out of the ongoing unrest and struggle between workers and owners over wages and working hours. This unrest lead to riots in the south and east of Britain, in places such as Bedfordshire, Flitwick and Maulden, which resulted in incendiarism, machine breaking, wage riots, assaults and threatening letters.

These two displays of unrest in Britain were significant because they lead to movements of reform in British politics. As a result of the Luddites, the government may have responded with military force and draconian laws, but it was the beginning of demands for reform in Britain. As for the Swing Riots, better bargaining positions were gained for workers, and the Swing riots are viewed as the final straw in removing the old Poor laws and the ushering in of the new Poor laws.

Sources:

Williams, Samantha. Poverty, Gender and Life-Cycle Under the English Poor Law 1760-1834. The Royal Historical Society: The Boydell Press, 2011. 98-100.

Brundage, Anthony. The English Poor Laws, 1700-1930. New York: Palgrave Press, 2002. 44-45.

Beginning in 1536, King Henry VIII dissolved over 800 monasteries, friaries, abbeys, and nunneries. This political move continued his rejection of the Roman Catholic Church in favor of greater autonomy by creating the Anglican Church. The dissolution of the monasteries aimed to further diminish papal influence in England and silence any domestic opposition to the English Reformation, while also collecting wealth from the institutions themselves to line his own pockets. Numerous monastery libraries were destroyed, and many impressive buildings left to ruin. Beyond the political and religious implications, the king’s actions had important social consequences. Prior to their dissolution, monasteries and the other religious institutions were a major provider of welfare to England’s poor, and monasteries alone provided nearly £6,500 a year in charity before 1537. After these religious institutions were disbanded, England lost a significant part of its poverty relief infrastructure, leaving a vacuum in society. This vacuum allowed greater government involvement in social welfare, as well as the development of new forms of poverty relief.

Sources:

British Library. “Dissolution of the Monasteries.” Learning Timelines: Sources from History. Accessed January 11, 2016.

Fideler, Paul A. (2006). Social Welfare in Pre-Industrial England: The Old Poor Law Tradition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Slack, Paul. (1990). The English Poor Law, 1531-1782. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education.

Slack, Paul. (1988). Poverty and policy in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Longman.