There were three essential concerns. The first one is that localism encourages people to be generous in terms of poor relief. And the third problem is that you've then got a large group of the able bodied poor, who they assume can find work. Even in industrial areas, for instance, if you're a handling weaver, by the 18 twenties, there is no work. What work there is is paid below subsistence level. So it's not just rural areas - lots and lots of people have no work. Is the disappearance of women's work, which really hits the family economy,. Those the women's jobs, straw plating, ar gleaning, those sorts of jobs are increasingly
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, from 1834, poor people across England and Wales faced new obstacles when they could no longer feed or clothe themselves, or find shelter. Parliament, in line with the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and Thomas Malthus, feared hand-outs had become so attractive, they stopped people working to support themselves, and encouraged families to have more children than they could afford. To correct this, under the New Poor Laws it became harder to get any relief outside a workhouse, where families would be separated, husbands from wives, parents from children, sisters from brothers. Many found this regime inhumane, while others protested it was too lenient, and it lasted until the twentieth century.
The image above was published in 1897 as New Year's Day in the Workhouse.
With
Emma Griffin
Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia
Samantha Shave
Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Lincoln
And
Steven King
Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Leicester
Producer: Simon Tillotson