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57-463: 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

114-476: A Royal Commission into the operation of the Poor Laws . The Commission's findings, which had probably been predetermined, were that the old system was badly and expensively run. The Commission's recommendations were based on two principles. The first was less eligibility : conditions within workhouses should be made worse than the worst conditions outside of them so that workhouses served as a deterrent, and only

171-424: A 30% wage rise (wages fell from 7.3 to 6.6 loaves). The immediate impact of paying the poor rate fell on the landowners of the parish concerned. They then sought other means of dealing with the poor, such as the workhouse funded through parish unions. Eventually pressure due to structural poverty caused the introduction of the new Poor Law (1834) . The Speenhamland system appears to have reached its height during

228-556: A clause that any outdoor relief should only be given under a scheme submitted to and approved by the Commissioners. The Poor Law Commission was independent of Parliament, but conversely, since none of its members sat in Parliament, it had no easy way of defending itself against criticism in Parliament. It was recognised that individual parishes would not have the means to erect or maintain workhouses suitable for implementing

285-489: A free-market system. Chadwick believed that the poor rate would reach its "correct" level when the workhouse was seen as a deterrent and fewer people claimed relief. A central authority was needed to ensure a uniform poor law regime for all parishes and to ensure that that regime deterred applications for relief; that is, to ensure a free market for labour required greater state intervention in poor relief. Bentham's argument that people chose pleasant options and would not do what

342-432: A legally constituted Board of Guardians. Poor Law Unions were to be the necessary administrative unit for the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths introduced in 1837. The Act did give paupers some rights. Lunatics could not be held in a workhouse for more than a fortnight; workhouse inmates could not be forced to attend religious services of a denomination other than theirs (nor could children be instructed in

399-698: A less pessimistic view and describing it as producing benefits such as the division of property, industry, trade and European civilisation. David Ricardo 's " iron law of wages " held that aid given to poor workers under the old Poor Law to supplement their wages had the effect of undermining the wages of other workers, so that the Roundsman System and Speenhamland system led employers to reduce wages, and needed reform to help workers who were not getting such aid and rate-payers whose poor-rates were going to subsidise low-wage employers. Edwin Chadwick ,

456-571: A major contributor to the Commission's report, developed Jeremy Bentham 's theory of utilitarianism , the idea that the success of something could be measured by whether it secured the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This idea of utilitarianism underpinned the Poor Law Amendment Act . Bentham believed that "the greatest good for the greatest number" could only be achieved when wages found their true levels in

513-545: A religious creed objected to by their parent(s)); they were to be allowed to be visited by a minister of their religion. The central body set up to administer the new system was the Poor Law Commission . The Commission worked in Somerset House , hence were called such as The Bashaws of Somerset House It was initially made up of Thomas Frankland Lewis , former Tory MP, George Nicholls , Overseer of

570-736: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 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 denying the right of the poor to subsistence. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the Poor Relief Act 1601 and attempted to fundamentally change

627-546: The Andover Union Workhouse were found to be inhumane and dangerous, prompted investigation by a Commons select committee, whose report commented scathingly on the dysfunctionality of the Poor Law Commission. In 1847, Government legislation replaced the Poor Law Commission with a Poor Law Board under much closer government supervision and parliamentary scrutiny. According to a 2019 study,

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684-527: The Napoleonic Wars , when it was a means of allaying dangerous discontent among growing numbers of rural poor faced by soaring food prices , and to have died out in the post-war period, except in a few parishes. The system was popular in the south of England. William Pitt the Younger attempted to get the idea passed into legislation but failed. The system was not adopted nationally but was popular in

741-795: The Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order . The implementation of the Act proved impossible, particularly in the industrial north which suffered from cyclical unemployment. The cost of implementing the Settlement Laws in operation since the 17th century was also high and so these were not implemented fully: it often proved too costly to enforce the removal of paupers. The Commission could issue directives, but these were often not implemented fully and in some cases ignored in order to save on expenses. Darwin Leadbitter 1782–1840

798-468: The gold standard , a policy Ricardo himself had recommended. While some scholars believe that social unrest resulted from the system, others believe it was due to the adoption of the gold standard and industrialization, which equally affected all the populace in areas with or without Speenhamland. This system of poor relief, and others like it, lasted until the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 , which prohibited boards of guardians supplementing

855-582: 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

912-453: The " iron law of wages " and Jeremy Bentham 's doctrine that people did what was pleasant and would tend to claim relief rather than working. The Act was intended to curb the cost of poor relief and address abuses of the old system, prevalent in southern agricultural counties, by enabling a new system to be brought in. Under this system, relief would only be given in workhouses , and conditions in workhouses would be such as to deter any but

969-408: The 1834 welfare reform had no impact on rural wages, labour mobility or the fertility rate of the poor. The study concludes, "this deliberately induced suffering gained little for the land and property owners who funded poor relief. Nor did it raise wages for the poor, or free up migration to better opportunities in the cities. One of the first great triumphs of the new discipline of Political Economy ,

1026-475: The Commission's doings. Local poor-rates payers still elected their local Board of Poor Law Guardians and still paid for local poor law provisions, but those provisions could be specified to the Board of Guardians by the Poor Law Commission; where they were, the views of the local rate-payers were irrelevant. The principles upon which the Commission was to base its regulations were not specified. The workhouse test and

1083-824: The Management of the Poor, for the Government of Workhouses and the Education of the Children therein, ... and for the apprenticing the Children of poor Persons, and for the Guidance and Control of all Guardians, Vestries, and Parish Officers, so far as relates to the Management or Relief of the Poor, and the keeping, examining, auditing, and allowing of Accounts, and making and entering into Contracts in all Matters relating to such Management or Relief, or to any Expenditure for

1140-514: The People Act 1832 which 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 was Thomas Malthus 's principle that population increased faster than resources unless checked,

1197-589: The Poor throughout England and Wales, according to the existing Laws, or such Laws as shall be in force at the Time being, shall be subject to the Direction and Control of the said Commissioners; and for executing the Powers given to them by this Act the said Commissioners shall and are hereby authorized and required, from Time to Time as they shall see Occasion, to make and Issue all such Rules, Orders, and Regulations for

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1254-517: The Purpose of ordering Relief. General Rules could only be made by the Commissioners themselves and had to be notified to a Secretary of State. Any new General Rules had to be laid before Parliament at the start of the next session. General Rules were those issued to the Guardians of more than one Union. Therefore, there was no provision for Parliamentary scrutiny of policy changes (e.g., on

1311-480: The Relief of the Poor, and for carrying this Act into execution in all other respects, as they shall think proper; and the said Commissioners may, at their Discretion, from Time to Time suspend, alter, or rescind such Rules, Orders, and Regulations, or any of them: Provided always, that nothing in this Act contained shall be construed as enabling the said Commissioners or any of them to interfere in any individual Case for

1368-488: The Support of every other of his Family. And so on in proportion as the price of bread rises and falls." The authorities at Speenhamland approved a means-tested sliding-scale of wage supplements in order to mitigate the worst effects of rural poverty. Families were paid extra to top up wages to a set level according to a table. This level varied according to the number of children and the price of bread. For example, if bread

1425-675: The counties which experienced the Swing Riots during the 1830s. In 1834, the Report of the Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832 called the Speenhamland System a "universal system of pauperism". The system allowed employers, including farmers and the nascent industrialists of the town, to pay below subsistence wages, because the parish would make up the difference and keep their workers alive. So

1482-491: The extent to which out-door relief would be permitted) affecting a number of Poor Law Unions, provided these were implemented by separate directives to each Union involved. The Act specified penalties which could be imposed upon persons failing to comply with the directives of the Poor Law Commission (£5 on first offence; £20 for second offence, fine and imprisonment on the third offence). However, it did not identify any means of penalising parishes or Unions which had not formed

1539-467: The idea of "less eligibility" were therefore never mentioned. "Classification of paupers" was neither specified nor prohibited (during passage of the Act, an amendment by William Cobbett forbidding the separation of man and wife had been defeated), and the recommendation of the Royal Commission that "outdoor relief" (relief given outside of a workhouse) should be abolished was reflected only in

1596-490: The law to suit the interests of their own parishes, resulting in an even greater degree of local variation. The poor working-class, including the agricultural labourers and factory workers, also opposed the New Poor Law Act, because the diet in workhouses was inadequate to sustain workers' health and nutrition. The Times even named this act as "the starvation act." Even more, the act forced workers to relocate to

1653-532: The locations of workhouses, which separated families. Charles Dickens ' novel Oliver Twist harshly criticises the Poor Law. In 1835 sample dietary tables were issued by the Poor law Commissioners for use in union workhouses. Dickens details the meagre diet of Oliver’s workhouse and points it up in the famous scene of the boy asking for more. Dickens also comments sarcastically on the notorious measure which consisted in separating married couples on admission to

1710-493: The neediest would consider entering them. The other was the "workhouse test": relief should only be available in the workhouse. Migration of rural poor to the city to find work was a problem for urban ratepayers under this system, since it raised their poor rates. The Commission's report recommended sweeping changes: Malthus ' An Essay on the Principle of Population set out the influential doctrine that population growth

1767-520: The new arrangements. This resistance was eventually overcome, but outdoor relief was never abolished in many Northern districts, although the possibility existed. Policy officially changed after the passing of the Outdoor Labour Test Order , which "allowed" outdoor relief. After 1834, Poor Law policy aimed to transfer unemployed rural workers to urban areas where there was work, and protect urban ratepayers from paying too much. It

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1824-538: The old Poor Law which peaked between 1815 and 1820 was described by both sides as " Malthusian ". Of those serving on the Commission, the economist Nassau William Senior identified his ideas with Malthus while adding more variables, and Bishop John Bird Sumner as a leading Evangelical was more persuasive than Malthus himself in incorporating the Malthusian principle of population into the Divine Plan, taking

1881-489: The old poor law was still damaging by subsidising employers, and heightening dependency of workers' incomes on local aristocrats. Daniel A. Baugh argues that relief costs did not greatly increase. After the Napoleonic Wars the conditions of employment and subsistence in south-east England underwent a fundamental change. The Speenhamland System did not differ much in consequences from the older system; what mattered

1938-543: The old system and John George Shaw Lefevre a lawyer, while Chadwick, an author of the Royal Commission's report was Secretary. The Commission's powers allowed it to specify policies for each Poor Law Union , and policy did not have to be uniform. Implementation of the New Poor Law administrative arrangements was phased in, starting with the Southern counties whose problems the Act had been designed to address. There

1995-614: The parish of Speen , though even in the early 19th century it was contiguous with the suburbs of Newbury. It lies to the north of the River Kennet , between the centre of Newbury and Speen village to the north-west. The Speenhamland system of poor relief was devised at a meeting in the area in 1795. It set poor-relief rates by the bread price and the number of household members, in or out of work. 51°24′25″N 1°19′30″W  /  51.407°N 1.325°W  / 51.407; -1.325 This Berkshire location article

2052-471: The policies of "no outdoor relief" and segregation and confinement of paupers; consequently, the Commission was given powers to order the formation of Poor Law Unions (confederations of parishes) large enough to support a workhouse. The Commission was empowered to overturn any Unions previously established under Gilbert's Act , but only if at least two-thirds of the Union's Guardians supported this. Each Union

2109-415: The poor would work less, which would make food production fall, in its turn creating the space for a revolution;. However, Bregman argues the poverty that existed back then was not caused by a supposed Speenhamland "poverty trap", as "wage earners were permitted to keep at least part of their allowances when their earnings increased", but instead was the result of price hikes resulting from England returning to

2166-715: The rise of the welfare state in the 20th century. In 1948, the PLAA was repealed by the National Assistance Act 1948 ( 11 & 12 Geo. 6 . c. 29), which created the National Assistance Board to act as a residual relief agency. Alarmed at the cost of poor relief in the southern agricultural districts of England (where, in many areas, it had become a semi-permanent top-up of labourers' wages—the Allowance System , Roundsman System , or Speenhamland System ), Parliament had set up

2223-494: The shortage. The Speenhamland 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 from the Poor rates, and for the support of wife and every other of his Family 1s 6d.... When the Gallon loaf shall cost 1s 4d then every Poor and Industrious Man shall have 4s Weekly for his own, and 1s and 10d for

2280-465: The truly destitute from applying for relief. The Act was passed by large majorities in Parliament, with only a few Radicals (such as William Cobbett ) voting against. The act was implemented, but the full rigours of the intended system were never applied in Northern industrial areas; however, the apprehension contributed to the social unrest of the period. The importance of the Poor Law declined with

2337-531: The wages of full-time workers. This was not always implemented locally as guardians did not want to separate families in workhouses, and it was often cheaper to supplement wages than operate larger workhouses. Evidence in the last 30 years shows that the bread scale devised during the Speenhamland meeting in 1795 was by no means universal, and that even the system of outdoor relief which found one of its earliest, though not its first, expressions in Speenhamland

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2394-553: The workers' low income was unchanged and the poor rate contributors subsidised the farmers. Thomas Malthus believed a system of supporting the poor would lead to increased population growth rates because the Poor Laws encouraged early marriage and prolific procreation, which would be a problem due to the Malthusian catastrophe (where population growth would exceed food production). More recent scholarly analysis of census data by E. A. Wrigley , and Richard Smith shows that Malthus

2451-461: The workhouse: "instead of compelling a man to support his family [they] took his family from him, and made him a bachelor! " Like the other children, Oliver was "denied the benefit of exercise" and compelled to carry out the meaningless task of untwisting and picking old ropes although he had been assured that he would be "educated and taught a useful trade." In the North of England particularly, there

2508-409: Was 1s 2d (14 pence) a loaf, the wages of a family with two children were topped up to 8s 6d (102 pence). The first formula was set at a time of high prices and possible over-charging, minimum wage inflation was deliberately muted compared to price rises. If bread rose to 1s 8d (20 pence) the wages were topped up to 11s 0d (132 pence). In this quoted example in percentage terms, a 43% price rise led to

2565-432: Was a gratifying reduction in poor-rates, but also horror tales of paupers ill-treated or relief refused. Some paupers were induced to migrate from the Southern to Northern towns, leading to a suspicion in the North that the New Poor Law was intended to drive wages down. By 1837, when roll-out of the new arrangements reached the textile districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire , trade was in recession. The usual response to this

2622-480: Was explicitly given powers to specify the number and salaries of Poor Law Board employees and to order their dismissal. It could order the "classification" of workhouse inmates and specify the extent to which (and conditions under which) out-door relief could be given. Clause 15 of the Act gave the Commission sweeping powers: That from and after the passing of this Act the Administration of Relief to

2679-628: Was exponential , and that, unless checked, population increased faster than the ability of a country to feed it. This pressure explained the existence of poverty, which he justified theologically as a force for self-improvement and abstention. He saw any assistance to the poor—such as given by the old poor laws—as self-defeating, temporarily removing the pressure of want from the poor while leaving them free to increase their families, thus leading to greater number of people in want and an apparently greater need for relief. His views were influential and hotly debated without always being understood, and opposition to

2736-407: Was fierce resistance; the local people considered that the existing system there was running smoothly. They argued that the nature of cyclical unemployment meant that any new workhouse built would be empty for most of the year and thus a waste of money. However, the unlikely union between property owners and paupers did not last, and opposition, though fierce, eventually petered out. In some cases, this

2793-471: Was for hours of work to be reduced, with pay reducing correspondingly and out-door relief being given to those who could not make ends meet on short-time earnings. This was clearly incompatible with a policy of "no out-door relief", and, despite assurances from the Poor Law Commission that there was no intention to apply that policy in the textile districts, they were not believed and a number of textile towns resisted (or rioted in response to) efforts to introduce

2850-468: Was further accelerated as the protests very successfully undermined parts of the Amendment Act and became obsolete. Fierce hostility and organised opposition from workers, politicians and religious leaders eventually led to the Amendment Act being amended, removing the very harsh measures of the workhouses to a certain degree. The Andover workhouse scandal of the mid-1840s, in which conditions in

2907-488: Was impossible to achieve both these aims, as the principle of less eligibility made people search for work in towns and cities. Workhouses were built and paupers transferred to these urban areas. However, the Settlement Laws were used to protect ratepayers from paying too much. Workhouse construction and the amalgamation of unions was slow. Outdoor relief did continue after the PLAA was introduced. The board issued further edicts on outdoor relief: The Outdoor Labour Test Order and

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2964-462: Was in charge of the commission's finances. The PLAA was implemented differently and unevenly across England and Wales. One of the criticisms of the Poor Relief Act 1601 had been its varied implementation. The law was also interpreted differently in different parishes, as these areas varied widely in their economic prosperity, and the levels of unemployment experienced within them, leading to an uneven system. Local Boards of Guardians also interpreted

3021-411: Was mistaken. Historian Rutger Bregman argues that food production actually grew steadily by a third between 1790 and 1830, though with a smaller section of the populace able to access it due to mechanization, and the population growth that actually happened was due to growing demand for child labour and not Speenhamland. David Ricardo believed that Speenhamland would create a poverty trap , where

3078-491: Was not completely widespread. Allowances or supplements to wages were used generally as a temporary measure and the way they operated differed between regions. Mark Blaug 's 1960 essay The Myth of the Old Poor Law charged the commissioners of 1834 with largely using the Speenhamland system to vilify the old poor law and create a will for the passage of a new one. However, historians such as Eric Hobsbawm have argued that

3135-408: Was the shape of the poverty problem. Speenhamland, Berkshire Speenhamland is an area within modern Newbury, Berkshire . Its name is probably derived from Old English Spen-haema-land , "land of the inhabitants of Speen", with "Speen" perhaps being formed on a Brittonic root deriving from Latin spinis , "thorns". Speenhamland was a tithing , or administrative subdivision, of

3192-516: Was to have a Board of Guardians elected by rate-payers and property owners; those with higher rateable-value property were to have multiple votes, as for the Select Vestries set up under Sturges-Bourne's Acts . The Commission had no powers to insist that Unions built new workhouses (except where a majority of Guardians or rate-payers had given written consent), but they could order improvements to be made to existing ones. The Commission

3249-470: Was unpleasant provided a rationale for making relief unpleasant so that people would not claim it, "stigmatising" relief so that it became "an object of wholesome horror". When the Act was introduced, it did not legislate for a detailed Poor Law regime. Instead, it set up a three-man Poor Law Commission , an "at arms' length" quango to which Parliament delegated the power to make appropriate regulations, without making any provision for effective oversight of

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