English Poor Law Policy

by Sidney Webb; Beatrice Webb

[282] Instructional Letter of 5th February 1842, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, p. 107.

[283] MS. letter, Sir Francis Head to S. L., 6th November 1835. It is perhaps a question whether Sir Francis Head really meant what he said; or whether he was not speaking merely of outdoor relief to the able-bodied.

[284] See the preamble to Sec. 52 of the Poor Law Amendment Act. [This footnote, like the italics, is in the original.]

[285] Letters addressed by the Poor Law Commissioners to the Secretary of State respecting the Transaction of the Business of the Commission, 1847, House of Commons, No. 148 of 1847, pp. 30-1.

It is therefore more correct to treat, as Mr. Mackay does, the policy of abolishing outdoor relief to all classes as a further development of the "principles of 1834," rather than as part of them. "The administrative success of the Act of 1834," he writes, "consists in the fact that the offer of the workhouse served quite as well as an absolute refusal of relief. It obliged the able-bodied to assume responsibility for the able-bodied period of life; and, as we shall presently see, it is now argued that an application of the same principle to the other responsibilities of life would produce equally advantageous results.... That the able-bodied period of life must be responsible for the period that is not able-bodied is an incontrovertible proposition. But the first step, at that date the only practicable step, in recreating the personal responsibility of the labourer, was to hold him responsible for the able-bodied period of his own life" (History of the English Poor Law, by T. Mackay, 1899, vol. iii., pp. 137 and 154).

[286] It is a noticeable fact that certain classes of paupers are never mentioned in the legislation of this period, presumably because Parliament was satisfied with the result of giving wide powers to the Central Authority, and did not wish to interfere with its discretion. Apparently there is no single clause dealing with the treatment either of the able-bodied or of the aged. Women are almost equally ignored, wives only being referred to, and they merely in connection with questions of chargeability, and in such a way as to indicate their complete dependence on their husbands. Children, on the other hand, are the subject of numerous enactments, and the sick, lunatics and vagrants also obtain recognition.

[287] Lewis to Head, 19th May 1851, in Letters of Sir G. C. Lewis, edited by Sir G. F. Lewis, 1870, p. 245.

[288] Thus, under the Poor Relief Act, 1849, the Commissioners might make rules "for the management and government of any house or establishment wherein any poor person shall be lodged, boarded or maintained, for hire or remuneration, under any contract or agreement entered into by the proprietor, manager or superintendent, ... with any guardians," unless such an institution be a county lunatic asylum, a hospital registered or house licensed for the reception of lunatics, or a "hospital, infirmary, school or other institution, supported by public subscriptions, and maintained for purposes of charity only" (12 & 13 Vic. c. 13, secs. 1, 2). By the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vic. c. 6), they were given power to combine Metropolitan unions and parishes into districts for the provision of sick, insane, infirm or other asylums (see sections on the sick and lunatics) and to direct the erection or adaptation of the necessary buildings; what use the Central Authority made of these powers will be seen presently. Another Metropolitan Poor Act in 1871 extended the application of the former to "any ship, vessel, hut, tent, or other temporary erection which may be used by the managers, with the approval of the Poor Law Board, for the reception of paupers, or otherwise for the purposes of the asylum" (34 Vic. c. 15, sec. 1). The Central Authority was also enabled (by the Paupers Conveyance Expenses Act 1870) to "direct in what cases (other than those expressly provided for by law) and under what regulations, the guardians ... may pay the reasonable expenses incurred ... in conveying any person chargeable ... from one place to another in England" (33 & 34 Vic. c. 48, sec. 1).

[289] The episode of the Lancashire Cotton Famine, and its relief works, in which the boards of guardians were concerned only as nuisance-abatement authorities, will be dealt with under the head of Municipal Work for the Unemployed.

[290] It should perhaps be said that the Central Authority sought to widen the category of able-bodied, so as definitely to include persons over sixty, but in no way disabled (Official Circular, April 1849, No. 24, N.S., p. 63); and also "Children competent to render service" (Poor Law Board to Evesham Union, 3rd April 1869, in Twenty-second Annual Report, 1869-70, p. 5).