1 The Elizabethan Poor Laws

THE HISTORY OF BEING POOR
Being poor in the UK from the 19th to the 21st century
Course questions
• what is poverty? How has its definition evolved?
• What are the different attitudes towards poverty? How have they evolved?
• Haw has the State reacted to poevrt?
• How has poverty been represented?
• Always underlining what changed and what remained constant
• I, Daniel Late? Film
Course outline
I-The Elizabeth poor laws
II-18th century economic transformations and their effects on poverty
III-The 19th century and the New Poor Laws
IV-The growing role of the state (201)
V-The creation of the Welfare State
Why study proverty?

• Spans a long period
• whose history are we studying? Whose stories deserve to be told? Which eople deserve to be
studied?
• Attitudes towards the economic and social phenomenon reveal things about society:
◦ structure
◦ religious attitudes
◦ economic structures
◦ moral beliefs
▪ in certain branches of chritistianity, work is seen as a value → if you're rich than you
deserved it
◦ political beliefs
▪ shouldn't people organise themselves instead of waiting for the state to do it for them
◦ description of everyday life
▪ tea was enjoyed by everyone in society, poor and rich, women and men
I-THE ELIZABETHERIAN POOR LAWS
– geographical, administrative, econmic background –
Poverty was not seen as a problem until the mid 16th century. It became a public problem
because they realised that poverty is linked to public health, as epidemics spread easily – not only
on poor areas – and line order (there were hunger riots and rebellions, so poverty became associated
with unrest and crime). On top of that, in an era of land owning, although people did not belong to
you anymore, they were still a source of money, and their movements needed to be controlled. They
needed to control vagrancy.
Tudor legislation
• 1531 act against vagabons and beggars (punishment)
◦ police was not developped
◦ their job was to exercise force, so they were armed
• 1547 act for the punishment of vagabons and for the relief of the poor and impotent
◦ individual/ personnal charity
◦ local help
◦ church
▪ although the king took all of that and redistributed it to his followers, ofc
▪ disappeared bc of the dissolution of the monarchy
• 1559 Elizabeth became Queen
• 1563 act for the relief of the poor
◦ tax for ppl to pay and help the poor
• 1594 bad harness
◦ → ppl who could not feed themselves increased
• 1601 act for the relief of the poort (Old Poor Law)
Administrative division of the kingdom
A parish is a small territory that belongs to a church, which could be whole fucking villages;
it was the administrative division of the country. Whereas a manor is an economic division of the
country, based on land owning, that did not necessarily correspond to the parish. The two
overlapped, but there needed to be an agreement between them so they would be able to best find
ressources to help the poor. With the Elizabethan laws, the poor were the responsibility of their
church. As they were to decide that was best to fight poverty, they still needed money, thus, manors.
To gain money, churches started with an obligatory rate, a tax, but was so unpopular that
they had to find other ways. They tried to give them raw materials to work with and for them to sell
to get out of poverty. Another way was to use the commons. The commons were areas of land on
the manor that were not cultivated, that were left as wastelands or specifically for common usage
(to feed your cows → consume milk or meat). They also constructed hovels on the margins of those
commons (outdoor relief), then later on built workhouses. But the lands were mosly used for turfing
(turf is fuel) and cooking meat.
It was considered to be enough relief during the 16th and 17th century, without using taxation.
But in the late 17th century, ppl considered it too little.
Which poor ppl
Poor people were put in two categories: the deserving poor, which included disabled people,
widows, sick people, children (who were too young to work) and elderly people, and the
undeserving poor, which included able-bodied people, those who didn't want to work (they couldn't
really). Women who were at home were considered to be working.
66% died before 5, but after that, you were good
average marriage age= mid to late 20s, to have sex, needed to control their reproduction, they wanted to be able to raise their kid
A stable system
While the work of the church was considered to be fairly sufficient during the 16th and 17th
century, even for the deserving poor, they still did not have enough ressources to fight poverty when
it was due to bad harvests. But as it was a parochial system, the richer the regions were, the more
efficient the help was.
• england solved very little of the famine?

• end of poor law 1834 PPT

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THE HISTORY OF BEING POOR

Being poor in the UK from the 19th to the 21st century

Why study proverty?

Administrative division of the kingdom

Which poor ppl

• england solved very little of the famine?

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