POOR LAW 3.4

Question 1

The Royal Commission of Enquiry

Answer 1

-Chadwick involved
-Sent surveys, 2/3 sent to parishes in rural areas, 1/3 sent to parishes in towns
-not compulsory, 10% of parishes replied
-assistant commissioners visited 3,000 parishes

Question 2

What did the Royal Commission’s report recommend

Answer 2

-parishes should group into unions
-all relief outside workhouses should stop, less eligibility
-a new central authority established, with powers to enforce regulations in workhouse

Question 3

Aims of Poor law policy

Answer 3

-reduce the cost of providing relief for poor
-ensure that only the genuine destitute receive relief
-provide a national system of poor relief

Question 4

Poor Law amendment act 1834

Answer 4

• a central authority should be set up to supervise the poor law
  -parishes were to be grouped into unions
  -each poor law union was to establish a workhouse with less eligibility
  -outdoor relief discouraged but not abolished

Question 5

Who was involved in the Poor Law Commission?

Answer 5

-Thomas Frankland Lewis
-George Nicholls
-John Shaw Lefevre
-Edwin Chadwick

Question 6

Poor Law commissions work

Answer 6

-1834-1847
-Transfer of out of work paupers in rural areas to urban areas where there was more employment
-The protection of Urban ratepayers

Question 7

Poor Law commissions priorities

Answer 7

-Tried to forbid outdoor relief for able bodied
-The settlement laws

Question 8

Workhouse architecture

Answer 8

-Sampson Kempthorne
-The Y shaped workhouse
-The cruciform shaped workhouse
-made to divide and segregate paupers

Question 9

Workhouse rules routine and regulation

Answer 9

-Husbands separated from wives and children
-Children sent to workhouse school
-uniform worn
-all paupers had a weekly bath
-no personal possessions allowed

Question 10

paupers work and diet

Answer 10

-All paupers expected to work
-diets were often poor

Question 11

Rumours and Propaganda

Answer 11

-extermination centres where paupers were held
-children paupers being gassed
-All children above the first 3 would be killed

Question 12

Genuine Fears

Answer 12

-London based, many attacked the centralisation
-Rural ratepayers worried that workhouses would lead to higher poor rates

Question 13

Protest in Rural South

Answer 13

-Buckinghamshire, people protested when paupers were being transported to a new union workhouse
-In East Anglia, newly built workhouses were attacked and officers assaulted

Question 14

Opposition in the North

Answer 14

-Armed riots in Oldham, rochdale and Todmorden
-1838, the assistant commissioner Alfred power was threatened by the Mob
-London troops sent to quell the 1838 riots in Dewsbury

Question 15

Richard Oastler

Answer 15

-thought the commissioners were too powerful
-Using workers to involve themselves in strikes
-used violent protest methods

Question 16

John Fielden

Answer 16

-owned a factory in Todmorden
-when the poor law commissioners tried to implement the new poor law, he threatened to close the mills down, throwing 3000 people out of work
-his workers attacked the homes of local guardians
-situation so bad the new poor law wasn’t implemented until 1877

Question 17

ways in which the workhouse system upheld less eligibility

Answer 17

-Workhouses looked like prisons
-Workhouse test
-Wear a uniform