Poverty and the Poor Law

Nineteenth-century Britain offers the social and economic historian extreme examples of industrial expansion and wealth alongside wretched working conditions in the fast growing manufacturing towns, unsanitary living conditions and the expectation that the lot of many would be pauperism and ill health from childhood to old age. At a time of European revolutions, the imperative for action was more than a question of the liberal conscience. In this collection, contemporary, real-life description is given in the context of competing views of philanthropists, manufacturers, politicians and social activists of the time. The workings of the Poor Law, the vigorous debate about the reliance on charitable, voluntary action as opposed to state provision, and ideas for reform including pensions, self-help societies, education, and public health measures foreshadow the reforms of the following century and tentative steps toward a welfare state.