OCR Specification focus:
‘Old Poor Law pressures 1815–1834 and Royal Commission 1832; New Poor Law 1834–1847, workhouses, opposition, the Anti-Poor Law League.’
Between 1815 and 1847, Britain’s system of poor relief transformed from traditional parish-based support under the Old Poor Law to a centralised, deterrent-focused New Poor Law.
The Old Poor Law: Pressures 1815–1834
The Old Poor Law, originating from the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601, provided parish-based relief through a Speenhamland system of wage supplementation, outdoor relief, and local discretion.
Social and Economic Strains
After 1815, the end of the Napoleonic Wars triggered economic depression, falling agricultural prices, and high unemployment.
The Corn Law of 1815, restricting grain imports, raised bread prices and worsened hardship for labourers.
Industrialisation disrupted traditional rural employment patterns, swelling demand for relief in both countryside and towns.
Rising Costs
The number of paupers grew significantly, and parish relief bills escalated.
Landowners and ratepayers resented the increasing poor rates, sparking demand for reform.
Speenhamland system: A method introduced in Berkshire in 1795, where wages of the poor were supplemented according to bread prices and family size, ensuring survival but discouraging higher wages.
The reliance on outdoor relief was criticised for encouraging dependency, reducing the incentive to work, and burdening taxpayers.
The 1832 Royal Commission
Mounting pressure led to the establishment of the Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws in 1832.
Findings
The Commission’s report condemned the Old Poor Law as inefficient, costly, and corrupt.
It argued that relief encouraged idleness, early marriages, and larger families, perpetuating poverty.
The Commissioners recommended a system based on deterrence — making relief less attractive than labour.
Recommendations
Centralised control to standardise practice.
Abolition of outdoor relief for the able-bodied poor.
Establishment of workhouses where conditions were deliberately harsh, embodying the principle of less eligibility — meaning life inside should be less desirable than life outside for the poorest labourer.
Principle of less eligibility: The doctrine that conditions in relief institutions should be worse than those available to the lowest-paid independent labourer, discouraging reliance on poor relief.
The New Poor Law 1834–1847
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was based on these recommendations and sought to create a uniform, deterrent-based system.
Features
Creation of the Poor Law Commission to oversee national administration.
Establishment of Poor Law Unions, each responsible for building and maintaining a workhouse.
Plan of Chorlton-upon-Medlock Union Workhouse showing separate blocks and yards for men, women and children with a central administrative core, embodying segregation and surveillance. Such layouts made relief deliberately unattractive compared with independent labour (less eligibility). This is an Ordnance Survey-derived plan, representative of mid-19th-century Union workhouses. Source
Abolition of outdoor relief for the able-bodied poor (though in practice, many parishes continued it).
Reliance on the workhouse test: only those desperate enough would enter, thereby limiting costs.
Workhouses
Designed with deliberately harsh conditions:
Families were separated.
Strict discipline was enforced.
Food and clothing were basic and monotonous.
Intended as a deterrent to all but the most destitute.
The policy reflected utilitarian thinking (Jeremy Bentham and Edwin Chadwick), seeking efficiency and deterrence rather than charity.
The Workhouse at Southwell (1824), often cited as a prototype for nineteenth-century workhouses, with a central range and austere elevations that reinforced deterrence. Its plan and regime influenced later Union buildings established after 1834. (This example slightly predates 1834 but is pedagogically useful to show continuity of design.) Source
Opposition to the New Poor Law
The New Poor Law faced widespread hostility, especially in industrial areas.
Social Opposition
The working classes viewed the workhouse as a “Bastille for the poor,” resenting family separation and dehumanising conditions.
In the industrial North, where unemployment was cyclical, critics argued the law punished the unemployed rather than assisting them.
Riots and protests broke out in towns such as Oldham and Huddersfield in the late 1830s.
Political and Organised Resistance
The Anti-Poor Law League, founded in 1837 by Richard Oastler and others, campaigned vigorously against the Act.
The League criticised:
The inhumanity of workhouses.
The erosion of traditional parish responsibility.
The economic impracticality of applying the agricultural-centred system to industrial regions.
Continuing Debate
Critics linked the law to class oppression, arguing it was designed to protect ratepayers rather than help the poor.
The Chartists, emerging in the late 1830s, often incorporated opposition to the New Poor Law into their demands for political reform.
Adaptation and Persistence 1834–1847
Although opposition was strong, the New Poor Law framework persisted.
In the South and East, workhouses became the standard method of relief.
In the North, opposition led to compromises, with outdoor relief continuing in practice, especially during economic downturns.
By the 1840s, the system was entrenched, though still deeply controversial.
Legislative Adjustments
The Andover Workhouse Scandal (1845–1846), where starving inmates were found gnawing on bones meant for fertiliser, exposed abuses and shocked public opinion.
The scandal discredited the Poor Law Commission, leading to its replacement by the Poor Law Board in 1847, bringing parliamentary accountability.
Long-Term Impacts
The New Poor Law institutionalised workhouses as the central instrument of welfare until the early 20th century.
It marked a shift from community-based charity to centralised, deterrent-based state welfare.
FAQ
The Andover scandal (1845–1846) involved starving inmates gnawing on bones meant for fertiliser.
Public outrage followed, with newspapers portraying the system as cruel and mismanaged.
It discredited the Poor Law Commissioners, leading to the 1847 creation of the Poor Law Board under direct parliamentary supervision.
Outdoor relief was cheaper and easier for parishes than maintaining workhouses.
In industrial areas, mass unemployment made exclusive reliance on workhouses impractical.
Local pressure from communities and landowners meant officials often bent the rules, allowing outdoor relief to continue well into the 1840s.
Richard Oastler was a key spokesman against the New Poor Law.
He labelled workhouses as “Bastilles for the poor.”
He mobilised working-class anger through speeches, pamphlets, and campaigning.
His leadership helped inspire large-scale protests in northern towns.
Oastler linked opposition to wider struggles over class and industrial labour conditions.
The Commission sent questionnaires to parishes and interviewed local officials, clergy, and landowners.
Much evidence was biased, with respondents often hostile to the existing system.
Its heavily critical report, drawing on selective data, shaped the 1834 Act, presenting reform as urgent and unavoidable.
In rural areas:
Workhouses were more viable as populations were smaller.
Agricultural labourers were targeted for deterrence.
In urban/industrial areas:
Sheer numbers of unemployed made workhouses impractical.
Outdoor relief continued despite the law.
Opposition was stronger, fuelled by factory workers and organised movements.
Practice Questions
Question 1 (2 marks)
What was the principle of less eligibility, and how did it shape the operation of workhouses under the New Poor Law?
Mark scheme:
1 mark for identifying the principle of less eligibility (workhouse conditions must be worse than the lowest-paid labourer’s standard of living).
1 mark for linking it to how workhouses were run (e.g. deliberately harsh conditions, deterrent to relying on poor relief).
Question 2 (6 marks)
Explain two reasons why the New Poor Law of 1834 faced opposition in industrial areas of northern England.
Mark scheme:
Up to 3 marks for each explained reason (maximum 6 marks).
Possible points:
Unsuitability for industrial unemployment cycles (law assumed poverty was individual failing, but in the North unemployment was often structural/economic; workhouses punished the jobless unfairly).
Family separation and inhumane conditions (workhouses broke up families, offered harsh regimes; labelled “Bastilles for the poor”).
Anti-Poor Law agitation (Oastler, Anti-Poor Law League, riots in towns such as Oldham and Huddersfield).
1 mark for simple identification of each reason.
2–3 marks for each reason if fully explained, showing how/why it caused opposition.
