A Paupers History Of England

A unique tour through British history—from the perspective of the peasants and the poverty-stricken. The past is traditionally told from the viewpoint of kings and queens, politicians and pioneers. But what about the people struggling to survive at the very lowest levels of society? A Pauper’s History of England covers a thousand years of poverty, from Domesday right up to the twentieth century, via the Black Death and the English Civil War. It paints a portrait of what life was like for the peasants, paupers, beggars, and working poor as England developed from a feudal society into a wealthy superpower. Experience the past from a different perspective: Tour the England of the Domesday Book Make a solemn Franciscan vow of poverty Join the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 Converse with Elizabethan beggars and learn their secret language Meet the inmates of Bedlam Hospital and Bridewell Prison Enjoy a gin-soaked Georgian night of debauchery Spend the night in a workhouse Go slumming in Victorian London, and more!

What would English history look like from the gutter? The past is traditionally told from the viewpoint of kings and queens, politicians and pioneers. But what about the people struggling to survive at the very lowest levels of society? Surely the poor are just as much a part of our heritage? A Pauper's History of England covers 1,000 years of poverty from Domesday right up to the twentieth century, via the Black Death and the English Civil War. It uses contemporary sources creatively to give the reader an idea of just what life was like for the peasants, paupers, beggars and the working poor as England developed from a feudal society into a wealthy superpower. Experience the past from a different perspective: ¥ Tour the England of the Domesday Book ¥ Make a solemn Franciscan vow of Poverty ¥ Join the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 ¥ Converse with Elizabethan beggars' and learn their secret language ¥ Meet the inmates of Bedlam Hospital and Bridewell Prison ¥ Enjoy a gin-soaked Georgian night of debauchery ¥ Spend the night in a workhouse ¥ Go slumming in Victorian London

The consequences of extreme poverty were a grim reality for all too many people in Victorian England. The various poor laws implemented in response contained a number of controversial measures, one of the most radical and unpopular being the crusade against outdoor relief, whereby the government sought to halt all welfare payments at home. Via a close case study of Brixworth union in Northamptonshire, Elizabeth T. Hurren looks at what happened to those impoverished men and women who struggled to live independently in a world without welfare outside of the workhouse.

Few measures, if any, could claim to have had a greater impact on British society than the poor law. As a comprehensive system of relieving those in need, the poor law provided relief for a significant proportion of the population but influenced the behaviour of a much larger group that lived at or near the margins of poverty. It touched the lives of countless numbers of individuals not only as paupers but also as ratepayers, guardians, officials and magistrates. This system underwent significant change in the nineteenth century with the shift from the old to the new poor law. The extent to which changes in policy anticipated new legislation is a key question and is here examined in the context of London. Rapid population growth and turnover, the lack of personal knowledge between rich and poor, and the close proximity of numerous autonomous poor law authorities created a distinctly metropolitan context for the provision of relief. This work provides the first detailed study of the poor law in London during the period leading up to and after the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources the book focuses explicitly on the ways in which those involved with the poor law - both as providers and recipients - negotiated the provision of relief. In the context of significant urban change in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, it analyses the poor law as a system of institutions and explores the material and political processes that shaped relief policies.

In 1797 Jeremy Bentham prepared a map of poverty in Britain, which he called "Pauperland." More than two hundred years later, poverty and social deprivation remain widespread in Britain. Yet despite the investigations into poverty by Mayhew, Booth, and in the 20th century, Townsend, it remains largely unknown to, or often hidden from, those who are not poor. Pauperland is Jeremy Seabrook's account of the mutations of poverty over time, historical attitudes to the poor, and the lives of the impoverished themselves, from early Poor Laws till today. He explains how in the medieval world, wealth was regarded as the greatest moral danger to society, yet by the industrial era, poverty was the most significant threat to social order. How did this change come about, and how did the poor, rather than the rich, find themselves blamed for much of what is wrong with Britain, including such familiar-and ancient-scourges as crime, family breakdown and addictions? How did it become the fate of the poor to be condemned to perpetual punishment and public opprobrium, the useful scapegoat of politicians and the media? Pauperland charts how such attitudes were shaped by ill-conceived and ill-executed private and state intervention, and how these are likely to frame ongoing discussions of and responses to poverty in Britain.

The immensely rich archives from the administration of the English poor law before 1834 include letters to the overseers of the poor that came from the poor themselves. As personal testimonies of people claiming relief, which are often written in a stunningly 'private' tone, pauper letters allow deep insights into the living conditions, experiences and attitudes of the labouring poor in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This edition contains some 750 of these letters, all those presently known to survive in the county of Essex. The Introduction demonstrates the immense importance of this neglected source, both for the social historian and for the comparative study of literacy.

Few measures, if any, could claim to have had a greater impact on British society than the poor law. As a comprehensive system of relieving those in need, the poor law provided relief for a significant proportion of the population but influenced the behaviour of a much larger group that lived at or near the margins of poverty. It touched the lives of countless numbers of individuals not only as paupers but also as ratepayers, guardians, officials and magistrates. This system underwent significant change in the nineteenth century with the shift from the old to the new poor law. The extent to which changes in policy anticipated new legislation is a key question and is here examined in the context of London. Rapid population growth and turnover, the lack of personal knowledge between rich and poor, and the close proximity of numerous autonomous poor law authorities created a distinctly metropolitan context for the provision of relief. This work provides the first detailed study of the poor law in London during the period leading up to and after the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources the book focuses explicitly on the ways in which those involved with the poor law - both as providers and recipients - negotiated the provision of relief. In the context of significant urban change in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, it analyses the poor law as a system of institutions and explores the material and political processes that shaped relief policies.