Poor Law Research Articles

‘Biteing Another Pauper with WHOM She Slept’: Lunatics, Idiots and Imbeciles Under the New Poor Law, C.1836–1852

This article examines the experiences of care and relief for paupers deemed lunatics, idiots and imbeciles during the initial decades of the New Poor Law. Analysis focusses on two Lincolnshire Poor Law Unions (the Sleaford and Lincoln) and is structured around three loci of care: the parish, the asylum and the workhouse. Although the parish continued to be the primary locus of care throughout the early New Poor Law period, this article notes a growing willingness to admit paupers into asylums as the 1830 s and 1840 s progressed. Indeed, the geography of asylum provision within the unions of study became increasingly non-local through the use of institutions outside of Lincolnshire during the 1840 s. Similarly, the institutional experience of the union workhouse is stressed, particularly for paupers deemed idiots and imbeciles who were often inmates for decades. Such mirrored local practice pre-1834, with the unions of study continuing to utilise a developed Old Poor Law workhouse infrastructure to provide in-door relief in the transitional period between unionisation in 1836 and the opening of union workhouses in 1838. However, institutional care generally sat against previous experiences of support within the parish and was often only sought due to the ability or inclination of families to provide for mentally ill and cognitively disabled relatives. Here, individual life cycles of support could permeate differing loci of care, showing that binary designations of institutional versus non-institutional relief often simplify the complexity of holistic lived experience. An emphasis on life cycles of support has also highlighted a demographic continuity in receipt between the Old and New Poor Laws, with many paupers deemed lunatics, idiots and imbeciles receiving relief before and after 1834. Moreover, evidence suggests that those labelled as pauper lunatics, idiots and imbeciles were far from passive, demonstrating opinions on relief offered and received albeit with the potential for agency often constrained due to their categorisation. As such, this article has tried to place pauper voice at its centre, examining how poor law relief recipients categorised as lunatics, idiots and imbeciles traversed support options during the early New Poor Law period.

Welfare Cuts and Crime: Evidence from the New Poor Law

Abstract The New Poor Law reform of 1834 induced dramatic and heterogeneous reductions in welfare spending across English and Welsh counties. Using the reform in a difference-in-differences instrumental variables strategy, we document a robust negative relationship between the generosity of welfare provision and criminal activity. Results are driven by non-violent property crimes and are stronger during months of seasonal agricultural unemployment, highlighting the particularly criminogenic combination of welfare cuts and precarious work opportunities for the economically vulnerable.

CHARACTER-BUILDING FOR LAW STUDENTS: EXPLORING THE SATJIPTO RAHARDJO’S THOUGHTS

The quality of law enforcement is determined by the character-building in the Faculty of Law. If so far, Indonesia is often faced with various poor quality law enforcement, and this portrait certainly does not occur naturally, but rather because the law faculty has not been able to play its role optimally in building the character of prospective law enforcers. This study explores Satjipto Rahardjo's thoughts on character-building for law enforcers at the faculty of law. The research method used in this article is a literature study with a qualitative descriptive approach using content analysis. The result of this study indicates that according to Satjipto Rahardjo, legal education at the Faculty of Law must be reoriented from the formation of a positivistic character to the formation of a progressive character of law that prioritizes ethical and moral values

The pursuit of permanence: regulating land for socio-economic stability in a colonial Massachusetts town

ABSTRACT This paper first reviews how England’s middle-class Puritans developed various anxieties regarding their socioeconomic security in the emerging capitalist economy of early modern England. It then investigates three local land practices developed by Puritan colonists in New England to better secure their status in the New World, as revealed in a survey of town proceedings from Watertown, Massachusetts, from 1634 through 1773. These were restricting access to landownership, ‘warning out’ poor outsiders beyond town bounds, and managing land use. These practices enabled the middle-class, small-scale property owners who dominated local government in colonial Watertown to preserve the utility of land assets for future generations, manage the tax burden they associated with poor relief, and prevent conflicts arising among users of private and shared property. In doing so they maintained their households’ status in keeping with their notions of material and spiritual well-being. The paper aligns these practices with later local land practices, including restrictive covenants and zoning, that middle-class communities have used to manage the particular pressures they face in the development of capitalist economies.

To the Hospital or the Workhouse? The Provision of Medical Care for the Poor in Eighteenth-Century London

Parishes’ medical obligations under the Old Poor Law were considerable. Paupers unable to afford private medical care often relied on their parish for relief. When cases of sickness or injury were serious enough to warrant institutional care, parishes frequently arranged to get paupers into city hospitals. This study looks at the admissions registers of St. Thomas’s Hospital in the 1770s and 1780s to gauge the hospitalisation practices of London’s 155 parochial units. It shows that such practices differed significantly based on whether parishes operated workhouses. The medicalisation of workhouses, by which parishes established sick wards within them, had a powerful impact on parochial reliance on St. Thomas’s Hospital. Parishes that lacked workhouses were nearly four times more likely to send patients to the hospital. The scarcity of paupers coming from parishes with workhouses sends a powerful signal that considerable medical care must have been operating at the local level. The collective medical capacity of London workhouse infirmaries may have thus equalled or even surpassed that of its hospitals. The article further considers the impact of workhouse medical provision on hospitalisation practices in the wider provincial environs of London to speculate on workhouse medicalisation there.

Plague hospitals and poor relief in late medieval and early modern France

ABSTRACT Plague hospitals played a key role in the provision of poor relief in late medieval and early modern France. As the poor came to be identified as the principal carriers of plague, they were singled out for attention and special measures were imposed upon them – controls that were justified by the claim that they were being taken in the wider interests of public health. Yet plague hospitals were not just institutions for the confinement of the poor. Municipal councils developed these institutions as places where the poor could gain access to medical treatment and care. This article shows that plague hospitals played a formative role in the grand renfermement of the poor in seventeenth-century France. As places where the poor were confined and received care, it became natural for such hospitals to be used to house the poor outside of plague times. This article argues that municipal governments rather than the crown took the lead in the provision of welfare to the poor before the mid-seventeenth century, following which both the systems used to combat plague and wider poor relief schemes came increasingly under royal control.

The early Christian origins of voluntary poor relief

AbstractPoor relief funded by voluntary contributions originated in early Christianity. Roman paganism did not practise poor relief; post‐exilic Judaism practised poor relief funded by mandatory contributions; early Christianity introduced poor relief on a voluntary basis. Jesus, Peter, and Paul were formative for early Christian poor relief. Jesus set examples of dispensing alms and respecting private property. Peter and Paul agreed on the duty to fund poor relief but did not agree whether funding of poor relief was mandatory or voluntary. The variant approaches of Peter and Paul to how to reconcile poor relief with property rights opened a fault line that has persisted throughout Christian history.

O102 / #741 TREATING THE CHRONIC PAIN CYCLE USING ECAP-CONTROLLED CLOSED-LOOP SPINAL CORD STIMULATION: 12-MONTH EVOKE STUDY RESULTS: TRACK 1: MECHANISMS OF ACTION, MAPPING AND SPINAL CORD STIMULATION

Chronic pain is a complex, multisymptomatic disorder. The chronic pain cycle (CPC) deteriorates sleep1, energy, mood, emotional, physical, and psychosocial well-being2. This coupled with poor pain relief and opioid use results in exacerbation of diffuse hyperalgesic symptoms3. Treating the CPC through interventional technologies like spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is not well-understood. Randomized or prospective studies typically target pain-relief. Very little is known about the impact of the resulting pain-relief on the other debilitating chronic pain symptoms.

The return of forced labour in the workfare state: enforced work for benefits in the UK in the 1930s and since 2010

Support for the unemployed in the UK has become increasingly conditional. This included enforced unpaid work, Mandatory Work Activity (MWA). This was sold as an innovative feature of ‘twenty-first century welfare’ by the 2010–15 government; however, it actually represented the restoration of older techniques of government. This article, compares MWA with enforced work regimes from the last days of the Poor Law in the 1930s. It highlights similarities between both regimes but also significant differences: in the 1930s different claimant groups were subject to different coercions, whereas in the MWA regime, claimants were treated as a homogenous category in need of discipline.

Legacies of British Imperialism in the Contemporary UK Asylum–Welfare Nexus

This article traces the imperial roots of the contemporary asylum–welfare nexus. It explores how English colonial governance exported Poor Law legislation firstly to colonial America (USA) and secondly to British North America (Canada). It argues that these three countries are an Anglophone shared moral space of law and governance, revealing the common unresolved contradictions underpinning contemporary debates about who ‘deserves’ entry, under what conditions, and why. Historical perspectives unsettle assumptions about the primacy of national geopolitical borders and the exceptionalism of contemporary migration. This article uses historical sociology to trace why and how national sovereignty took primacy over municipalities in controlling the mobility of people and the concomitant moral underpinnings. It then draws on new empirical research in three pioneering ‘sanctuary cities’ to explore how cities contest the entwining of welfare and migration governance. However, the article explores how these initiatives often reproduce justifications based on ‘deservingness’ and ‘contribution’. Through tracing the common threads that led to these forms of governance, we can understand they are not self-evident. A historical perspective allows us to ask different questions and open realms of alternative possibilities.

A Study of IbnKhaldun’s Discourses on Socio-Economic Development with Special Reference to Pakistan

This research deals with the ups and downs in the socio-economic development of Pakistan in light of the economic theory of IbnKhaldun (1332-1406 AD). He evaluated dynamics and multidisciplinary approach that how the interconnected relationship of social and economic factors leads to ascend and descend the nations. His opinion, immorality, injustice and many other social evils are the indicators of unstable development, which caused fall of society. Like opinion of Khaldun, the researcher analysed number of factors which are responsible for rising and falling the socio-economic situations of Pakistan. Further, the consequences of the slow growth, poverty, lack of good governance, sectarianism and poor law and order situation have also pointed out. This paper focusses on those social, political and economic indicators which are directly or indirectly influence the rise and fall of socio-economic development in Pakistan. If Khaldun’s theory of economic development of nations applied, it will lead to the rise of society, because social and political stability is a good omen for development. This paper analysed the Khaldun’s economic model and compare it with socio-economic situation of Pakistan.

Remembering the Dead Poor in the Midlands, 1750s to 1880s

ABSTRACT The deaths of ordinary poor people are, in both the popular imagination and much of the historiography, indelibly linked with pauper funerals, mass graves, anatomization in British medical schools and the striking absence of any of the structures and symbols of remembrance (headstones, death notices, etc.) that we often associate with other classes in 18th and 19th-century England. The dead poor under the Old and New Poor Laws were not remembered except in the sense of leaving behind poor families that might require poor relief, poor children who needed apprenticing or a life story that had to be rehearsed by surviving family members so that their place of settlement could be determined in disputed relief cases. In 2005, Elizabeth Hurren and Steven King talked about the grave and the pauper body but not about the mourners, memorialization and the memory of the dead poor. For this article, a remarkable midland’s dataset has been used to argue that remembrance of the dead poor was more systematic, sustained and meaningful than the current literature allows.

Making Social Spending Work by Peter H. Lindert

<i>Making Social Spending Work</i> by Peter H. Lindert

Becoming Entitled: Relief, Unemployment, and Reform during the Great Depression

Becoming Entitled: Relief, Unemployment, and Reform during the Great Depression

Migrants, Vagrants, and the Making of the Anthropocene

Migrants, Vagrants, and the Making of the Anthropocene

The changing faces of the modern state

AbstractThis paper describes the changing nature of the English and Swedish states between 1800 and 2020 from the perspective of ordinary citizens. We identify 13 typical life situations and then describe the types of citizens who interacted with the state, the number and types of public officials with whom they interacted, and where those interactions took place. We distinguish among three typical social groups: the poor, the middle, and the rich. We find, among other things, that the poor became objects of government policy much earlier than other groups, but they also remained in a world of parochial poor relief even as the middle and the rich began to interact with a more functionally differentiated, professional bureaucracy. These findings have important implications for scholarly debates on when the state began to interact directly with the civilian masses and the unevenness of state activities and capacities within countries.

Assessment of epidermoid cyst with trigeminal neuralgia before neuroendoscopy: A high-resolution MR study based on 3D-FIESTA and MR angiography

PurposeTo assess the value of preoperative 3D-FIESTA and MR angiography (MRA) in endoscopic resection of epidermoid cysts presenting with trigeminal neuralgia (TN). Methods3D-FIESTA and MRA were performed before neuroendoscopy in 32 cases of epidermoid cysts with TN, and the tumors were grouped into types A, B, C, and D according to the relationship between the tumor and adjacent nerves and arteries (Hitoshi Kobata's classification). Evaluation of the neuroendoscopic resectability of different types of tumors, included gross total tumor removal (GTR), subtotal tumor removal (STR), and partial tumor removal (PTR). During the 5-year follow-up, symptoms were assessed based on facial pain relief using the Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) score. ResultsThe coincidence rate between MRI classification of the tumor and the operation was 100%. Type B tumors were the most common (18/32, 56.3%). Type A tumors showed the highest resectability (9/9, 100%), followed by type B tumors (14/18, 77.8%). Moreover, microvascular decompression was performed in all 4 cases of type C and 1 case of type D tumors. During follow-up, 23 patients showed marked improvement in symptoms (15, 8 of BNI I or II), 8 cases showed partial improvement (BNI III), and only 1 case of type C tumor was associated with poor facial pain relief, which recurred 5 years later (BNI IV). ConclusionsPreoperative high-resolution MR can accurately analyze the relationship between epidermoid cysts and adjacent nerves and arteries. It could act as a powerful tool in the evaluation of tumor resectability and the prognosis of surgery.

Suspicious Minds in Basic Income and Conditional Cash Transfers

Abstract Anti-poverty policies and attitudes of distrust toward the needy share a long history. From the narratives of de Quevedo’s El Buscón, in which beggars are presented as able-bodied individuals making a concerted effort to take advantage of others, to the invasive physical tests and “workhouses” that were part of the English Poor Laws, the poor have long been regarded as deserving careful oversight. Although in increasingly subtle ways, this history continues as part of a popular set of policies in Latin America called “Conditional Cash Transfers,” which make income support conditional on certain behavioral changes. This paper argues that this resumption in recent times is normatively problematic because it harms the beneficiaries’ self-esteem, leading to stereotypes and sociological errors that reproduce social hierarchies. Alternatively, the paper advances a comparative defense of Basic Income on the basis of its lesser-known affinity with non-discriminatory attitudes.

U.S. Resettlement Policies and Their Impact on Refugee Wellbeing: Perspectives of Service Providers in New York City

Policies and programs in resettlement countries, such as the United States, influence refugees’ wellbeing depending on the support they receive from governments. This qualitative case study analyzes the wellbeing of refugees resettled in New York City by examining the impact of organizational, city, state, and federal welfare policies on refugees from the perspective of service providers working at different policy implementation levels, including state and local government, and non-for-profit organizations. The study used a purposive and convenience sample of 12 semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that the U.S. refugee resettlement system is operating based on the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1601 and securitization theory ideology, prioritizing self-sufficiency over social support, holding states and local governments responsible for the resettlement programs, and treating refugees as security threats. Future studies may explore the subjective wellbeing of refugees and the mechanisms that address refugees’ needs and lived experiences from their perspectives.

In Love with Social Order: William Allen and the ‘Science’ and ‘Art’ of Early Nineteenth‐Century British Philanthropy

This article surveys the charitable and humanitarian activities of the Quaker philanthropist William Allen (1770–843), who was at the forefront of several campaigns for the relief and schooling of the poor and labouring classes in Britain and the emancipation and ‘civilisation’ of the enslaved and colonised peoples in the broader empire between the late eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries. By focusing on the first series of Allen's periodical The Philanthropist (1811–19), the essay sheds light on the underlying principles of early nineteenth-century philanthropy as programmatically different from the motivations of traditional private charity. Understood as a political yet nonstate activity, associational philanthropy demarcated the space of civil society as the field where the middle classes, still excluded from the franchise, could impact state legislation and public policies. As they shared the same critical views as political economists on the statutory system of the Poor Laws, these philanthropists played a crucial role in enlarging the ‘scale’ of social policy-making from the parish to the nation in the early nineteenth century. The article argues that even though they were religiously inspired, Allen and his associates understood philanthropy as a secular pursuit aimed at promoting material welfare and incrementing the utilitarian ‘stock of happiness’ of society. As such, philanthropy was even explicitly conceptualised as a ‘social science’, which, being driven by a love for an ordered society rather than for other men, prescribed the policies to be adopted by the ‘art’ of government.