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Published by EH.NET (March 2003)
Anthony Brundage, _The English Poor Laws, 1700-1930_. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave,
2002. vii + 185 pp. $69.95 or ú49.50 (hardcover), ISBN: 0-333-68270-X.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Steve King, Department of History, Oxford Brookes University.
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This book joins those of Lynne Hollen Lees, Alan Kidd and Pat Thane in trying to provide
an accessible overview of the English and Welsh poor law system up to its final decline in
the 1920s. Like Lees, Brundage orders his narrative chronologically and characterizes the
different periods into which he breaks the book with catchy titles of the sort that my
undergraduate students at least have found attractive. The book opens with a short
introduction which in turn starts with the story of one of the most famous workhouse
children, Charlie Chaplin, and moves very briefly through the variety of different
approaches that historians have taken in the writing of poor law history. To this reviewer
such an opening looked attractive and I was heartened by Brundage's determination to
confront the problem of conveying "something of the complexity and significance of the
poor laws, without losing sight of the individual human dimension" (p. 3). This is
precisely what undergraduate students need, though I did not see how such an aspiration
was going to be achieved in 185 pages.
Chapter two, undoubtedly the weakest in the book, looks at the eighteenth-century poor
law. It briefly traces the legislative roots of the Old Poor Law and then rapidly canters
through institutional provision, Knatchbull's Act, medical care, attempts at poor law
reform by Gilbert, the impact of the Napoleonic war and the development of allowance
systems. At the end of the chapter we have almost seven pages on poor law thinkers, a
theme carried on in chapter three and certainly the territory where the author seems to be
most at home. Of course, a broad survey should not be lambasted for skating over big
issues, but in this chapter I feel that Brundage has neither fulfilled his desire to give
us the human dimension, or to communicate to students some of the nuances of the
eighteenth-century poor law. Thus, it is incorrect to say that the township was the basis
for the administration of relief in the north from the outset of the Old Poor Law (p. 9);
it is arguable whether "relatives were pressed to assume the obligation" of looking after
aged or impotent relatives (p. 11); it is very arguable indeed whether parishes were
"pleased" with the system of farming the poor given the speed with which most abandoned
experiments (p. 13); it is too simple to say that the first task of the overseer was to
assess settlement and remove where possible (p. 13) given that removal activity took place
in spurts; and it is certainly not the case in large areas of eighteenth-century England
that for married women on relief 'an additional child often meant simply an increased
allowance' (p.15). For me, these caveats detract from some of the strengths of the
chapter. It is excellent, for instance, that Brundage grapples with the concept of open
and closed parishes and with the issue of failed legislation here. These are concepts that
I keep talking about to my students and I am glad to see them here.
Chapter three deals with the period between 1800 and the decision to undertake radical
investigation of the operation of the Old Poor Law in 1832. Brundage traces the influences
(evangelical, economic, post-war dislocation and political) shaping debate on the poor law
and deals briefly with the intervening legislation such as that establishing select
vestries. Finally, he identifies the Swing Riots as the factor which cemented the
perceived need for reform. I found the chapter frustrating. It provides a decent review of
the competing agenda's for reform and my students have found the summary of figures
presented on page 40 very helpful. The chapter also provides some
great turns of phrase that I wish I had thought of. The idea that "the principles of
economics burrowed ever deeper into the culture and social values" of the middling and
political classes (p. 44) is a great example. However, the poor themselves and the human
element are completely missing from this chapter. There is absolutely no reference to the
work of Thomas Sokoll on pauper letters in Essex and more widely the tendency for recent
poor law historians to repopulate this period with the poor through their narratives does
not get a mention. This is a shame, for such work provides a useful foil to the drier
politico-legislative angle that my students find hard work.
Chapter four deals with the shaping and initial imposition of the New Poor Law, starting
with the interpretation and reinterpretation of the Poor Law Report, moving through the
processes and politics of Union creation and popular and community resistance against the
imposition of the New Poor Law, and ending with the role of the Andover workhouse scandal
in hastening the demise of the Poor Law Commission. Brundage, as we would expect from his
previous books, clearly feels most comfortable in this territory, and the chapter is well
written and convincing.
Chapter five deals with the period 1847-1870. It shows that a scandal-prone poor law
settled down into relatively anonymous middle age, with attempts to expand poor law
activities in the spheres of education, medical care (albeit "haltingly and unofficially,"
p. 96), treatment and control of the insane, vagrancy, structural poverty and the complex
laws relating to settlement and Union finance. The chapter ends by showing how a
combination of the Lancashire cotton famine, growing pauperism in London and a series of
medical scandals led to calls once more for poor law reform. My students found this the
most useful of all the chapters, and its style and coverage is very much better than that
of chapter two.
Chapter six deals with the important subject of the crusade against out-relief, the
Charity Organisation Society and the democratization of the poor law Board through the
addition of working class and female Guardians. Brundage correctly notes that "While most
smaller towns and rural districts seem to have gone on much as before" (p. 116), some
places were alive to the chances offered by the crusade and adopted it with vigor. He also
points out, very usefully for undergraduates, that this period witnessed a tension between
those who had an agenda of attacking the poor and those who had an agenda for extending
the services and scope of the poor law. Once more, it is a pity that the poor and their
strategies and voices are not heard here. Page 124 starts along this road but more is
necessary to humanize the poor law. It is also a pity that some misinterpretation of the
secondary literature confuses the reading. It is not the case on page 126, for instance,
that Hurren argues for Pell and Spencer being in opposition.
Chapter seven deals with the final decline of the New Poor Law, tracing experiments in
poplarism, the scope, character and findings of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws,
Liberal Welfare Reforms and the impact of the Great War. The chapter is competently
executed and feeds through into a conclusion, which is actually a lot better than some of
the chapters on which it is based. Importantly, Brundage argues that "English poor law
experience [was] simultaneously consensual, contested and contingent." Once I had
explained this sentence to my undergraduates, they were able to grasp more of the nuances
of the poor relief. Their question though was "whose poor law experience?" This is my
question too, for while Brundage gives us a review of the poor law from the angle of
administrators, politicians, charitable donors and others, the poor and their economic,
cultural and social experiences are almost completely missing. Maybe this does not matter
for a general survey, but I cannot help feeling that a slightly longer book that really
did keep sight "of the individual human dimension" (p. 3), would have made a more valuable
contribution to the undergraduate reading list. This said, my students like the volume;
the copies in our library have rather more stamps than some of their natural competitors!
Steven King is Head of the Department of History and Director of Research for the School
of Arts and Humanities at Oxford Brookes University, England. He has recently edited _The
Poor in England 1700-1900: An Economy of Makeshifts_ (Manchester University Press, 2003)
and is currently working on a study of female poor law guardians in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.
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529-2850; Fax: 513-529-3308). Published by EH.Net (March 2003). All EH.Net reviews are
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