Jonathan Healey
Biographic Data
| ID | 3765827 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan Healey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan |
| FAMILY NAME | Healey |
| SIGNATURE | HEALEY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | St. John's College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1221-3172 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1942 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Social Discipline and the Refusal of Poor Relief under the English Old Poor Law, c. 1650–1730
There has been debate about the extent to which the English old poor law could operate as a system of social discipline. This article looks closely at an almost completely neglected set of sources, petitions by local communities asking to stop (or cut) a pauper’s relief, to assess how far poor relief was used as a disciplinary tool. Taking 182 appeals by Lancashire townships from the Civil War to the appearance of workhouses in the county, it sug…
Kin support and the English poor
The ‘nuclear hardship hypothesis’, argued by Peter Laslett in 1988, holds that that the prevalence of the nuclear household in early modern England, and the apparent weakness of kinship interactions outside it, left the burden of caring for the vulnerable squarely on the ‘collectivity’, most obviously in the form of the Elizabethan poor law. But recent studies of family and kinship in English society have questioned the idea of the autonomous nuc…
Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society
Historical anniversaries can be a curse as well as a blessing. Indeed, on the face of it, there seems little logic to a collection of chapters on the themes of R.H. Tawney’s The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912) and M.M. Postan’s The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain, 1100–1500 (1972), beyond the fact that they were both published in a year ending with ‘2’. Tawney and Postan came from very different theor…
The Fray on the Meadow
On 14 September 1534, two men fought on a meadow outside the town of Weymouth, Dorset, watched by a crowd of their neighbours. Learning of the fight, one of the town constables charged between the men, and killed one of them, leading to his prosecution and subsequent appeal to the court of Star Chamber. The investigation by that court left several thousand words of testimony, making it one of the best documented fights in the sixteenth century. T…
By the charitie of good people’
Historians of early-modern poverty have emphasized the ways in which the poor ‘made shift’, reducing or even preventing their dependence on formal poor relief. This article looks at one aspect of that ‘economy of makeshifts’: the casual support of the poor by their neighbours. It uses evidence from a uniquely extensive archive of pauper petitions from Lancashire (1626–1710), many of which contain incidental information about strategies of making …
Famine and the female mortality advantage
Studies of modern famines have found disproportionately high mortality amongst adult men. The most commonly suggested root of this ‘female mortality advantage’ is biological, and it seems to be strongest when starvation is the main cause of death. The present study is the first to investigate the phenomenon in an early-modern society. Looking at the famines of 1597 and 1623 in northwest England, it finds some evidence for a female mortality advan…
Food, Energy and the Creation of Industriousness
This is a rich and satisfying book. It sets out from the premise that food was the ‘petrol’ of the pre-industrial age: if a society was to increase its production, then it had to increase the amount of energy its workers were consuming; thus, as Craig Muldrew points out, what people ate was a critical—perhaps the critical—determinant of how ‘industrious’ they could be. It is a book that will be widely read, and justifiably so. Its importance is t…
Poverty in an industrializing town
The question of what kinds of people were relieved by England's Old Poor Law is one of the most pressing in early modern social history. Most of our knowledge about the social characteristics of the relieved poor comes from studies of rural communities in the south and east of the country, where old age and the problems of being ‘overcharged with children’ have been emphasized as key causes of hardship. This article uses three exceptionally detai…
Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500-1860
‘It is striking’, the author of this short and argumentative book tells us, ‘that a profound recasting of class relations, one that left most people bereft of property as well as control over their lives, occurred without inducing a protracted and violent revolution’ (p. 203). This profound recasting was England's transition from feudalism to agrarian capitalism—a longstanding cornerstone of Marxist history—and the explanation offered here for it…
The Development of Poor Relief in Lancashire, C. 1598–1680
The development of the poor law has formed a key element of recent discussions of ‘state formation’ in early modern England. There are, however, still few local studies of how formal poor relief, stipulated in the great Tudor statutes, was implemented on the ground. This article offers such a study, focusing on Lancashire, an economically marginal county, far from Westminster. It argues that the poor law developed in Lancashire surprisingly quick…
The Economic and Social Background of the Unlicensed Personnel of the American Merchant Marine
Journal Article The Economic and Social Background of the Unlicensed Personnel of the American Merchant Marine Get access Jeanne G. Gilbert, Jeanne G. Gilbert St. John's College and The American Seamen's Friend Society, New York City Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar James C. Healey James C. Healey St. John's College and The American Seamen's Friend Society, New York City Search for other works by this autho…
The Development of Poor Relief in Lancashire, C. 1598–1680
The development of the poor law has formed a key element of recent discussions of ‘state formation’ in early modern England. There are, however, still few local studies of how formal poor relief, stipulated in the great Tudor statutes, was implemented on the ground. This article offers such a study, focusing on Lancashire, an economically marginal county, far from Westminster. It argues that the poor law developed in Lancashire surprisingly quick…
Famine and the female mortality advantage
Studies of modern famines have found disproportionately high mortality amongst adult men. The most commonly suggested root of this ‘female mortality advantage’ is biological, and it seems to be strongest when starvation is the main cause of death. The present study is the first to investigate the phenomenon in an early-modern society. Looking at the famines of 1597 and 1623 in northwest England, it finds some evidence for a female mortality advan…
Social Discipline and the Refusal of Poor Relief under the English Old Poor Law, c. 1650–1730
There has been debate about the extent to which the English old poor law could operate as a system of social discipline. This article looks closely at an almost completely neglected set of sources, petitions by local communities asking to stop (or cut) a pauper’s relief, to assess how far poor relief was used as a disciplinary tool. Taking 182 appeals by Lancashire townships from the Civil War to the appearance of workhouses in the county, it sug…
Poverty in an industrializing town
The question of what kinds of people were relieved by England's Old Poor Law is one of the most pressing in early modern social history. Most of our knowledge about the social characteristics of the relieved poor comes from studies of rural communities in the south and east of the country, where old age and the problems of being ‘overcharged with children’ have been emphasized as key causes of hardship. This article uses three exceptionally detai…
The Economic and Social Background of the Unlicensed Personnel of the American Merchant Marine
Journal Article The Economic and Social Background of the Unlicensed Personnel of the American Merchant Marine Get access Jeanne G. Gilbert, Jeanne G. Gilbert St. John's College and The American Seamen's Friend Society, New York City Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar James C. Healey James C. Healey St. John's College and The American Seamen's Friend Society, New York City Search for other works by this autho…
Poverty in an industrializing town
The question of what kinds of people were relieved by England's Old Poor Law is one of the most pressing in early modern social history. Most of our knowledge about the social characteristics of the relieved poor comes from studies of rural communities in the south and east of the country, where old age and the problems of being ‘overcharged with children’ have been emphasized as key causes of hardship. This article uses three exceptionally detai…
Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500-1860
‘It is striking’, the author of this short and argumentative book tells us, ‘that a profound recasting of class relations, one that left most people bereft of property as well as control over their lives, occurred without inducing a protracted and violent revolution’ (p. 203). This profound recasting was England's transition from feudalism to agrarian capitalism—a longstanding cornerstone of Marxist history—and the explanation offered here for it…
The Development of Poor Relief in Lancashire, C. 1598–1680
The development of the poor law has formed a key element of recent discussions of ‘state formation’ in early modern England. There are, however, still few local studies of how formal poor relief, stipulated in the great Tudor statutes, was implemented on the ground. This article offers such a study, focusing on Lancashire, an economically marginal county, far from Westminster. It argues that the poor law developed in Lancashire surprisingly quick…
Food, Energy and the Creation of Industriousness
This is a rich and satisfying book. It sets out from the premise that food was the ‘petrol’ of the pre-industrial age: if a society was to increase its production, then it had to increase the amount of energy its workers were consuming; thus, as Craig Muldrew points out, what people ate was a critical—perhaps the critical—determinant of how ‘industrious’ they could be. It is a book that will be widely read, and justifiably so. Its importance is t…
Famine and the female mortality advantage
Studies of modern famines have found disproportionately high mortality amongst adult men. The most commonly suggested root of this ‘female mortality advantage’ is biological, and it seems to be strongest when starvation is the main cause of death. The present study is the first to investigate the phenomenon in an early-modern society. Looking at the famines of 1597 and 1623 in northwest England, it finds some evidence for a female mortality advan…
By the charitie of good people’
Historians of early-modern poverty have emphasized the ways in which the poor ‘made shift’, reducing or even preventing their dependence on formal poor relief. This article looks at one aspect of that ‘economy of makeshifts’: the casual support of the poor by their neighbours. It uses evidence from a uniquely extensive archive of pauper petitions from Lancashire (1626–1710), many of which contain incidental information about strategies of making …
Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society
Historical anniversaries can be a curse as well as a blessing. Indeed, on the face of it, there seems little logic to a collection of chapters on the themes of R.H. Tawney’s The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912) and M.M. Postan’s The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain, 1100–1500 (1972), beyond the fact that they were both published in a year ending with ‘2’. Tawney and Postan came from very different theor…
The Fray on the Meadow
On 14 September 1534, two men fought on a meadow outside the town of Weymouth, Dorset, watched by a crowd of their neighbours. Learning of the fight, one of the town constables charged between the men, and killed one of them, leading to his prosecution and subsequent appeal to the court of Star Chamber. The investigation by that court left several thousand words of testimony, making it one of the best documented fights in the sixteenth century. T…
Kin support and the English poor
The ‘nuclear hardship hypothesis’, argued by Peter Laslett in 1988, holds that that the prevalence of the nuclear household in early modern England, and the apparent weakness of kinship interactions outside it, left the burden of caring for the vulnerable squarely on the ‘collectivity’, most obviously in the form of the Elizabethan poor law. But recent studies of family and kinship in English society have questioned the idea of the autonomous nuc…
Social Discipline and the Refusal of Poor Relief under the English Old Poor Law, c. 1650–1730
There has been debate about the extent to which the English old poor law could operate as a system of social discipline. This article looks closely at an almost completely neglected set of sources, petitions by local communities asking to stop (or cut) a pauper’s relief, to assess how far poor relief was used as a disciplinary tool. Taking 182 appeals by Lancashire townships from the Civil War to the appearance of workhouses in the county, it sug…
Historical Economic and Social Studies (9 works) · History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · History (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Economics (5 works) · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes (4 works) · Poor relief (4 works)