The Nottinghamshire Reformers and Their Contribution to the New Poor Law

Bibliographic Data

ID3245458
AuthorsJ D Marshall (0000-0001-5632-3528, Bolton College, corresponding author)
Year1961
Volume13
Issue3
Pages382-396
Publication date1961-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0289.1961.tb02126.x
OpenAlexW2075610576
LanguageEN
Citations received12

I T iS well known that the i834 Poor Law Amendment Act was, at most, a rationalization and expression of certain concepts which had long been recognized and discussed. Its revolutionary nature lay in the scale of the administrative reforms which it envisaged; and the problems discussed by the Poor Law Commission of i832-4 were, therefore, weighty rather than new. Less eligibility, to take only one example, was certainly not a novel idea.1 Nevertheless, a combination of factors had produced a totally new sociopolitical situation by i832-4, and it is perhaps fair to say that the complex of social ideas and economic influences of the twenties and early thirties, in so far as it related to the administration of the Poor Law, has never been adequately analysed. It is an aim of this regional study to set down a few details which may ultimately aid such analysis. The county of Nottinghamshire was the scene of a number of experiments associated with George Nicholls (later famous as a Poor Law Commissioner), the Reverend J. T. Becher, the Reverend Robert Lowe and Absalom Barnett, and this article describes their work and its economic background. Finally, an attempt is made to indicate the influence of their experiments on the members of the Poor Law Commission. This influence, as will be seen, was a very considerable one. The Nottinghamshire Reformers, as they can conveniently be called, were felt to have pointed the way towards the conquest of pauperism at least in their own area and it should be profitable to examine in retrospect the problems which faced them during the two decades before I834. These problems are more easily appreciated if, as a first step, we examine their economic background. Nottinghamshire was in I821 the fifth most industrialized county in England.2 Its status was not entirely dependent upon the development of comparatively new industries. The domestic framework knitting industry had long been established within its bounds, as in other parts of the East Midlands, and there were knitting frames in most of the villages in the western half of the county.3 Lace manufacture, which was to some extent

Economics · Law and economics · Political science · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Scottish History and National Identity

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