Social Discipline and the Refusal of Poor Relief under the English Old Poor Law, c. 1650–1730
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8957983 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jonathan Healey (0000-0002-1221-3172, University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 920-942 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x23000651 |
| OpenAlex | W4394575815 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 15 |
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 suggests that poor relief operated robustly as a system of labour discipline, but only weakly as a wider tool of behavioural control. There is some evidence that townships wanted to end doles to those engaged in ‘bad’ behaviour, such as excessive drinking, gambling, or insubordination, but such cases were infrequent. Far more important were attempts to stop relief where paupers could work or could support themselves through their own productive assets. In turn, townships’ focus on the ability to work suggests that ‘deserving’ poverty was understood in terms of bodily impotence, whilst the need to restrict poor relief to those who were ‘necessitous’ required officers to engage in close surveillance of the poor and their bodies
Political science · Poor law · Poor relief · Poverty · Sociology · European Political History Analysis · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
Poverty and policy in Tudor and Stuart England
On the Parish?
The Settlement of the Poor and the Rise of the Form in England, c.1662–1780
Parish Economies of Welfare, 1650–1834
Power, Poor Relief, and Social Relations in Holland Fen, C. 1600–1800
The Growth of Social Stability in Restoration England
Economic Thought and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England
Poverty, Charity, and Coercion in Elizabethan England
Poor Relief and English Economic Development before the Industrial Revolution
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |