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Being Poor in England in the Long Eighteenth Century

Module description

This module focuses on how we can use primary sources to access the lives of people who left very little behind. It charts how poverty was defined, experienced, and regulated, and how societal attitudes towards poverty have changed over time. We will consider why poverty existed (or why people thought it existed), and some of the survival strategies that individuals used to get by, as well as changing forms of charity and relief. We will also trace poverty as a form of identity, both in terms of how the poor were characterised by others and how they described themselves, and we will consider how poverty intersected with other determinants of status, including gender and race. The module does not assume prior knowledge of the topic, and encourages you to engage with the wide range of sources available to conduct their own examination into this important and relevant aspect of modern Britain.

Module aims - intentions of the module

• To introduce you to the broad range of sources available to the modern historian, through study of the main developments relating to poverty and poor relief in the long eighteenth century. Individual seminars (see topic list below) will focus on various sources, such as visual sources, petitions, institutional records, criminal records, diaries, novels, legislation, and material culture. You will also have the opportunity to conduct their own research into these sources, consider their value and limitations, and use them to explore particular topics and themes. This module will help you develop skills in source analysis and research to provide a foundation for future historical work.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and assess the main developments in English poverty during the long eighteenth century.
• 2. Work critically with a range of written and visual sources relating to the topic.
• 3. Assess the sources in relation to the historical debates, purposes for which different contemporary sources were produced, and analyse and evaluate their reliability and usefulness for the study of the history of poverty.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Identify the problems of using historical sources, e.g. utility, limitations, etc, and compare the validity of different types of sources.
• 5. Answer a question briefly and concisely.
• 6. Present work orally, respond to questions orally, and think quickly of questions to ask other students.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Conduct independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning.
• 8. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.
• 9. Work with others in a team and to interact effectively with the tutor and the wider group.
• 10. Write to a very tight word-length.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• The gendering of poverty
• Making shift and strategies for survival
• Workhouses and baby farms
• The poor law and charity
• Regulating the poor
• Vagrancy and punishment
• Attitudes towards poverty

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Andrew, Donna T. Philanthropy and Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, 1989).
• Fissell, Mary. Patients, Power and the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Bristol (Cambridge, 1991).
• Green, David. Pauper Capital: London and the Poor Law 1790-1870(Surrey, 2010).
• Hepburn, James. A book of scattered leaves : poetry of poverty in broadside ballads of nineteenth-century England. Vol. 1, Study and anthology (London, 2000).
• Hitchcock, Tim. Down and Out in Eighteenth Century London (London, 2004).
• Hitchcock, Tim, Pamela Sharpe and Peter King (eds.). Chronicling Poverty: The Voices and Strategies of the English Poor, 1640-1840 (New York, 1997).
• Hindle, Steve. On the Parish?: The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England, c.1550-1750(Oxford, 2004).
• Honeyman, Katrina. Child Workers in England, 1780-1820: Parish Apprentices and the Making of the Early Industrial Labour Force (Aldershot, 2007).
• King, Steven. Poverty and Welfare in England, 1700-1850. Manchester, 2000.
• Murphy, Elaine. ‘The Metropolitan Pauper Farms 1722-1834’, London Journal, 27:1 (2002), pp. 1-18.
• Rogers, Nicholas. ‘Policing the Poor in Eighteenth-Century London: The Vagrancy Laws and Their Administration’, Histoire Sociale / Social History, 24 (1991), pp. 127-47.
• Snell, Keith D. M. Parish and Belonging: Community, Identity and Welfare in England and Wales, 1700-1950 (Cambridge, 2006).
• Tomkins, Alannah. The experience of urban poverty, 1723-82 : parish, charity and credit (Manchester, 2006).
• Williams, Samantha. Poverty, gender and life-cycle under the English poor law, 1760-1834 (Woodbridge, 2011).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=6468

Key words search

Poor, England, Long Eighteenth Century.