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The First Welfare State? England's Poor Law, 1520-1835

Module description

After 1601, England possessed the most sophisticated formal welfare system in Europe. Welfare provision was funded by compulsory taxation, and eligible claimants were entitled to be given food, clothing, housing, wages or even work. This system lasted until 1835, four times longer than the NHS has existed. In this module you will explore how this system was created, how it changed over time, and how it policed access to its resources. The Elizabethan ‘Old’ Poor Law faced a constant struggle between relieving poverty as a moral obligation, and fears about abuse of the system (‘moral hazard’).  In this module you will examine how the welfare system evolved, particularly after 1750, as it became more expensive, and comprehensive. Reform debates culminated in Parliamentary enquiries in the early 1830s, which led to the punitive regime of the Victorian workhouses. The module will examine these reform efforts, as well as looking at historical evidence about ordinary people’s experiences of the relief system, and of poverty between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module gives you the chance to engage with the extensive historiography on poverty, charity, and reform 1520-1835, and to enquire into how historical evidence has shaped this scholarship. You will encounter social, cultural, intellectual, and economic histories and ideas about poverty and charity; debates about welfare; ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor; social control and resistance within welfare systems; causes and experiences of poverty in pre-industrial society; contemporary debates about welfare reform, using England as a locus for our investigations.

The module also provides a substantive focus on the enduring tension between welfare as religious/moral obligation, and as a moral hazard, not only in relation to the Elizabethan Poor Law, but also in considering the debates about its reform or replacement. You will examine the variegated ideas about poverty, charity, entitlement, and reform which circulated between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, looking at published ideas but also at specific examples of the operation of the welfare system within parishes. Students will be asked to enquire into the relationship between ideas about welfare, moral surveillance, poverty and the household/life-cycle, conformity and resistance and policy debates.

This module asks you to engage with the on-line published sources via EEBO & ECCO, and material culture/architecture (via workhouses.org.uk). You will be grounded in both qualitative and quantitative approaches to studying the experiences of poverty and relief, and will be asked to engage critically with source material identified through independent study, and then discussed in seminars as a group.

By reviewing the extensive historical debates about the evolution, operation and reform of the Elizabethan welfare system, this module provides you with an opportunity to approach a single historical field from a variety of critical perspectives.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the main themes relating to the history of poverty and welfare in England between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
• 2. Summarise and evaluate the different historiographical approaches to the study of poverty and welfare in England between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries
• 3. Critically evaluate the strengths and limitations of primary sources on the subject, and effectively use those resources to study the subject.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 4. Demonstrate an ability to analyse the key developments in a defined historical subject.
• 5. Demonstrate an ability to understand and deploy complex historical terminology correctly.
• 6. Demonstrate an ability to handle different approaches to history in a contested area of historical study

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 7. Select, organise and analyse material for written work and oral presentations of different prescribed lengths and formats.
• 8. Present complex information orally.
• 9. Present an argument in a written form in a clear and organised manner, with appropriate use of correct English
• 10. Demonstrate ability to reflect critically on your own work, to respond constructively to feedback, and to implement suggestions and improve work on this basis

Syllabus plan

While the content may vary from year to year, it is expected that some or all of the following topics may be covered:

• The development of welfare in the sixteenth century and the creation of the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1598 & 1601
• The Elizabethan system in action in the seventeenth century
• The first ‘Workhouse Movement’ 1690-1780
• The ‘Crisis’ of the Old Poor Law, c. 1790-1834

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

The re-assessment consists of a 3000-word written assignment, as in the original assessment, but replaces participation in the group presentation with an individual presentation equivalent to an individual’s contribution, to be recorded and submitted with all supporting materials as for the original assessment; failing this, students should submit aa written script that could be delivered in such a presentation (750 words) along with all supporting materials as for the original assessment.

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

• P. Slack, The English Poor Law, 1531-1782 (Cambridge, 1995)
• G. R. Boyer, An Economic History of the English Poor Law 1750-1850 (Cambridge, 1990)
• L. H. Lees, The Solidarities of Strangers. The English Poor Laws and the People (Cambridge, 1998)
• P. A. Fideler, Social Welfare in Early Modern England: The Old Poor Law Tradition (London, 2003)
• A. Brundage, The English poor laws, 1700-1930 (Basingstoke, 2002)
• S. King, Poverty and Welfare in England (Manchester, 2000)
• S. Williams, Poverty, Gender and Life-Cycle under the English Poor Law (Woodbridge, 2011)
• S. Hindle, On the Parish? The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England, c. 1550-1750 (Oxford, 2004)
• J. Healey, The First Century of Welfare. Poverty and Poor Relief in Lancashire 1620-1730 (Woodbridge, 2014)
• T. Wales, ‘Poverty, poor relief and the life-cycle: some evidence from seventeenth-century Norfolk’, in R. Smith (ed.), Land, Kinship and Life-cycle (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 351-404
• B. Stapleton, ‘Inherited poverty and life-cycle poverty: Odiham, Hampshire, 1650-1850’, Social History, 18 (1993), pp. 339-55
• M. Blaug, ‘The myth of the Old Poor Law and the making of the New’, Journal of Economic History, xxiii (1963), pp. 151-84
• J. R. Poynter, Society and Pauperism: English Ideas on Poor Relief 1795-1834 (London, 1969)
• S. A. Shave, Pauper Policies. Poor Law Practice in England, 1780-1850 (Manchester, 2017)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – 

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Workhouses.org.uk

Key words search

Early modern; welfare state; poor law; poverty; social reform