The Early History Of English Poor Relief Classic Reprint

Excerpt from The Early History of English Poor Relief The present account of the early history of English poor relief is chiefly derived from the municipal records of London and Norwich and from the reports of the justices of the peace which are included amongst the state papers. Information on the subject is also contained in the Privy Council Register, while some of the orders of both Privy Council and justices and a few of the overseers' accounts are to be found in the collections of the British Museum. A fairly effectual system of relieving the destitute by public authority has had in England a continuous existence since the seventeenth century. Attempts to found such a system of poor relief in the sixteenth century were common to most of the countries of Western Europe, but the continued existence of any organisation of the kind is peculiar to England. Possibly this fact has an important influence on our national history. We are apt to consider the facts that we are a law-abiding people and that we have not suffered from violent revolutions to be entirely due to the virtues of the national character and the excellence of the British Constitution. But before the introduction of our system of relieving the poor we were by no means so free from disorder. The poor laws themselves were at least partly police measures, and, until they were successfully administered, the country was repeatedly disturbed by rebellions and constantly plagued by vagrants. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Originally published in 1900, Leonard's study of the early history of English poor relief sheds light on an important aspect of English social care. The treatise details the various changes to the treatment of the poor from the Anglo-Saxon period until the Civil War, as well as comparing English approaches with contemporary practices in Scotland and France. The author draws heavily on municipal and state papers from the time, relevant extracts of which are reproduced in the appendices. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the development of social work in Britain.

Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved toward a more coherent and comprehensive network of support. Marjorie McIntosh's study, the first to trace developments across that time span, focuses on three types of assistance: licensed begging and the solicitation of charitable alms; hospitals and almshouses for the bedridden and elderly; and the aid given by parishes. It explores changing conceptions of poverty and charity and altered roles for the church, state and private organizations in the provision of relief. The study highlights the creativity of local people in responding to poverty, cooperation between national levels of government, the problems of fraud and negligence, and mounting concern with proper supervision and accounting. This ground-breaking work challenges existing accounts of the Poor Laws, showing that they addressed problems with forms of aid already in use rather than creating a new system of relief.

Excerpt from History of Poor Relief Legislation in Pennsylvania, 1682-1913 The First Settlements on the Delaware - The Dutch - The Swedes - The English - The English Conquest - The Duke of York's Laws - The Quakers on the Delaware - Renn's Grant - His Concessions - The Frame of Government - Government and Laws Agreed on in England - The Great Law - Its Poor Relief Provision - Settlement - Servants - Interstate Comity The Fletcher Administration - Was the Poor Law Abrogated? - The Restoration Assembly - Tne Laws of l7oo-l7o5 - Sum mary. 25. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In her own time and in ours, Hannah More (1745-1833) has been seen as a benefactress of the poor, writing and working selflessly to their benefit. Mona Scheuermann argues, however, that More's agenda was not simply to help the poor but to control them, for the upper classes in late eighteenth-century England were terrified that the poor would rise in revolt against Church and King. As much social history as literary study, In Praise of Poverty shows that More's writing to the poor specifically is intended to counter the perceived rabble rousing of Thomas Paine and other radicals active in the 1790s. In fact, her Village Politics was written by request of the Bishop of London as a direct response to Paine's Rights of Man. The much larger project of the Cheap Repository Tracts followed, and More was still writing in this vein two decades later. Scheuermann effectively, and perhaps controversially, places More in the context of her period's debate about the poor, proving More to be not a defender of the poor but of the conservative upper-class values she so wholeheartedly espoused.