Filed under: Politics | Tags: poor laws, tory spending cuts, welfare reform, workhouses
In 1834, responding to the increasing cost of poor relief which was considered to be unmanageable, the Poor Law Commission recommended that those receiving help should be “subjected to such courses of labour and discipline as will repel the indolent and vicious” (quoted in A. L. Morton “A People’s History of England”). Consequently, the workhouses were run according to the principle of less eligibility, that as a form of deterrent, the conditions in them should be worse than was possible outside (which was certainly the case in the Andover workhouse, in which the inmates had to suck the marrow out of bones they were supposed to be grinding for fertiliser). Furthermore, that someone “requesting to be rescued from that danger out of the property of others, he must accept assistance on the terms, whatever they may be“ (see p24 here). This was the system described by Dickens in Oliver Twist, and it led to mass agitation, partly through the Chartist movement, including the storming and burning of the workhouses.
On reading about this recently, I was reminded of George Osborne’s recent comments, that “The welfare system is broken. We have to accept that the welfare bill has got completely out of control… People who think it is a lifestyle to sit on out-of-work benefits … that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end.” Just as it was in the 19th century, however, the rhetoric is quite out of touch with reality.
See also Tristram Hunt writing on the spending cuts.
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