Patrick Marcoux

Prior to 1834, England's method of dealing with the poor provided minimal relief for those who were poverty-stricken. England's problem of dealing with the poor stemmed from the breakdown of medieval economy and social structure which destroyed the traditional framework of charity and produced new types of poverty. In medieval England poverty had been largely due to an underdeveloped economy in which famine and pestilence became a recurring phenomena. A system of relief needed to be devised in order to assist the poor. The parish, the smallest unit of local government, became the primary unit in administering relief. This relief could be received only by those poor individuals residing within parish boundaries. This put tremendous pressure on parishes to give paupers the adequate amount of relief. As a result many parishes became overrun with too many poor people, and not enough assistance was administered. For the above reasons the problem of aiding the poor became regarded as the first English poor law.

The first law, otherwise known as the old poor law, had shown that poor relief confined to town parishes put too heavy a burden on them, and as a result, distribution of aid rather than alleviation of aid had been allotted in relieving the poor. As England's population increased, so did the need for funding, housing, and educating the poor. The old poor law of 1601, which was in effect until the establishment of the new poor law of 1834, could not allot a good method of relieving pauperism in England. Although it tried, too many people took advantage in levying funds for their own personal benefits. Along with inadequate funding came the question of how to occupy the poor person's time. For the able-bodied pauper, hard labor became the essence of working for relief. If an able-bodied person refused to work, he was simply expelled from the parish.

Rural parishes devised their own methods for eliminating freeloaders under the poor law of 1601. These parishes concentrated on removing married couples, particularly those overburdened with children. As a result, single women, women with children, and orphans became unpopular amongst the working people of the parish. As hard as it was providing for oneself, no one wanted to have to provide for others within the parish. In order to keep freeloaders from entering the parish, someone had to enforce this rule. Michael E. Rose, author of "Settlement, Removal and the New Poor Law," explains that:

Parish officers kept a look-out, particularly in periods of economic distress, for those without a settlement in the parish who might apply to it for poor relief. Those likely to become a burden on the parish might be persuaded to move on, either illegally by the use of cash payment or brute force, or legally by obtaining an order of removal from the magistrates under which the poor man and his family could be conveyed back to their parish of settlement. This apparently simple legal device was, however, greatly complicated by the fact that the parish of settlement of the person to be removed had to be discovered before a removal order could be issued. (Rose 26)

More often than not, those poor who were to be removed went unnoticed. The consequence of this left "poor relief recipients and administrators enmeshed in a tangle of almost inextricable legal complexity" (Rose 27). The families that slipped by parish officers had to act as if they were parish members. One problem parents had to overcome was occupying their children's free time. Any child seen idling or loafing around the parish became suspect as to who their parents were. In recognizing how great a problem relieving the poor within the parish became, the English Whig government decided to intervene. Through the Whigs, a royal commission was appointed to take over the entire poor relief system. Their recommendations served as the basis of this new system, and in the year of 1834, the New Poor Law Amendment Act was established.