The use of child workers was widespread in textile manufacturing by the late eighteenth century. A particularly vital supply of child workers was via the parish

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 is one of the most important pieces of social legislation ever enacted. Its principles and the workhouse system dominated att

From the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, the English Old Poor Law was waning, soon to be replaced by the New Poor Law and its dreaded wo

It has long been suggested that poverty was responsible for a criminal underclass emerging in Britain during the nineteenth century. Until quite recently, histo

Pauper policies examines how policies under the old and New Poor Laws were conceived, adopted, implemented, developed or abandoned. This fresh perspective revea