The consequences of extreme poverty were a grim reality for all too many people in Victorian England. The various poor laws implemented to try to deal with it c

Few measures, if any, could claim to have had a greater impact on British society than the poor law. As a comprehensive system of relieving those in need, the p

A study of English policies toward the poor from the 1600s to the present, showing how clients and officials negotiated welfare settlements.

First published in 1981, From Pauperism to Poverty consists of seven essays, three of which focus on the English poor law between 1800 and 1914 and four of whic

A new perspective on the place of the workhouse in the history and geography of nineteenth-century society and social policy.