Today it is impossible to separate discussion of poverty from the priorities of state welfare. A hundred years ago, most working-class households avoided or coped with poverty without recourse to the state. The Poor Law after 1834 offered little more than a 'safety net' for the poorest, and much welfare was organised through charitable societies, self-help institutions and mutual-aid networks. Rather than look for the origins of modern provision, the author casts a searching light on the practices, ideology and outcomes of nineteenth-century welfare. This original and stimulating study, based upon a wealth of scholarship, is essential reading for all students of poverty and welfare. It also contains much to interest a wider readership.

Today it is impossible to separate discussion of poverty from the priorities of state welfare. A hundred years ago, most working-class households avoided or coped with poverty without recourse to the state. The Poor Law after 1834 offered little more than a 'safety net' for the poorest, and much welfare was organised through charitable societies, self-help institutions and mutual-aid networks. Rather than look for the origins of modern provision, the author casts a searching light on the practices, ideology and outcomes of nineteenth-century welfare. This original and stimulating study, based upon a wealth of scholarship, is essential reading for all students of poverty and welfare. It also contains much to interest a wider readership.

First published in 1986, this book examines poverty and changing attitudes towards the poor and charity across England, France and Italy. It discusses the causes of poverty and the distinctions between the poor and the class-conscious proletariat. Taking early nineteenth-century Italy as a special study, it uses the exceptionally rich documentary sources from this time to examine such issues as charity, repression, the reasons why families suffered poverty and what strategies they adopted for survival. In this study, Stuart Woolf takes full account of recent work in historical demography and in sociological studies of poverty and the welfare state to produce this original and thoughtful work. This book will be of interest to those studying the history of poverty, class and the welfare state.

This is a major new history of the dramatic and enduring changes in the daily lives of poor European women and men in the nineteenth century. Rachel G. Fuchs conveys the extraordinary difficulties facing the destitute from England to Russia, paying particular attention to the texture of women's everyday lives. She shows their strength as they attempted to structure a life and set of relationships within a social order, culture, community, and the law. Within a climate of calamities, the poor relied on their own resourcefulness and community connections where the boundaries between the private and public were indistinguishable, and on a system of exchange and reciprocity to help them fashion their culture of expediencies. This accessible synthesis introduces readers to conflicting interpretations of major historic developments and evaluates those interpretations. It will be essential reading for students of women's and gender studies, urban history and social and family history.

This collection of all new essays seeks to answer a series of questions surrounding the Victorian response to poverty in Britain. In short, what did various layers of society say the poor deserved and what did they do to help them? The work is organized against the backdrop of the 1834 New Poor Laws, recognizing that poverty garnered considerable attention in England because of its pervasive and painful presence. Each essay examines a different initiative to help the poor. Taking an historical tack, the essayists begin with the royal perspective and move into the responses of Church of England members, Evangelicals, and Roman Catholics; the social engagement of the literati is discussed as well. This collection reflects the real, monetary, spiritual and emotional investments of individuals, public institutions, private charities, and religious groups who struggled to address the needs of the poor.

Over the last 200 years Britain has witnessed profound changes in the nature and extent of state welfare. Drawing on the latest historical and social science research The Origins of the British Welfare State looks at the main developments in the history of social welfare provision in this period. It looks at the nature of problems facing British society in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries and shows how these provided the foundation for the growth of both statutory and welfare provision in the areas of health, housing, education and the relief of poverty. It also examines the role played by the Liberal government of 1906-14 in reshaping the boundaries of public welfare provision and shows how the momentous changes associated with the First and Second World Wars paved the way for the creation of the 'classic' welfare state after 1945. This comprehensive and broad-ranging yet accessible account encourages the reader to question the 'inevitability' of present-day arrangements and provides an important framework for comparative analysis. It will be essential reading for all concerned with social policy, British social history and public policy.

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 workhouses. In Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s Steven King reveals colourful stories of poor people, their advocates, and the officials with whom they engaged during this period in British history, distilled from the largest collection of parochial correspondence ever assembled. Investigating the way that people experienced and shaped the English and Welsh welfare system through the use of almost 26,000 pauper letters and the correspondence of overseers in forty-eight counties, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s reconstructs the process by which the poor claimed, extended, or defended their parochial allowances. Challenging preconceptions about literacy, power, social structure, and the agency of ordinary people, these stories suggest that advocates, officials, and the poor shared a common linguistic register and an understanding of how far welfare decisions could be contested and negotiated. King shifts attention away from traditional approaches to construct an unprecedented, comprehensive portrait of poor law administration and popular writing at the turn of the nineteenth century. At a time when the western European welfare model is under sustained threat, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s takes us back to its deepest roots to demonstrate that the signature of a strong welfare system is malleability.