First published in 1981. Professor Crowther traces the history of the workhouse system from the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 to the Local Government Act of 1929. At their outset the large residential institutions were seen by the Poor Law Commissioners as a cure for nearly all social ills. In fact these formidable, impersonal, prison-like buildings – housing all paupers under one roof – became institutionalised: places where routine came to be an end in itself. In the early twentieth century some of the workhouses became hospitals or homes for the old or handicapped but many continued to form a residual service for those who needed long-term care. Crowther pays attention not only to the administrators but also to the inmates and their daily life. She illustrates that the workhouse system was not simply a nineteenth-century phenomenon but a forerunner of many of today’s social institutions.

Originally published in 1946, this book traces the essential changes in structure, areas and in the relations between local and central authorities in England from 1832 to the Education Act of 1944. Modern English local government has developed from the industrial and scientific revolution and the growth of political democracy since 1832 and the present system is the result of an interplay between political, economic and scientific factors. The book contains a stand-alone chapter on London government and an introductory chapter on the condition of local government between 1689 and 1832.