Description
The English Poor Law Report of 1834 is one of the classic documents of western social history... It is the record of the attempt by parliament, within the first industrializing society, to comprehend the condition of the labouring poor and to formulate a policy.'
The Report, strongly reflecting the views of contributors like Edwin Chadwick and Nassau Senior, led to one of the most controversial pieces of social legislation in English history, the Poor Law Amendment Act, which played a large part in the social crises of the thirties and forties. The Report itself is invaluable, not only as a social document, but also as reflection of the utilitarian and moralistic out- look, with its stress on personal autonomy through self-help, which was a feature of emergent industrialism. For us, as the editors say, it poses a dual challenge: to understand the situation out of which it arose, and by contrast, to make explicit the assumptions that lie behind our views of the poor today.
ISBN:0140400265
