ENGLISH POOR LAW POLICY.
BY
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.,
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON,
NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA.
1910. (_Second Impression, 1913_)
PREFACE
Nothing of to-day, it may be suggested, can be really understood
without its history. This, at any rate, is true of the complicated
policy of the English Poor Law, which is now (1910) costing the
public (for the United Kingdom) close upon twenty millions sterling
every year; and which is producing, on the whole, results which
led the Royal Commissioners of 1905-1909, without distinction
of political or economic party or creed, to their unanimous and
emphatic condemnatory verdict. That policy is embodied in a
bewildering chaos of Statutes and Orders, Circulars and Minutes,
general reports and official letters, the specific provisions of
which, so far as they are contemporaneously in force, and so far
as they are publicly known, the legal text-books and elementary
manuals seek to re-arrange in such a way that the Poor Law Guardian
or Workhouse Master may learn, at any rate, what is legally
prescribed. But though a precise statement of what is to-day
prescribed, in alphabetical or other order, may suffice for the
practical work of the administrator, it does not afford us any
idea of the general policy that lies behind the prescriptions, and
fails even to enable the ordinary citizen to understand what is
being done. We suggest, in short, that the English Poor Law policy
of to-day cannot be correctly appreciated, or even intelligently
comprehended, without some knowledge of the stages through which,
in the course of the past seventy-five years, it has gradually
been moulded into its present form. To any one who compares the
contents of the Annual Report of the Local Government Board of
to-day with those of the slim little volume in which the Poor Law
Commissioners of 1835 described their activity, it will be evident
that, throughout the whole range of the Poor Law, the Policy of
the Central Authority has undergone great changes. What these
changes have actually been, and at what dates and in what order
they occurred, the following chronological analysis of the action
of the Poor Law Commissioners, the Poor Law Board, and the Local
Government Board for England and Wales attempts to set forth.
The extent, the complication, and what may be thought the aridity
of this analysis may probably daunt many who ought to read it. But
if they will persevere, they will find that the severe and exact
chronological record through which they are taken with regard to
each class of paupers--the Able-bodied, the Vagrants, the Sick,
the Women, the Children, the Aged, etc.--will presently reveal to
them the current in which they are themselves moving, the stream
of tendencies down which we are all floating, with a clearness
of comprehension not otherwise to be obtained. It is here not a
question of whether we approve of this evolution of policy, or of
whether we should seek to promote or to resist it, but merely of
what exactly it has been, and therefore now is.
In view of the attention given to the Poor Law by many writers,
it is, perhaps, a matter for surprise, that no such chronological
analysis of policy has before been undertaken. Except in regard to
a few special matters, it is impossible, in any published work, to
trace the exact course of development of English Poor Law policy
since the great revolution of 1834. The most systematic books upon
the English Poor Law System, such as those by Dr. Aschrott and
Monsieur Émile Chevalier,[1] have confined themselves, in the main,
to a description of the contemporary state of things, with only
comparatively brief and general accounts of how it came about. The
popular manuals, such as the admirable little book of the Rev. T.
W. Fowle, can naturally only give such scraps of history as are
current.[2] Even Mr. Mackay, in adding a third volume to Sir George
Nicholls' _History of the English Poor Law_,[3] has limited himself
to a series of essays on particular points, without attempting
any but the briefest chronological analysis of the evolution of
policy of the Central Authority since 1834, upon which the whole
administration of the Boards of Guardians depends.
[1] See, for instance, _The English Poor Law System_, by Paul
Felix Aschrott, translated by H. Preston Thomas, 1888 and 1902;
_La Loi des pauvres et la société anglaise_, par E. Chevalier,
1895; _The Better Administration of the Poor Law_, by Sir William
Chance, Bart., 1895; _The Public Relief of the Poor_, by T.
Mackay, 1901; _L'Assistance légale et la lutte contre le
pauperisme en Angleterre_, par G. E. de Froment, 1905.
[2] _The Poor Law_, by the Rev. T. W. Fowle, 1881; _The English
Poor Laws_, by Miss Sophia Lonsdale, 1897 and 1902; _Our Treatment
of the Poor_, by Sir Wm. Chance, Bart, 1899; _The Public Relief of
the Poor_, by T. Mackay, 1901.
[3] _History of the English Poor Law_, vol. iii., from 1834 to the
present time, by T. Mackay, 1899.
It is easy to understand this general reluctance to work out,
from the materials themselves, the Poor Law history of the last
three-quarters of a century. As with all nineteenth-century
history, the extent, the variety, and the intricacy of the
various sources are simply overwhelming. The number of official
records--Statutes, Orders, Circulars, Minutes, Reports, Letters,
etc.--dealt with for the present small volume (although we have
confined ourselves in the main to the publications of the Central
Authority itself, and have not been able to consult the manuscript
records and letter-books of more than a score of the Boards of
Guardians) runs into, literally, tens of thousands.
So great a mass of documentary material, without arrangement,
unclassified, unindexed, formless, and void of any obvious
significance, could be dealt with only by a systematic exploration.
We may here describe, as an instance of sociological method, the
plan that we adopted. What obscured the history was the manner in
which masses of heterogeneous facts were heaped together. To read,
one after another, these complicated Orders and lengthy Reports,
each dealing with all kinds of paupers and various methods of
relief, was but to accumulate confusion. They resembled a heap of
geological conglomerates which could not be assayed until they had
been broken up in such a way as to sort the different materials
into separate homogeneous parcels. We discarded all idea of making
précis, summaries, or analyses of particular statutes or orders,
believing that in this way brevity is gained only at the expense
of omitting important qualifications. After the choice of a
provisional scheme of classification, to which careful thought was
given, the expressions of policy embodied in each document were all
severally copied on loose sheets of paper of even size and shape.
Every prescription or dictum conveying an expression of policy with
regard to a particular class of paupers was placed upon a separate
sheet. Thus, a single Order or Circular might yield items relating
to women, to children, to persons on Outdoor Relief, to the sick,
to the aged, and so on. However many and however closely related
were the classes to which the same prescription applied, it was
noted on a separate sheet for each of them, with the date and place
and exact source. To deal in this way, with scrupulous accuracy
and exhaustiveness, with all the Statutes, all the General Orders,
all the Special Orders, all the Circulars, all the published
Minutes, all the official reports, and all the letters of the
Central Authority to which we could gain access absorbed something
like nine months' continuous work. But for the first time order
was evolved out of chaos. It was easy to sort the loose sheets by
subjects, and to arrange each series chronologically. This done, we
had before us, separated out from the mass, every prescription or
dictum as to the policy to be pursued, or the action to be taken
with regard to each particular class. The series of prescriptions
and suggestions with regard to children, for instance, could be
read in chronological sequence. At this stage it needed little
ingenuity to seize the salient points. The development of policy
leaped to the eyes. Another three months' work enabled the record
to be put into a series of continuous narratives, with precise
references to the original authorities.
The reader who wants merely to know what it all amounts to should
turn to the last four chapters. Here he will find, succinctly set
forth, first "The Principles of 1907," being the principles on
which, as a matter of fact, the Local Government Board was (and
still is) proceeding, in contrast with "The Principles of 1834,"
from which seventy-five years of experience have reluctantly driven
it. In subsequent chapters will be found a critical examination
of both the Majority and the Minority Reports of the Poor Law
Commission of 1905-1909, in the light of these "Principles of 1834"
and "Principles of 1907," with an attempt to appreciate what is
novel in those Reports, and to estimate how far they are severally
consistent with a due enforcement of personal responsibility.[4]
If the reader or reviewer is still more impatient he will probably
content himself with the final summary and conclusion.
[4] The Minority Report has been separately published in book
form, in two volumes, _The Break Up of The Poor Law_, and _The
Public Organization of the Labour Market_, each edited, with an
introduction, by S. and B. Webb (Longmans. 1909).
It remains for us to acknowledge the help without which this work
could not have been accomplished. The task was undertaken at the
suggestion of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law; and it formed
the subject of a report circulated to the Commission in July
1907. No printed document has been quoted which is not published
to the world; and (with trifling exceptions of ancient date) no
unprinted Minute or Letter has been used which has not been issued
as a public document, or is not freely accessible in the official
archives. But we owe to the officials of the Local Government Board
and of the Boards of Guardians concerned--and among so many it
would be invidious to particularise--not only various facilities
for consulting these public documents, but also many helpful
suggestions, criticisms, and corrections of errors of fact. Above
all we are indebted to Miss Mary Longman, of Girton College,
Cambridge, and of the London School of Economics and Political
Science, for the whole of the laborious service of effecting, under
our direction, the preliminary breaking-up of the conglomerates,
and much help in the more interesting work of making the final
assay. Without this zealous, unsparing, and devoted assistance, we
could not have found time to execute the work. Mrs. F. H. Spencer,
D.Sc. (Econ.), investigated for us the records of various Boards
of Guardians up and down the country, in order to trace their
official correspondence with the Poor Law Commissioners, the Poor
Law Board, and the Local Government Board. To Miss Mildred Bulkley,
B.Sc. (Econ.), also of the London School of Economics and Political
Science, we owe not only many suggestions of value, but also the
checking of all the references, the correcting of the proofs, and
the preparing of the index.
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB.
41 GROSVENOR ROAD, WESTMINSTER.
_January, 1910._
CONTENTS PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I
THE REVOLUTION OF 1834 1
The 1834 Report--National Uniformity--The
Able-bodied--Vagrants--Women--The Children--The Sick--The Aged and
Impotent (or Infirm)--The Workhouse--Emigration--Relief on
Loan--The Principles of 1834.
The Act of 1834 and its Amendments--National Uniformity--The
Able-bodied--Vagrants--Women--Children--The Sick--The Aged and
Impotent--The Workhouse--Emigration--Relief on Loan.