1. The ‘Condition of England’ question

2. Introduction Society structured into social classes.
Social order considered as natural by most.
19th century: time of uncertainty.

3. Outline I/ The working class and the poor
II/ The Poor Law and its Reform
1834: The New Poor Law
III/ From laissez-faire to intervention
The Factory Acts

4. I/ The working class and the poor

5. The working class 80% of the population
19th century economy : industrialisation

6. Poverty ≠ working classes
Victorian attitude to poverty = sin ( result of idleness).
Belief in self-help.

7. Terminology Lower orders, lower classes, underclasses
Labouring poor (until 1850), labourers
Not all of them were poor
Working people, working class / working classes ( )
« Working class » implies these people had work (not always the case).
Would not apply to the agricultural world

8. Working class according to the 1851 census
Factory?
 Out of 5 million workers, only 2 million were in mechanised jobs.
Industry?
 As many servants as textile workers.
Mines?
 More shoemakers than coal miners.

9. London
More small scale work (clothing, furniture making, printing, small workshops).
Slower mechanisation than in textile / metal industry

10. Factory life Excessive hours No pause, except 40 mn at noon
Poor conditions of work
Cruelty

11. Ford Madox Brown, Work,

12. No social security! Cf Early Victorian Britain, 1832-50, p. 59
 Problem for sick or retired workers.

13. Homelessness Thousands sleeping under bridges or railway arches.
Not allowed to sleep at night (police)
First generation (relatively healthy)  3rd generation (sterile)
Augustus Egg, Past and Present, 1858

14. II/ The Poor Law and Its Reform

15. The Old Poor Law Elizabethan legislation passed between 1597 and 1602
Administered through the parish
Funded by the rates
Outdoor relief

16. Aim: provide work for the unemployed + « outdoor relief » for the impotent.
Ideological basis: helping people who could not work through no fault of their own.
Limits:
Waste of public spending
Limited to C of E members
Became too expensive
Subsidized uncompetitive work

17. The « Speenhamland System » (1797)
Income of the poor supplemented by the parish if it fell below a certain low level.
Still outdoor relief.
Criticism: lower wages + population growth (Thomas Malthus).

18. New Poor Law (1834: Poor Law Amendment Act)
All relief through the workhouse
“Less eligibility” principle ( = worse than the worst paid job).

19. The Victorian workhouse
Everything provided on site (food, clothes)
Buildings where people could live and work (workshops, dining halls, etc)
 rational

20.
BUT
Separation of families
Hard work
Sickness
Shame

21. Charity

22. Charity Cause = reluctance towards state intervention
1860 = £1,600,000 private donation
(poor rates = £1, 500, 000)
Examples
taking London children to visit a farm
institutions for prostitutes
libraries, societies, etc.

23. Intentions Preventing social disorder
Reforming morality through material conditions
Spreading middle class values in the working class
Means of control

24. Source: http://www.lyons-family.co.uk
Peabody Buildings
No entry unless the whole family had been vaccinated.
Source:

25. III/ From laissez-faire to intervention

26. Laissez-faire
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, 1848: “Laissez-faire, in short, should be the general practice: every departure from it, unless required by some great good, is a certain evil.”
The State should stand aside  self-help.
Social darwinism

27. Towards intervention Discovering poverty: social surveys
Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor ( )
Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People of London (late 1880s)

28. Interpretation of poverty
No longer idleness, intemperance, vice…
Intrinsic functioning of the industrial system
Forced idleness VS hard work
Shift from individual causes to an accusation of structures. Collective responsibility.
Shift from a moral discourse to a social and economic analysis.

29. Public intervention
Collective treatment of health and sanitary problems.
1848: Public Health Act (town councils responsible for drainage and water supply).
 « a system of centralisation that goes against our principles and our tastes which have hitherto always encouraged local self-government ».
Not incompatible with self-help.

30. Factory Acts
= A series of measures limiting the number of working hours, in particular for women and children.

31. Chronology [1802] 1833 (factory inspectors)
1844 (6.5 working hours a day for children above 9 / 12 hours above the age of 13).
(working week limited to 60 hours).
1850 (work stops at 2 p.m. on Saturdays).
1874 (56,5 working hours a week).

32. Opposition From government
 Did not want to interfere with private rights
From industrialists
 In particular those who believed in free trade.
From parents
Childcare pbs + children = income.

33. Conclusion: Characteristics of Victorian reformism
Cheap, respecting essential liberal reformism.
Role of local authorities.
No attempt to change the constitutional and political balance of society.
Reluctance to let the workers organise themselves.