In Their Own Write: Contesting the New Poor Law, 1834–1900 (Volume 6) (States, People, and the History of Social Change)

<div>Few subjects in European welfare history attract as much attention as the nineteenth-century English and Welsh New Poor Law. Its founding statute was considered the single most important piece of social legislation ever enacted, and at the same time,the coming of its institutions - from penny-pinching Boards of Guardians to the dreaded workhouse - has generally been viewed as a catastrophe for ordinary working people. Until now it has been impossible to know how the poor themselves felt about the New Poor Law and its measures, how they negotiated its terms, and how their interactions with the local and national state shifted and changed across the nineteenth century. In Their Own Write exposes this hidden history. Based on an unparalleled collection of first-hand testimony - pauper letters and witness statements interwoven with letters to newspapers and correspondence from poor law officials and advocates - the book reveals lives marked by hardship, deprivation, bureaucratic intransigence, parsimonious officialdom, and sometimes institutional cruelty, while also challenging the dominant view that the poor were powerless and lacked agency in these interactions. The testimonies collected in these pages clearly demonstrate that both the poor and their advocates were adept at navigating the new bureaucracy, holding local and national officials to account, and influencing the outcomes of relief negotiations for themselves and their communities. Fascinating and compelling, the stories presented in In Their Own Write amount to nothing less than a new history of welfare from below.</div>

History

CARTER, Paul

King, Steven

Beardmore, Carol

Jones. Peter

Carter, Natalie

Europe

McGill-Queen's University Press

Few subjects in European welfare history attract as much attention as the nineteenth-century English and Welsh New Poor Law. Its founding statute was considered the single most important piece of social legislation ever enacted, and at the same time, the coming of its institutions – from penny-pinching Boards of Guardians to the dreaded workhouse – has generally been viewed as a catastrophe for ordinary working people. Until now it has been impossible to know how the poor themselves felt about the New Poor Law and its measures, how they negotiated its terms, and how their interactions with the local and national state shifted and changed across the nineteenth century. In Their Own Write exposes this hidden history. Based on an unparalleled collection of first-hand testimony – pauper letters and witness statements interwoven with letters to newspapers and correspondence from poor law officials and advocates – the book reveals lives marked by hardship, deprivation, bureaucratic intransigence, parsimonious officialdom, and sometimes institutional cruelty, while also challenging the dominant view that the poor were powerless and lacked agency in these interactions. The testimonies collected in these pages clearly demonstrate that both the poor and their advocates were adept at navigating the new bureaucracy, holding local and national officials to account, and influencing the outcomes of relief negotiations for themselves and their communities. Fascinating and compelling, the stories presented in In Their Own Write amount to nothing less than a new history of welfare from below.

Fraudulent Lives: Imagining Welfare Cheats from the Poor Law to the Present (Volume 9) (States, People, and the History of Social Change)

Concealed beneath a garden in a suburban back yard, a miracle is revealed. Experience the journey of a caterpillar as he undergoes nature's little miracle of complete metamorphosis of an egg into a caterpillar into a chrysalis into a shiny butterfly! The many exciting details of a butterfly's life cycle are brought to life with rhythmic writing style, imaginative illustrations, and vivid colors - tapping into children's natural sense of wonder and discovery (grownups too!) - all composed in a book to help make learning science fun for children.

Have you ever Met a Morphosis?

Children's Books

Animals

Steven King

As the Blair government launches a new campaign against poverty, the notion of “the deserving and undeserving poor” raises it head again in the media. The Poor Law, particularly the Old/New Poor Law at the junction of the 18th and 19th centuries in England is again the focus of attention. This book provides the first accessible and comprehensive overview of the literature on poverty and of the welfare policies of the state, as well as the alternative welfare strategies of the poor for the period 1700-1850.

Poverty and Welfare in England, 1700-1850 (Manchester Studies in Modern History)

Business & Money

International

Manchester University Press

This comprehensive and innovative book on the Industrial Revolution uses carefully chosen case studies, illustrated with extracts from contemporary documents, to offer new perspectives on the process and impact of industrialization. The authors look at the development of economic structures, the financing of the Industrial Revolution, technological advances, markets and demand, and agricultural progress. The book also deals with changes in demography, the household, families, and the built environment.

Making Sense of the Industrial Revolution: English Economy and Society 1700-1850 (Manchester Studies in Modern History)

Timmins, Geoffrey

Economics

Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s (Volume 1) (States, People, and the History of Social Change)

Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s (States, People, and the History of Social Change) (Volume 1)

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.

Presents narratives of the poor in eighteenth-century Britain. This collection covers the period from the early eighteenth century through to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and includes transcriptions of hand-written first-hand representations of poverty to poor law officials.

Narratives of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century England Vol 1

ZUNSHINE, LISA

King,Peter

Levene, Alysa

Symonds, Deborah A.

Tomkins, Alannah

Nutt, Thomas

Routledge

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Books by King, Steven