Poor Law

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Lauren Farquharson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • a scottish Poor Law of lunacy Poor Law lunacy Law and scotland s parochial asylums
    History of Psychiatry, 2017
    Co-Authors: Lauren Farquharson
    Abstract:

    Scotland's parochial asylums are unfamiliar institutional spaces. Representing the concrete manifestation of the collision between two spheres of legislation, the Poor Law and the Lunacy Law, six such asylums were constructed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These sites expressed the enduring mandate of the Scottish Poor Law 1845 over the domain of 'madness'. They were institutions whose very existence was fashioned at the directive of the local arm of the Poor Law, the parochial board, and they constituted a continuing 'Scottish Poor Law of Lunacy'. Their origins and operation significantly subverted the intentions and objectives of the Lunacy Act 1857, the aim of which had been to institute a public district asylum network with nationwide coverage.

  • A ‘Scottish Poor Law of Lunacy’? Poor Law, Lunacy Law and Scotland’s parochial asylums:
    History of psychiatry, 2016
    Co-Authors: Lauren Farquharson
    Abstract:

    Scotland's parochial asylums are unfamiliar institutional spaces. Representing the concrete manifestation of the collision between two spheres of legislation, the Poor Law and the Lunacy Law, six such asylums were constructed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These sites expressed the enduring mandate of the Scottish Poor Law 1845 over the domain of 'madness'. They were institutions whose very existence was fashioned at the directive of the local arm of the Poor Law, the parochial board, and they constituted a continuing 'Scottish Poor Law of Lunacy'. Their origins and operation significantly subverted the intentions and objectives of the Lunacy Act 1857, the aim of which had been to institute a public district asylum network with nationwide coverage.

Steven King - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Thinking and rethinking the New Poor Law
    Local Population Studies, 2017
    Co-Authors: Steven King
    Abstract:

    At the core of this article is the observation that, notwithstanding recent advances, we understand much less about the New Poor Law than the Old. An increasingly strong grasp of who was in workhouses is balanced by an historiography on the agency of workhouse inmates which is best described as 'thin'. The medical functions of the workhouse have, both for 'normal' times and occasions of scandal, been increasingly well researched. By contrast the religious and educational functions of workhouses remain relatively under-researched. About those on outdoor relief and those who administered their relief we know almost nothing. This article reviews the highlights of current literature and attempts to establish an agenda, in part met by contributions to this special issue, for future research.

  • Nursing Under the Old Poor Law in Midland and Eastern England 1780–1834
    Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, 2014
    Co-Authors: Steven King
    Abstract:

    This article uses data drawn from the overseers' accounts and supporting documentation in thirty-six parishes spread over four English counties, to answer three basic questions. First, what was the character, extent, structure, range of activities, and remuneration of the nursing labor force under the Old Poor Law between the late eighteenth century and the implementation of the New Poor Law in the 1830s? Second, were there regional and intra-regional differences in the scale and nature of spending on nursing care for the sick Poor? Third, how might one explain such differences? The article suggests that nursing became an increasingly important category of spending for the Poor Law from the later eighteenth century, but that there were significant variations within and (particularly) between English counties in parochial attitudes toward the provision of nursing for the sick Poor. These variations can be explained by applying a matrix of explanatory variables ranging from the minor (differences in how parishes defined "nursing") through to the major (long-standing cultural attitudes toward the responsibility of parishioners to their sick compatriots and the ingrained expectations of the sick Poor). The article also throws new light on the hidden aspects of female labor force participation, pointing to the development of professional nursing networks long before the later nineteenth century.

  • "Stop this overwhelming torment of destiny": negotiating financial aid at times of sickness under the English Old Poor Law, 1800-1840.
    Bulletin of the history of medicine, 2005
    Co-Authors: Steven King
    Abstract:

    The issue of entitlement under the English Poor Law (1601-1834) is a complex question, and nowhere more so than in the context of the sick Poor. Using the example of communities in one of England's most parsimonious Poor Law counties, Lancashire, this article will show that the sick Poor faced uncertain and uneven entitlement to relief and medical intervention. Faced with such uncertainty, they adopted three core linguistic and posturing strategies when attempting to establish their eligibility for relief in the eyes of Poor Law officials. Pauper letters and the correspondence of overseers of the Poor and vestries are used to unpick the process of obtaining Poor relief and to highlight the subtle strategization of pauper applicants. The article concludes by suggesting that there may have been a regional patterning in access to medical relief in England in the last decades of the Old Poor Law.

  • “We Might be Trusted”: Female Poor Law Guardians and the Development of the New Poor Law: The Case of Bolton, England, 1880–1906
    International Review of Social History, 2004
    Co-Authors: Steven King
    Abstract:

    This article uses the only surviving working diary of an English female Poor Law guardian in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to explore two interrelated bodies of historiography. First, it engages with an historiography of the New Poor Law which has by and large seen the late nineteenth century as a period of atrophication. Second, it engages with a literature on female Poor Law guardians which has on balance questioned their achievements and seen such women as subject to all sorts of conflict and discrimination. The article argues that both perspectives may be questioned where we focus on local Poor Law policies and local women. Using the example of Bolton, in England, it is argued that the boards of Poor Law unions were riven by fracture lines more important than gender. Within this context, women of relatively high social status were able to manipulate the Poor Law agenda to make substantial changes to the policy and fabric of the late Victorian Poor Law. Rather than conflict, we often see a warm appreciation of the pioneering work of female Poor Law guardians.

Thomas Nutt - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Peter Bartlett - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the Poor Law of lunacy the administration of pauper lunatics in mid nineteenth century england
    1999
    Co-Authors: Peter Bartlett
    Abstract:

    Socio-legal history and asylums Poor Law and Asylum Law as a single strand the legislation of pauper lunacy the pragmatics of co-existence - local officials and pauper lunacy local administration - the creation of coherence among misfits the Lunacy Commission and the soft-centre of reform conclusion - asylums, Poor Law and modernity. Appendices: quantitative indicators Leicestershire statistics dietaries, Leicester Asylum and Leicester Workhouse forms of admission documents and case books.

  • The Poor Law of lunacy : the administration of pauper lunatics in mid-nineteenth century England, with special emphasis on Leicestershire and Rutland
    1993
    Co-Authors: Peter Bartlett
    Abstract:

    Previous historical studies of the care of the insane in nineteenth century England have been based in the history of medicine. In this thesis, such care is placed in the context of the English Poor Law. The theory of the 1834 Poor Law was essentially silent on the treatment of the insane. That did not mean that developments in Poor Law had no effect only that the effects must be established by examination of administrative practices. To that end, this thesis focuses on the networks of administration of the Poor Law of lunacy, from 1834 to 1870. County asylums, a creation of the old (pre-1834) Poor Law, grew in numbers and scale only under the new Poor Law. While remaining under the authority of local Justices of the Peace, mid-century legislation provided an increasing role for local Poor Law staff in the admissions process. At the same time, workhouse care of the insane increased. Medical specialists in lunacy were generally excluded from local admissions decisions. The role of central commissioners was limited to inspecting and reporting; actual decision-making remained at the local level. The webs of influence between these administrators are traced, and the criteria they used to make decisions identified. The Leicestershire and Rutland Lunatic asylum provides a local study of these relations. Particular attention is given to admission documents and casebooks for those admitted to the asylum between 1861 and 1865. The examination of the asylum documents, the analysis of the broader relationships of the administrators, and a reading of the legislation itself, all point up tensions between ideologies of the old and new Poor Law in the administration of pauper lunacy.

Susan Cottam - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.