Work and Unemployment 1834-1911

Marjorie Levine-Clark

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367335212
• eBook ISBN: 9781000523751
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

This volume explores questions surrounding what types of assistance were available to people out of work and who should receive that assistance during the nineteenth century. Documents on the Poor Law, voluntary organizations, and work relief schemes all demonstrate how central the work imperative was in the ways officials decided which applicants for assistance were deserving and which were not. Sources address many of the significant issues surrounding local relief to the unemployed, the growing influence of methodical approaches to charitable giving, and the use of measures of character embedded in the work imperative to choose worthy men to relieve. Accompanied by extensive editorial commentary, this volume will be of great interest to students of British History.

Part 1 THE POOR LAW

1 ANON., ‘PROGRESS OF PAUPERISM’ Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 3 (14 June 1834), pp. 231–232

DOI: 10.4324/9780429320354-4

The highly successful weekly Penny Magazine was founded in 1832 by Charles Knight and Matthew Davenport Hill for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (also see Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 11). Without touching on controversial issues like politics or religion, the newspaper was designed to inform working-class readers on important themes of the day, delivering messages of self-improvement and self-reliance. Like the British Workman (Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 6), the editors relied on abundant illustrations to appeal to the working classes and achieved a circulation of over 200,000 by the end of their first year.¹ The article included here describes the conditions that built up under the Old Poor Law that resulted in the call for its reform (see Volume 2 Introduction). The author believes that all labourers, working to their full productivity, had the potential to earn wages that could provide for subsistence and beyond; therefore, everyone should have the capability to be industrious and build up savings in case of ‘calamities’.² He creates a hypothetical situation in which lazy workers who were not productive relied on the generosity of those who were; these lazy workers then became entirely indolent, seeing no need to work. But this, the author claims, was actually no hypothetical: the situation had been existing in more complex forms under the Old Poor Law.³ He emphasizes that when the nation was economically strong, the prosperous did not feel terribly burdened by this state of affairs. Yet when land values diminished, they realized the drag on their wealth caused by the higher taxes they needed to pay to support the poor. Putting forward the classical liberal economic arguments of the day, the author asserts that each member of the nation had to see to their own welfare by being industrious.⁴ Otherwise the idle would diminish the welfare of the whole community, as he believed was currently the case in England. The writer bemoans the fact that the labouring classes had become less self-reliant and demonstrated little reluctance to depend on parish funds. Signifying a ‘general concurrence of opinion’,⁵ he states that the current management of the Poor Law was largely at fault for creating this dependent labouring class. The criticism that the Old Poor Law stripped workers of their independence was at the forefront of liberal arguments in favour of a radical alteration in its operation.

‘Progress of Pauperism’

THE welfare and happiness of every individual mainly depend on the obedience to a law which is unalterably annexed to his state of being. He must rely on the produce of his industry for the support of his existence: – he must live by the sweat of his brow. This hardship is perhaps more apparent than real. Some employment is required for the benefit of our health, and some is necessary to amuse and occupy the mind. It is true that some labour is exacted from us beyond those limits, to furnish out the means of subsistence; but still it is mitigated by a circumstance attending it which affords a sure ground of consolation, and leaves open to almost every individual the cheering prospect that the burthen of his work will cease long before his life is drawing to its close. We are made sensible by this circumstance that our existence is not a condemnation to punishment, but a great benefit conferred on those who can prevail on themselves to forego present enjoyment for future ease.

Every individual, even in the least favoured station of society, may produce more than is absolutely necessary for him to consume – may gain more than it is required for him to expend, and may, by forbearance, lay by some part of the fruits of his labour for future use. Nor do the unforeseen calamities which sometimes afflict individuals, and sometimes classes of the community, and which cut off those upon whom they fall from the immediate benefit of the rule, form any substantial objection to its general application. Such unexpected calamities make but a small proportion of the evils which infest us, and the sufferers may safely trust they will not be left by the rest of the community without relief. It is hardly necessary to give instances of the various modes in which this saving may be made. Let any person, who has passed some years after his arrival at the age of manhood, bring back to his recollection the manner in which he has spent the time he had passed, the ways in which he had disposed of his earnings, his useless and regretted expenditure, the means that had been offered and he had neglected of earning, and the opportunities he had lost of improving his condition. He would find, upon any just and honest calculation, that a little more than one-half of a life spent in industry and forbearance would have secured for the remainder of his existence a life of leisure, and even of idleness, if he should think idleness desirable.

If one hundred men were endowed with equal powers to labour, and placed on one hundred allotments of land of equal dimensions and equal capacity for production, it is evident that the most industrious amongst them would obtain the largest produce in return for the work he had done; and amongst the most industrious the one who consumed the smallest portion of his productions would lay by the greatest share for his future use. Now, if one of these one hundred persons, from disinclination to work, relaxed in his labour, and did not produce enough to support himself, he would probably apply to his more industrious and abstemious neighbour to assist him with some portion of his savings. This perhaps would be granted by indulgence. If this least industrious individual of the community could rely upon the continuance of these favours, it is probable he would not attempt again to exert himself efficiently in the production of his maintenance; – he would sit down contented with the hope of the same relief. But if, in the origin of this society, or at any time during its continuance, a compact had been formed amongst them to supply with the means of existence the members of the community who had neglected to lay by some portion of their produce for future use, it is certain, except such law was guarded by great precautions and vigilance in its execution, that the most unprincipled and worthless among them, thus sure of support, would relax in their industry and become the easy prey of their vicious inclinations and appetites, to the injury of themselves and their associates.

Now this supposed case exhibits a state of circumstances in which both the folly of idleness, as it affects the individual who is guilty of it, and the injustice of it, as it regards the rest of the community, are undeniable. It is folly, because the industrious portion of society, who are always the most powerful, may think it proper to refuse a gift which must be drawn from the means produced by their own forbearance, and kept for their own use, and which the idle and dissolute can have no natural right to demand; and it is certainly injustice, for what can be more unjust than to claim from the hard-earned stores which labour and economy have collected a supply to ward off the consequences which attend on vice and indolence?

The same principles which would influence the conduct of individuals in this supposed simple state of existence, of which we have given an example, are at work on the more complex frame in which it is at present constituted. Vice and idleness are fully as prevalent in them, in proportion to the increased population, and the inducements to indulge in them are more powerful. In an advanced state of civilisation, the necessary separation of the people into different ranks prevents a frequent intercourse between them; they are little acquainted with each other’s mode of life and manners. By the various modifications of property a large portion of it is exempted from injury on the commencement of a decline in our prosperity. The income of the mortgagee, the annuitant, the fund-holder are not affected. The intricacy of the rights which flow from the employment of a large capital, and the indirect and unseen manner in which the public burthens are sometimes imposed and raised for the support of those whom idleness has impoverished and vice rendered improvident, conceal in part from the view of a large portion of the community the early symptoms of a derangement in the moral habits of the labouring population. These evils are gradually and silently extended.

The wealth which had been accumulated in seasons of prosperity prevents their burthen from being immediately felt, and the approaching danger from being discovered. It is only when they have made great progress, when landed property begins to sink in value, and the store of wealth evidently to diminish, that a nation is aroused from its slumber, and thinks of searching for the grounds of the alteration. Such reflections can hardly escape even those who are most unused to observe attentively the scenes which human affairs present.

The prosperity of each individual, and of states, which are made up of individuals, is the result of the due observance of the conditions of industry and forbearance imposed on us as part of our state of being. They serve as the foundation (like gravitation in the mechanism of the universe) on which our welfare must depend for its stability: we are indebted to them for the wealth which has been accumulated, and it must be preserved from crumbling into the dust from which it has been raised by the same labour and abstinence by which it has been gathered up for our use. Under no form of government, under no system of laws, can we dispense with an attention to these conditions. In proportion as individuals relax in their observance of them, their well-being and happiness must be ultimately diminished: in proportion to the number of individuals who thus neglect their own welfare must the strength and prosperity of the state, of which they compose a part, be impaired.

These truths may be illustrated and exemplified by the effects they would produce on a district or a parish. Every person contained within such division must subsist on the produce of his own industry, whether it is obtained in kind or in money: as he received it he would either consume the whole or lay by a portion; or if he does not labour, he must be maintained by means of some store he had accumulated. There are but these two ways of being maintained without injury to the community to which he belongs. But if, by neglect or idleness, he fails in producing by his labour that which is necessary for his consumption, and has nothing of his own, but throws himself upon his neighbours to be supplied either by a part of their immediate gains, or from the provision they had set by for future use, it is evident that he diminishes the welfare of each individual from whose gains or property he thus takes a share. If the number of such individuals so living without labour, or without procuring a sufficient subsistence for themselves, amounted to a large proportion of such society, the result would be a general impoverishment, and if they continued to increase, the general ruin. Nations may perish by other means than the sword of a conqueror. They may be extinguished by vices and defects which gradually corrode and undermine them, which it requires great vigilance and sagacity to detect, and great courage and resolution to eradicate and subdue. These defects may originate in laws which are mischievous in themselves; in laws wisely enacted, but erroneously administered; in the misapplication of wealth; in bad examples; in the inculcation of mistaken principles of conduct. Such causes, and many others, may combine to corrupt the population of a country; to encourage idleness and vice; and to betray the people to abandon the course marked out for them by the laws of nature, which no one is permitted to leave with impunity.

For many years past, in this country, it had become evident that a change had taken place in the habits of the labouring classes: their industry was abated; their love of independence was less conspicuous; their reluctance to receive relief from funds collected from the rest of the community was less marked. The signs of this change and its tendency to increase became daily more manifest. The attention of the public and of the government were now fixed on these formidable appearances.

This change has been attributed to various causes: they have been successively examined and traced in their operation with the most signal sagacity and perseverance. It is scarcely possible to doubt that these fearful consequences are derived from a variety of sources. By a general concurrence of opinion, it appears to be admitted that the present system of administering the Poor Laws has contributed to produce a large share of those evils, and has assisted to aggravate the malignity of those which originated in other events. Many of the laws enacted for the relief of the poor contained provisions which proved, when carried into execution, to be clearly detrimental to the interests of all classes of the community. Some of them appeared to be wise and proper in themselves, but had been abused in practice, and perverted from their real object and intention. It appeared certain that, in the distribution of the funds raised under the name of a Poor Rate, great mismanagement prevailed. It was wasted upon persons who had no claim to it; lavished upon occasions where its application was neither justified by law nor necessity; it was made a resource of easy access to the indolent; it seduced the industrious from their habits of industry; and had, by such employment, a direct tendency to convert every labourer into a pauper – to degrade his mind and corrupt his morals: for who can retain proper feelings of his own worth and independence who consents to live without necessity on the charity of others, or take, in the form of a gift, the subsistence which, by means of his own labour, he may demand as a right.

These views produced several attempts, by means of new laws, to amend the system. The remedies thus proposed were sometimes locally and partially successful; bu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• General introduction
• Volume 2 Introduction
• Part 1 The Poor Law
• Part 2 Charity
• Part 3 Work relief
• Index