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The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New

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  • Blaug, Mark

Abstract

No Matter which authority we consult on the English Poor Laws in the nineteenth century the same conclusion emerge: the Old Poor Law demoralized the working class, promotedd population growth, lowered wasges, reduced rents, destroyed yeomanry, and compounded the burden on retepayes; the poverty which it relieved; the problem of devising an efficeient public relief system was finally solved with the passaage of the“harsh but salutry†Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. So Unanimous are both the indictment and the verdit of historians on this question that we may forego the pleasure of citing “chapter and verse.â€

Suggested Citation

  • Blaug, Mark, 1963. "The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(2), pages 151-184, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:23:y:1963:i:02:p:151-184_10
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    Cited by:

    1. Diganta Mukherjee & Uday Bhanu Sinha, 2013. "Understanding NREGA: A Simple Theory and Some Facts," Springer Books, in: Natteri Siddharthan & Krishnan Narayanan (ed.), Human Capital and Development, edition 2, chapter 0, pages 103-128, Springer.
    2. Basu, Arnab K. & Chau, Nancy H. & Kanbur, Ravi, 2009. "A theory of employment guarantees: Contestability, credibility and distributional concerns," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 482-497, April.
    3. Saeed, Muhammad Kashif & Hayat, Muhammad Azmat, 2020. "The Impact of Social Cash Transfers on Poverty in Pakistan-A Case Study of Benazir Income Support Programme," MPRA Paper 99805, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Martin Ravallion, 2020. "On the Origins of the Idea of Ending Poverty," NBER Working Papers 27808, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Brown, Charles C. & Oates, Wallace E., 1987. "Assistance to the poor in a federal system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 307-330, April.
    6. Henry French, 2015. "An irrevocable shift: detailing the dynamics of rural poverty in southern England, 1762–1834: a case study," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(3), pages 769-805, August.
    7. Horrell, Sara & Humphries, Jane & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2001. "Destined for Deprivation: Human Capital Formation and Intergenerational Poverty in Nineteenth-Century England," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 339-365, July.
    8. Bahal, G. & Shrivastava, A., 2016. "Labor Market Effects of Inconsistent Policy Interventions: Evidence from India’s Employment Guarantees," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1669, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. Greif, Avner & Iyigun, Murat, 2013. "What Did the Old Poor Law Really Accomplish? A Redux," IZA Discussion Papers 7398, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Marianne Page & Gregory Clark, 2008. "Welfare Reform, 1834," Working Papers 150, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    11. Katzenstein, Peter J., 2022. "Of Gardens, Forests, and Parks," EconStor Open Access Book Chapters, in: Uncertainty and Its Discontents: Worldviews in World Politics, pages 279-352, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    12. Thomas Nutt, 2010. "Illegitimacy, paternal financial responsibility, and the 1834 Poor Law Commission Report: the myth of the old poor law and the making of the new," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(2), pages 335-361, May.
    13. Joseph Persky, 1997. "Retrospectives: Classical Family Values: Ending the Poor Laws as They Knew Them," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 179-189, Winter.
    14. Steven Pressman, 2014. "Keynes, Family allowances and Keynesian economic policy," LIS Working papers 616, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    15. Nina Boberg-Fazlić & Paul Sharp, 2018. "North and south: long-run social mobility in England and attitudes toward welfare," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 12(2), pages 251-276, May.
    16. Ziliak, Stephen T., 1997. "Kicking the Malthusian vice: Lessons from the abolition of "welfare" in the late nineteenth century," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 449-468.
    17. William Baumol, 2012. "Mark Blaug (1927–2011)," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 36(2), pages 167-170, May.
    18. Gregory Clark & Marianne E. Page, 2019. "Welfare reform, 1834: Did the New Poor Law in England produce significant economic gains?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 13(2), pages 221-244, May.
    19. Bahal, Girish & Shrivastava, Anand, 2021. "Supply variabilities in public workfares," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    20. Marianne Page & Gregory Clark, 2008. "Welfare Reform, 1834," Working Papers 87, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.

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