Volume 1

Annual report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales.

  • Great Britain. Poor Law Commissioners.
Date:
1835-1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    TABLE OF CONTENTS. REPORT. ■ . . . Pftf>e § 1. State in which the Commissioners found the parochial management at the time the Commission came into operation ..... 1 Erroneous impressions of parish officers that their powers were at an end 1 Want of preparation on the parts of Boards of Guardians and Select Vestries to discharge the duties imposed upon them by the Poor Law Amendment Act ....... . . . 2 § 2. Means taken by the Commissioners to promulgate the knowledge of the law, and to prevent confusion ....... 2 Nature of thecorrespondence opened between the Commissioners and the parishes , . .3 Impressions as to the supposed extinction of the magisterial authority in the administration of relief ....... 4 § 3. State of the administration of relief in the rural districts, at the com- mencement of last winter ........ 5 § 4. Insufficiency of information to enable the Commissioners to direct a change of system in single parishes without local inquiries by an Assis- tant Commissioner . ' . . . . . . .6 § 5. Circular of advice to the parochial officers as to the course to.be taken during the winter .......... 7 Protection of the aged and infirm from undue severity . .7 Suggestion of task-work at lower prices than those given to the inde- pendent labourer 7 Substitution of relief in kind for relief in money .... 7 Advantages of relief in kind 7 Advances of money, advances only of the means of relief . '. 8 Temptations to misapply those means . . . ... .8 Advances of relief in kind, advances of the relief itself ... 8 Difficulties in the misapplication of that relief 8 Operation as a self-acting test g Diminution of unwarranted fluctuations in the allowance of relief . '. 8 Beneficial operation of this change in the rural districts 9 § 6. Inadequacy of the agency for effecting any complete change in a We proportion of the rural parishes ....7.9 § 7. Obstacles to the enforcement of out-door labour as a substitute, or as an auxiliary to the workhouse system g Failure of out-door relief during bad weather , ', * ' 10 Inapplicable to meet single and separate cases in small parishes . ! 10 Uimculties in obtaining an agency to enforce and superintend out-door labour ]o Difficulties in obtaining land on which out-door labourers may be em- Difficulties in distinguishing paupers from independent labourers em- ployed on out-door labour .... ■,, Temptations tn jobbing, and to resort to such labour as a means of pau- perizing the labourers .... p ,, § 8. Determination of the Commissioners to direct their attention exclusively . - t0 the general adoption of the workhouse system uusivciy ^ 5 9. The appointment of Assistant Commissioners . ' \% ^^MioJSss^ti0!of the dishicts fi,st examine'd hyihu I 11' ffeS C ProTd]n« Bd°PKd ^ tho AssWant Commissioners' {3 ratner than by changes in the single parishes ... 13