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The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the poverty relief system of the United Kingdom, that had been based on the Poor Law Act 1601, and had been largely unchanged since then. The Amendment Act was called for after an investigation by the Royal Commission On The Poor Law made up of Edwin Chadwick, George Nichols and Nassau William Senior.
The Royal Commissions findings, which had most probably been predetermined, were that the old system was badly and expensively run. The Commission's recommendations were based on two core principles. The first was "less eligibility": that the position of the pauper should be less eligible (that is, less to be chosen) than that of the independent labourer. The other was the "workhouse test", that relief should only be available in the workhouse. The reformed workhouses were to be uninviting, so that anyone capable of coping outside them would choose not to be in one.
When the act was introduced however it had been partly watered down. The workhouse test and the idea of "less eligibility" were never mentioned themselves, and the core recomendation of the Royal Commission - that 'outdoor' relief (relief given outside of a workhouse) should be abolished - was never implemented.
The bill established a Poor Law Board to oversee the operation of the system on a national scale. This included the forming together of small parishes into poor law Unions and the building of workhouses in each union for the giving of poor relief.
The Amendment Act did not, however, ban all forms of outdoor relief. Not until the 1840's would the only method of relief be for the poor to enter a workhouse. The workhouses themselves were to be made as little more than prisons, and families were normally separated upon entering a workhouse.
When the new Amendment was applied to the industrial North of England (an area the law had never considered during reviews), the system failed catastrophically as many found themselves temporarily unemployed, due to recessions or a fall in stock demands, so called 'cyclical unemployment', and were reluctant to enter a workhouse, despite it being the only method of gaining aid.
The abuses and shortcomings of the system are documented in the novels of Charles Dickens and Frances Trollope. Despite the aspirations of the reformers, the Poor Law was unable to make the workhouse as bad as life outside. The primary problem was that in order, for example, to make the diet of the Workhouse inmates "less eligible" than what they could expect outside, it would be necesery to starve the inmates beyond an acceptable level. It was for this reason that other ways were found to deter entrance to the workhouses. These measures ranged from the introduction of 'prison style' uniforms to the segregation of 'inmates' into yards - there were normally male, female, boy and girls yards.
Fierce hostility and organised opposition from workers, politicians, and religious leaders eventually lead to the Amendment Act being updated and softened, removing the very harsh measures of the workhouses to a certain degree. The Andover Scandal, where conditions in the Andover Union Workhouse were found to be inhumane and dangerous, prompted a government review and the abolishment of the Poor Law Board. From now on a committee of parliament was to govern and administer the Poor Law, with a cabinet minister as head.
With the arrival of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, the working class finally had a voice in Parliament and began taking action to bring about yet more changes to the Poor Laws of Great Britain.
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Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom | English laws | 1834 in law
"Poor Law Amendment Act 1834"