POVERTY AND SOCIAL WELFARE IN GREAT BRITAIN FROM 1598 A MAJOR COLLECTION Poverty has been a major theme in the economic and social history of Britain. Its presence, in acute form, has constituted a challenge to the efficiency of capitalism as a basis of social organisation. The earliest attempts to alleviate poverty came from the church. Food was distributed to travellers and to the poor at the door of church and monastery. Charity was a Christian duty and there was often as much interest in the spiritual benefits of the souls of those who gave, as concern for the effect on the poor themselves. Indiscriminate charity could have harmful results. Certain of support from the church, many preferred to beg rather than work and the numbers of those seeking help increased to such an extent that they became a nuisance and a threat to a healthy economy. Beggars were regarded and often described as though they were a swarm of parasites, or a disease that infected the community. The whole history of the Poor in Britain has reflected an endless tension between two considerations. On the one hand was a genuine desire to help the poor and destitute: to provide food, shelter and care to those who were unable to provide it for themselves. On the other was a fear of encouraging idleness and permitting a lazy, possibly dishonest and certainly costly body of dependants to grow up and hang like a burden on the rest of the state. So we see almshouses, hospitals and workhouses provided by private charity or out of the poor-fund for the protection of the old, the sick and the destitute. We even see, on occasions, attempts to subsidize or guarantee wages. But at the same time we also see vigorous statutory attempts to suppress begging, especially by the able bodied, sometimes enforced with cruel and inhumane punishments such as whipping or branding. With the destruction of the monasteries and the abandonment of the feudal system the problem of poverty became, if anything, more acute. Real attempts were made to deal with it in the great Elizabethan Poor Law and in the early part of the seventeenth century under a vigorous and active privy council which attempted to impose some central control. After the civil war and under Cromwell these advances were lost and the history of provision for the poor for the next century was mostly a matter of local expediency. Some trends, however, are worth noting. The most influential writers on the subject in the seventeenth century argued for a humane system of provision and one which, by putting the able poor to work in workhouses and factories, would be able to pay for itself. John Cary set up his celebrated workhouses in Bristol along these lines. On the whole this idea proved too optimistic and mostly the schemes failed. In the early eighteenth century the idea of educating the poor and providing for them in workhouses was subjected to the cynicism and scorn of Defoe and Mandeville. Their central belief was that poverty was necessary for without it no one would work. By the end of the eighteenth century in what has been well described as the "dual panic of revolution and scarcity" the public became acutely anxious again about the problem posed by poverty. Economic theorists developed opposite reactions. Adam Smith and his disciples Sir Frederick Eden, Malthus, and Burke developed the logic of opposition to any interference in the free market to the point at which the Poor Law itself seemed a damaging and harmful evil. Others like the humane Jonas Hanway, Thomas Gilbert and David Davies believed that poverty was not wholly due to the improvidence of the Poor but to some defect in the economic system which it was a moral duty to alleviate. By the very end of the century the crisis of low pay, high prices and the threat of starvation saw the introduction of an extreme measure whereby wages were to be supplemented to a subsistence level out of the public purse. This measure, however, over the next thirty years produced its own problems for the economy. Many of the farmers, land-owners and country magistrates now felt that the Poor Law was becoming far too costly a burden and that whole numbers were receiving aid who should not. The result was that the "lower working classes were being pauperized with fatal consequences for morale and production. It was this increasing dissatisfaction which led in 1834 to the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act which was the first systematic attempt to reform the poor law since Elizabethan times. In the Victorian age the problems of poverty, especially in industrial areas, became vaster and more widespread. To novelists like Dickens it was a central preoccupation. To political theorists like Marx and Engels the conditions of life for the poorer classes in industrial cities such as Manchester became an argument for an end to the capitalist system itself. At the same time there was an enormous upsurge in philanthropic effort and, government concern. Innumerable charitable organizations sprang up to assist with the education and support of the poor. Report after report on social, housing, and sanitary conditions was commissioned and published by central government. Men like Edwin Chadwick undertook the Herculean task of researching and recording the evidence which had to be gathered before any remedy could be suggested. In Great Britain these movements of social and economic reform culminated in the creation of the Welfare State, a benevolent system of guaranteed minimum health care and financial assistance. The magnificent collection offered here provides complete coverage of the subject of poverty in Britain from the end of the sixteenth century to the period of the Welfare State. It begins with the Great Elizabethan Poor Law of 1598, (item 1). This legislation to which Francis Bacon and William Cecil contributed, first established the legal duty of the state to relieve the poor. Next comes a copy of the Book of Orders for the relief of the Poor, 1630, (item 2.) This document issued by the first recorded Poor Law Commissioners formed the basis of the Poor law administration for the early period of central control following the Elizabethan Poor Law. The make-work schemes which dominated the thinking of late seventeenth century philanthropists are described in Haines's Method of government for such working publick almshouses, 1679, (item 6), Bellers's Essays about the Poor, 1699 (item 9), and Hale's Discourse touching provision for the Poor, 1683, (item 7) . The essay by Sellers has been described as "the most detailed collection of papers on social and economic reform" to be issued in the seventeenth century and Hale's Discourse is probably the single most important work on the poor in Great Britain to be produced in this early period: it remained a key point of reference for most of the the important later authorities such as Burn, Ruggles and Eden. The next great shift in public opinion was expressed and to some extent brought about by Defoe, His Giving alms no charity, 1704, (item 12) is one of the most important pamphlets ever issued on the treatment of the poor. In this work he condemns charity and emphasises instead self-help as the only true answer to the problem of Poverty. With this pamphlet Defoe, at a blow, destroyed the prospects of the elaborate schemes of Mackworth, Hale, Haines etc. for "putting the Poor to work" . It contains a classic argument against any form of government interference in economic matters. The poor must find their own work and not have it artificially made for them by the authorities. The problem with the poor, Defoe argues, is not that there is no work to do but that they are too lazy to do it. This harsh realism was to echoed again and again throughout the next three centuries as the debate on the poor continued. It was Defoe's cynicism about the later seventeenth century theories of putting the poor to work which later convinced Malthus that the Poor Laws should be abolished altogether. Despite the attacks of Mandeville and Defoe the efforts of philanthropists continued. The Charity School movement of the early eighteenth century was of considerable importance and education quickly became a central theme in attempts to improve the condition of the poor. Item (14) Pietas Hallensis, 1707, provides a European model of a workhouse, hospital and charity school. Talbot's The Christian School-Master, 1707, (item 15) is a valuable manual for the Charity School teacher. Items 16, 18, and 19 contain accounts of the Charity Schools themselves. Hendley's Defence of the Charity-Schools, 1725 (item 25) is an important and very rare work on the same subject. Works on the education of the poor continue to appear throughout the collection from three rare reports on the Welsh Charity Schools in the mid-century (item 39) to the works of Mrs Trimmer (items 65 and 81), Joseph Lancaster (items 87, 95) and Andrew Bell (item 88) to Bartley's Schools for the People, 1871 (item 181) described as the first book to give a full account of industrial schools. The intervention of the state in the control of the Poor is reflected in a developing literature of Law books on the subject. The collection contains an excellent collection of these: from Carter's Legal Provision for the Poor, 1725, (item 24), through Poor-Laws: or the statutes relating to settling, maintenance and employment of the Poor, 1727, (item 27), Statutes at large concerning Provision for the Poor, 1733, (item 30) and Bott's Decisions... upon the Poor Laws, 1771, (item 49) - the first edition of a standard work many times reprinted and updated, to Burrow's substantial collection on the same subject, 1786, (item 63) which the Webb's describe as an essential source book. In Richard Burn's The history of the Poor Laws 1764, (item 47) and Thomas Ruggles's The History of the Poor, their rights , duties, and the laws respecting them, 1793, (item 68) the collection contains the first and second histories of the Poor laws respectively. Both books are highly important and now very rare. Burn, according to the Webbs, gives the best summary of the pamphlet literature on the subject of the poor before Eden's State of the Poor. The work also contains Burns's well-known account of the tyrannical behaviour of many overseers. Ruggles gives a good account of the earlier authorities on the Poor Law. Like Eden he was opposed to the regulation of wages but did not go so far as to seek the abolition of the Poor Law altogether. Jonas Hanway was perhaps the most important private philanthropist of the middle and later eighteenth century. The charities he founded for the benefit of the poor were numerous and acted as a model for the proliferation of private charity in the nineteenth century. His work in protecting the children of the poor was regarded as one of the most successful efforts of philanthropy that the century produced. Present in the collection are his letter To the Marine Society, 1758, (item 42) , Reasons for an augmentation...1759 (item 46), Letters on the importance of the rising generation, 1767 (item 48), his most important work on the children of the poor, Abstract of a proposal, 1783, (item 60) on his naval free school for poor boys, and A sentimental history of Chimney Sweeps, 1785, (item 62) in which he campaigned against the cruel treatment of young boys in this dirty and dangerous work which was only abolished nearly a hundred years later by the Earl of Shaftesbury. Thomas Gilbert was perhaps the most important figure in the field of Government intervention in the later part of the eighteenth century. His attempts to reform the poor law resulted in important changes to the poor laws and he got through parliament a law requiring the overseers to make accurate returns. This provided what the Webbs described as "our first firm ground" in assessing the actual cost of Poor Relief. Present here are Gilbert's Bill intended to be offered to Parliament, for the better relief and employment of the Poor 1775 (item 54) and Observations upon the orders and resolutions of the House of Commons with respect to the Poor, Vagrants, and Houses of Correction, 1775, (item 55). Other important works for the latter part of the eighteenth century are Robert Potter's Observations the poor Laws, 1775, (item 56) with its damning comments on the cruelty and inhumanity resulting from the system known as "Farming the Poor" and Isaac Wood's Some account of the Shrewsbury House of Industry, 1795, (item 72). Isaac Wood was a private philanthropist whose House of Industry at Shrewsbury, while he lived to maintain it, provided a model of a working poor-house which was copied in many parts of the country. Baron Maseres's Proposal for establishing life-annuities...for the benefit of the industrious poor 1772, (item 50) is one of the earliest proposals for pensions for the poor. This pamphlet was constantly quoted in Blackley's book which later led Joseph Chamberlain to advocate a State Pension Scheme. The most important single work on poverty produced in the era of scarcity which haunted the end of the eighteenth century is Sir Frederick Eden's classic The state of the poor; or, an history of the labouring classes in England, 3 vols., 1797, (item 74) . Eden was a disciple of Adam Smith. As such he opposed intervention by government and any interference in the free market. Like Burke he did not acknowledge the "Right to Relief" . In the debate concerning the adequacy of wages Eden aligned himself with Ruggles against Davies and Howlett. The State of the Poor was a work of extraordinary diligence and influence. He planted the idea that the Poor Law was a rapidly growing menace to the structure of society and it was reading Eden, and in Eden, Defoe, that convinced Malthus that the Poor Law should be abolished. From the same period comes Edmund Burke's Thoughts and details on Scarcity, 1800, (item 77) . Burke was strongly opposed to subsidising wages. With unshakable confidence in economic liberty he maintained that governments could and should do nothing to relieve the pressure of scarcity. An opposing voice is found in David Davies's Case of the labourers in husbandry stated, 1795, (item 69) . Davies was one of the few who disagreed with Eden, Ruggles and Burke. He maintained that poverty was the result of a defect in the economic system and not of the idleness and wastefullness of the poor themselves. At the beginning of the nineteenth century various schemes for helping the poor by provision of savings banks were proposed. Sidney's Scheme, 1801, (item 80) present in the author's own copy, was addressed to George Rose, who, as secretary of state to the Treasury, did much to encourage savings banks for the poor. William Buchan's Advice to Mothers, 1803, (item 84) shows that the problems of child mortality, described by Hanway, had by no means been abolished by institutions like the Foundling Hospital. On the contrary he saw the Overseers of the Poor as guilty themselves of "wholescale infanticide". Patrick Colquhoun's Treatise on indigence 1806 (item 86) was one of the most important works on the subject to appear at the beginning of the neee century. He begins by making a distinction between "poverty" and "indigence": Poverty is the useful condition of the masses of the people who have no alternative but to work for subsistence. `This he defines as "an indispensable and necessary ingredient in civil society" . Indigence, on the other hand is a state of want, misery and distress in which the labour of an individual does not or cannot produce means adequate for survival, "Indigence, therefore and not Poverty is the evil." The last important attempt at reform of the Poor Laws before the sweeping changes of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was Samuel Whitbread's private Bill. This had the distinction of being answered in detail by Malthus in the only pamphlet directly on the subject of the Poor Laws which he produced. Present in the collection are Whitbread's original Bill 1807, (item 91), and Substance of a Speech on the Poor Laws, 1807 (item 92). Present also is Malthus's answer, Letter to Samuel Whitbread, 1807, (item 89) and another of the important works in the controversy which it provoked, Weyland's Observations on Mr Whitbread's Poor Bill, 1807, (item 90) . The period just before the Poor Law Amendment Act is represented by an important series of pamphlets by R. Wilmot Horton (item 127), in which emigration is considered as a solution to the problem of the poor, a plan by Rowland Hill for Home Colonies, 1832, (item 131), George Ensor's major study The Poor and their relief, 1823, (119), and Becher's Anti pauper System, 1828, (item 125). Thomas Chalmers was perhaps the best known figure in the history of the Poor in Scotland. He was a defender of private charity and self-help and a staunch opponent of any statutory poor-relief on the English model. His work is represented by Report for the directors of the town's hospital of Glasgow on the management of the City Poor, 1818, (item 103) , Statement in regard to the Pauperism of Glasgow, 1823, (item 118) , The General Assembly's Church Extension Scheme, 1838, (item 136) , an important and interesting letter to the statistician James Cleland about his work with the poor (item 117) and his most important work on the subject of the poor The Christian and Civic economy of large towns, 1821-6, (item 115). William Pulteney Alison was one of Chalmers's most effective critics: his work is represented by Remarks on the...poor laws of Scotland, 1844, (item 143). In 1832 the Government announced that it had decided on appointing a Royal Commission to investigate all over the country the actual working of the Poor Laws as a preliminary to a radical change. Nassau W. Senior and Edwin Chadwick were amongst those who were appointed. Their voluminous reports comprising no fewer than twenty-six folio volumes, were published during 1834-35, being by far the most extensive sociological survey that had at that date ever been undertaken. Present here are fifteen of the original volumes from this great report comprising a suite of reports on the condition of the Rural Poor and a similar suite on the condition of the Urban Poor, (item 246) . These original reports are of considerable rarity. In addition there is a copy of the extracts from this report, a signed presentation copy from Chadwick, and a complete suit of the four volumes in original cloth in outstanding condition of Chadwick's Reports on the sanitary condition of the labouring classes, 1842-3. The work of Chadwick and others at the Poor Law Commission and the Poor Law Board is further represented in various copies of the Official Circulars of the Poor Law Commissioners and Reports from the Poor Law Board. From the 1840's onwards sanitation and public health became a central theme of poor law matters. Chadwick's colleague, Sir John Simon, was the first medical adviser to be appointed by central government. His work on the public health of London is important as the pioneering work in this field. Present in the collection are his famous pamphlet on the Water Supply to London, 1851, (item 159) reprinted and widely circulated by Chadwick as a Sanitary Association Pamphlet and English Sanitary institutions, 1890, (item 207). The mast important nineteenth century history of the Poor Laws was Sir George Nichols's History of the English Poor Law, 1854, to which were added volumes on the Poor Law in Scotland, 1856 and Ireland, 1856, (item 164). George Nichols, friend of Chadwick, was Poor Law Commissioner and first secretary to the Poor Law Board. The copy of this work in the collection is signed by Hugh Owen who took over from Sir John Lambent as head of the Poor Law Department. The second half of the nineteenth century was marked by the appearance of an increasing number of works on the conditions of the poor based upon the actual observation of their working and living conditions. Several examples can be found in the collection. But the first really extensive and systematic social survey based on this principle was Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the London Poor. This work had great impact. It is present in the edition of 1892-1897 in 10 volumes (item 208) and the final complete version of 17 volumes 1902-5 (item 218) . The Maiden Tribute, 1885, (item 200) is a piece of sensational journalism, for which its author went to prison. It was written as part of a campaign against the evil of child prostitution as it then existed in London. It is typical of the growing middle-class anxiety about the condition of the poorest and most degenerate elements of society. The collection has a good representation of Government Reports, Command Papers and Memoranda some of which have come from the libraries of several of the Government Departments actively concerned in the administration of the Poor such as The Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Statistical Department of the Poor Law Board. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government, from which the majority of these works come, was, of course, one of the main departments of state responsible for the implementation and direction of the Poor Laws. These copies, therefore, are the actual copies worked on and consulted by the officials of that department and would have been the very copies examined by sociologists studying the subject like Beatrice and Sidney Webb, who referred the library of the Ministry of Health as an important source of information. Parliament and Government Papers are the basis of all study in this subject. They are the only possible starting point for the examination of the Poor Law in Great Britain, its history, its development, and its implementation in practice. They contain the detailed information to which all books and pamphlets must refer. They were often prepared for or written by the leading authorities at the time, Edwin Chadwick, Nassau Senior, Sir George Nicholls, Sir John Lambent, Charles Villiers, Sir James Stewart Davy. Original copies of these Reports and Government Papers are extremely uncommon. In addition to. the reports from the Great Royal Commission of 1832, mentioned above, the collection contains the reports of the Charity Commission in 24 folio volumes 1819-1830, (item 245). This was the first major royal commission in the area of social policy and gives detailed insight into the state of society before the Poor Law Amendment Act. These is also the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, (1909) to which Beatrice and Sidney Webb made such an important contribution. Present are the majority and the minority reports in two folio volumes (item 248), and the complete suite (with one volume in facsimile) of the Appendix of Minutes and Evidence, (items 249), in all 37 folio volumes which form one of the most extensive social surveys ever undertaken. A good cross-section of the work of late nineteenth and early twentieth century sociologists and social workers is also represented; Joseph Rowntree, Gertrude Lubbock, Octavia Hill, Louisa Twining, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, William Rathbone, Helen Bosanquet and William Beveridge. In addition to these major landmarks in the history of Poverty and the Poor Law the collection adds a rich context of contemporary books and pamphlets throughout the period covered. Much of the material is very rare and could not again easily be assembled. The items have all been carefully selected for their relevance to the subject. The completed collection now provides much of what is necessary for the understanding of the problem of Poverty in Great Britain. It also shows how reactions to it changed from the early seventeenth century down to the coming of the Welfare State. its implementation in practice. They contain the detailed information to which all books and pamphlets must refer. They were often prepared for or written by the leading authorities at the time, Edwin Chadwick, Nassau Senior, Sir George Nicholls, Sir John Lambent, Charles V