dc.contributor.author | Rothery, Karen | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2017-05-12T09:03:13Z | |
dc.date.available | 2017-05-12T09:03:13Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2017-05-12 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2299/18187 | |
dc.description.abstract | This research presents a regional study of the implementation of the 1834
Poor Law Amendment Act (commonly known as the New Poor Law) and its
operation in Hertfordshire up to 1847. It examines the economic costs of poor
relief across the whole of this rural southern county but it also adopts a microhistory
approach to examine in detail how the New Poor Law was implemented
and administered in four poor law unions: Hatfield, Hitchin, St Albans and Watford.
This study makes national and intra-county comparisons of poor relief data, policy
and practice.
This research focuses on people as well as place and examines how
different groups influenced poor law policy and practice. It makes an important
finding about the role played by the second Marquis of Salisbury (a prominent
Hertfordshire resident) in the review of the poor laws and the legislation that
followed. At the local level this thesis explores the process of implementation and
gives new emphasis to the contribution made by the assistant poor law
commissioners to both process and policy in the initial years of the New Poor Law.
This study is unusual in the attention given to the middlemen of the poor
law machinery – the poor law guardians and poor law officers including: medical
officers, workhouse masters, relieving officers and schoolmasters and mistresses.
This detailed examination of the local guardians challenges the existing
historiography on the social demography of this body of men, demonstrates that
the influence of elite personnel persisted and adds new data to support the
argument that the operation of the poor laws was not just regionally but locally
diverse. The workhouse, so symbolic of the New Poor Law and an essential
component of the deterrent ideology, is considered in the context of attitudes
around its construction and capacity as well as its everyday operation.
This thesis adds to the poor law historiography with new data on a
previously under-researched area of the country; it provides new information on
the development of poor law policy, but more importantly it draws attention to the
role of the middlemen and how their individual contributions influenced poor law
policy and practice. | en_US |
dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
dc.rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess | en_US |
dc.subject | Hertfordshire | en_US |
dc.subject | New Poor Law | en_US |
dc.subject | Poor Law Administration | en_US |
dc.subject | Poor Law Implementation | en_US |
dc.subject | Poor Law Reform | en_US |
dc.subject | Poor Law Commission | en_US |
dc.subject | Assistant Poor Law Commissioners | en_US |
dc.subject | Board of Guardians | en_US |
dc.subject | Marquis of Salisbury | en_US |
dc.subject | Hitchin | en_US |
dc.subject | St Albans | en_US |
dc.subject | Watford | en_US |
dc.subject | Hatfield | en_US |
dc.subject | Pauperism | en_US |
dc.subject | Poor Law Unions | en_US |
dc.subject | Nineteenth century | en_US |
dc.title | The Implementation and Administration of the New Poor Law in Hertfordshire c1830-1847 | en_US |
dc.type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis | en_US |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.18745/th.18187 | |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.18745/th.18187 | |
dc.type.qualificationlevel | Doctoral | en_US |
dc.type.qualificationname | PhD | en_US |
herts.preservation.rarelyaccessed | true | |