AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH POOR LAW 1750-1850 pptx

AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH POOR LAW
1750-1850
AN ECONOMIC HISTORY
OF THE ENGLISH POOR LAW
1750-1850
GEORGE R. BOYER
Cornell
University
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Boyer, George R.
An economic history of the English Poor Law, 1750—1850 / George R.
Boyer.
p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-521-36479-5
1.
Great Britain
—
Economic conditions
—
18th century. 2. Great
Britain
—
Economic conditions
—
19th century. 3. Poor
—
Great Britain
—
History. 4. Poor laws

—
Great Britain
—
History. I. Title.
HC254.5.B64 1990
362.5'85'0942 - dc20 89-22365
CIP
ISBN-13 978-0-521-36479-9 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-36479-5 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-03186-8 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-03186-9 paperback
For
my mother
Louise Coulson Boyer
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments page xi
Introduction 1
1. The Development and Administration of the Old Poor
Law in Rural Areas, 1760-1834 9
1.
The Administration of Poor Relief 10
2.
Timing of Changes in Poor Law Administration 23
3.
Changes in the Economic Environment 31
4. Conclusion 43
Appendix A: Agricultural Laborers' Wages, 1750-1832 43
Appendix B: Labor Rate for Wisborough Green 49
2.

The Old Poor Law in Historical Perspective 51
1.
The Historiography of the Poor Law Before 1834 52
2.
The Poor Law Report of
1834
60
3.
Fabian Interpretations of the Poor Law 65
4. Polanyis Analysis of the Poor Law 71
5.
The Revisionist Analysis of the Poor Law 75
6. Conclusion 83
3.
An Economic Model of the English Poor Law 85
1.
The Effect of Seasonally on the Rural Labor Market 86
2.
Seasonality in English Agriculture 88
3.
The Parish Vestry and the Financing of the Poor Rate 94
4. An Economic Model of the Rural Labor Market 99
5.
The Effect of Migrant Labor on the Rural Labor
Market 113
6. Conclusion 118
Appendix 119
vii
viii Contents
4.

The Old Poor Law and the Agricultural Labor Market in
Southern England: An Empirical Analysis 122
1.
Explanations for the Long-Term Increase and Regional
Variations in Relief Expenditures 123
2.
Data 127
3.
Estimation of the Three-Equation Model 133
4. Regression Results 138
5.
Implications for the Long-Term Increase in Relief
Expenditures 142
6. Conclusion 145
Appendix A: Data Sources 146
Appendix B: Representativeness of Sample 149
5.
The Effect of Poor Relief on Birth Rates in Southeastern
England 150
1.
The Historical Debate 150
2.
The Economic Value of Child Allowances 153
3.
An Analysis of the Determinants of Birth Rates 155
4. Regression Results 162
5.
A Test of the Exogeneity of Child Allowances 165
6. Implications for the Long-Term Increase in Birth Rates 167
7.

Conclusion 172
6. The Poor Law, Migration, and Economic Growth 173
1.
The Effect of Poor Relief on Migration: The Redford
Model 175
2.
The Effect of Poor Relief on Migration: The Polanyi
Model 182
3.
The Effect of Poor Relief on Migration: Model Three 187
4. Conclusion 191
7.
The New Poor Law and the Agricultural Labor Market,
1834-1850 193
1.
The Revision of the Poor Law 194
2.
Historians' Analyses of the New Poor Law 204
3.
An Economic Model of the Impact of Poor Law
Reform 212
4. Movements in Real Income, 1832-50 216
5.
The Regional Labor Market, 1832-50 224
6. Conclusion 231
Contents ix
The Economics of Poor Relief in Industrial Cities 233
1.
The Economic Role of Poor Relief in Industrial Areas 234
2.

The Economic Role of the Settlement Law in Industrial
Areas 244
3.
The System of Nonresident Relief 257
4. Urban Attitudes Toward the Poor Law Amendment
Act 259
5.
Conclusion 262
Appendix: Occupations Contained in Each Classification
of Worker in Table 8.6 264
Conclusion 265
1.
Summary of the Argument 265
2.
The Old Poor Law in Perspective 268
References 273
Index 288
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book began in 1981 as a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of
Wisconsin and has continued to evolve and expand ever since. I have
accumulated many debts in the process of writing the book, and I am
happy to be able to thank those people who have generously taken the
time to improve it.
My greatest debt is to Jeffrey Williamson, who supervised my disserta-
tion, and who has helped in every stage of the development of this work.
Over the past decade Jeff has been my teacher, my critic, and my friend.
He has consistently helped me to clarify my thinking and insisted that I
find data to support my hypotheses. Without his enthusiasm and encour-
agement this book would never have been written.

I also owe a major debt to Peter Lindert. Peter played an important
role in the early stages of the project, helping me to formulate my ideas
and directing me to the data necessary to test them. Since then he has
read several versions of almost every chapter of the book and always
improved them with his detailed criticisms.
I owe my understanding of implicit contracts theory to two of my
colleagues at Cornell, Kenneth Burdett and Randall Wright. Ken taught
me contracts theory at the University of Wisconsin, and has continued to
give me the benefit of his insights since we both moved to Cornell.
Randy offered me invaluable help in revising the model into the form
that appears in Chapter 3.
Joel Mokyr (who once called my model of poor relief a "neoclassical
soap opera") and Mary MacKinnon read drafts of most of the chapters
of the book, and greatly improved them with their criticisms and sugges-
tions.
Stanley Engerman and Michael Edelstein read the entire manu-
script, and their detailed comments significantly improved the final ver-
sion of the book.
Several other people have read and criticized drafts of chapters and
xi
xii Acknowledgments
deserve thanks: Kenneth Snowden, Claudia Goldin, Daniel Baugh, Don-
ald McCloskey, Tim Hatton, Nick Crafts, Nick von Tunzelmann, David
Galenson, Paul David, Lars Muus, Roger Avery, Michael Haines, Glen
Cain, Henry McMillan, Patricia Dillon, and Carl Dahlman. In addition,
I would like to thank my colleagues at the School of Industrial and
Labor Relations, especially George Jakubson and Ronald Ehrenberg,
for their help and constructive criticism. For their helpful comments, I
also thank the participants at the 1982 Cliometries Conference; the
Tenth University of California Conference on Economic History (1986);

and the economic history workshops at Northwestern, Chicago, Har-
vard, Pennsylvania, and Columbia.
For their patient assistance and cooperation in locating books and
manuscript sources, I thank the staffs of Olin Library at Cornell; the
British Library; the Public Record Office at Kew; and the Essex, Suf-
folk, Bedford, Cambridge, and Norfolk county record offices. I thank
Joshua Schwarz and Phyllis Noonan for their able research assistance.
Nancy Williamson at Wisconsin and Eileen Driscoll at Cornell provided
invaluable computer programming assistance. Pat Dickerson typed the
dissertation, the book manuscript, and every draft in between, and
cheerfully put up with my increasingly compulsive behavior during the
latter stages of this project. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance and
encouragement of my editors at Cambridge University Press: Frank
Smith, Janis Bolster, and Nancy Landau.
Financial support for my research was obtained from several sources.
A Vilas Travel Grant from the Graduate School of the University of
Wisconsin enabled me to spend three months in England during the
spring of
1981.
The Committee on Research in Economic History of the
Economic History Association provided an Arthur H. Cole grant-in-aid
that permitted me to spend part of the summer of 1986 doing research in
England. The School of Industrial Relations at Cornell provided several
small grants to help defray research costs.
While researching this book in England I enjoyed the hospitality of
Tim Hatton and the members of the economics department at the Uni-
versity of Essex. Tim generously provided me with lodgings at the
Hatton Hotel, and he and his colleagues spent innumerable hours at the
Black Buoy, the Rose and Crown, the Horse and Groom, and the Flag
passing on to me the famous oral tradition of the economics department

(see O. E. Covick, "The Quantity Theory of Drink: A Restatement,"
Australian Economic
Papers,
December 1974).
Acknowledgments xiii
I would like to thank the Economic History Association and the edi-
tors of Explorations in Economic History and the Journal of
Political
Economy for permission to reprint portions of my earlier articles: "An
Economic Model of the English Poor Law circa 1780-1834," Explora-
tions in Economic History 22 (April 1985): 129-67 (copyright 1985, by
Academic Press); "The Old Poor Law and the Agricultural Labor Mar-
ket in Southern England: An Empirical Analysis,"
Journal
of Economic
History 46 (March 1986): 113-35 (copyright 1986, by the Economic
History Association); "The Poor Law, Migration, and Economic
Growth," Journal of Economic History 46 (June 1986): 419-30 (copy-
right 1986, by the Economic History Association); "Malthus Was Right
After All: Poor Relief and Birth Rates in Southeastern England,"
Jour-
nal
of
Political
Economy 97 (February 1989): 93-114 (copyright 1989, by
The University of Chicago).
My friend and companion Janet Millman has offered advice, criticism,
research assistance, and encouragement throughout the project. She has
suffered through my fixation on this book during the past three years
with only a minimum of complaints.

Finally, I thank my mother, Louise Boyer, and my aunts and uncles
for their encouragement over the years. When I was young, Muz always
found the time to take me to museums and historic sites, and she passed
on to me her love of England. For these and so many other reasons, this
book is dedicated to her.
Ithaca, New York
January 1990
INTRODUCTION
The English Poor Law dates from 1597, when Parliament passed a law
(39 Elizabeth, c. 3) making it the responsibility of each parish to main-
tain its poor inhabitants. Four years later Parliament passed another law
(43 Elizabeth, c. 2) clarifying several provisions of the 1597 act. To-
gether, these laws established
u
the principle of a compulsory assessment
for relief of the poor as an essential portion of [England's] domestic
policy" (Nicholls
1898:1,
187). They also established that poor relief was
to be administered and financed at the parish level. There were no
"fundamentally new idea[s] in the Poor Law Legislation following
1601,"
but there were definite long-term trends in the administration of
relief,
especially with respect to adult able-bodied males (Marshall 1968:
11-12).
The two major trends were the shift toward increased generosity
for able-bodied paupers that began around 1750, and the subsequent
decline in generosity that began in 1834 with the passage of the Poor

Law Amendment Act.
This book examines the economic role played by the English Poor
Law during the period 1750 to 1850, the years when relief generosity for
the able-bodied was at its peak. It focuses on the development and
persistence of policies providing relief outside of workhouses to unem-
ployed and underemployed able-bodied laborers, and on the effect of
such policies on the rural labor market. In particular, it provides explana-
tions for the widespread adoption of outdoor relief policies in the 1770s
and 1780s and for the significant differences in the administration of
relief between the southeast of England and the west and north, and it
analyzes the effect of poor relief on wages, profits, birth rates, and
migration.
The issues raised are not new; each of them was debated by contempo-
rary observers of the early-nineteenth-century Poor Law. The writings of
contemporaries and historians who have addressed these issues can be
1
2 An Economic History of the
English Poor
Law
divided into three schools, which I refer to as the traditional, neo-
traditional, and revisionist. The traditional analysis of the economics of
poor relief
is
derived largely from the 1834 Report of the Royal Commis-
sion to Investigate the Poor Laws. It maintains that the widespread
adoption of policies granting outdoor relief to able-bodied paupers was
an emergency response to the extremely high food prices of 1795, which
caused real wages in rural areas to fall temporarily below subsistence.
By guaranteeing workers a minimum level of income, the system of
outdoor relief significantly reduced the incentive to work. In the long

run, outdoor relief increased unemployment rates, lowered the produc-
tivity of workers who remained employed, and caused laborers' wages,
farmers' profits, and landlords' rents to decline. Moreover, by artificially
reducing the cost of children, the Poor Law increased the rate of popula-
tion growth, which created an excess supply of labor and thus increased
the number of relief recipients in the long run. The traditional literature
offers no explanation for the regional concentration of outdoor relief or
the persistence of outdoor relief until the passage of the Poor Law
Amendment Act in 1834; the system simply is seen as self-perpetuating
in nature.
The neo-traditional school includes John and Barbara Hammond, Sid-
ney and Beatrice Webb, Karl Polanyi, and Eric Hobsbawm. These au-
thors disputed the traditional literature's explanation for the widespread
adoption of outdoor
relief,
but they agreed that the payment of outdoor
relief to able-bodied males had a significant negative effect on the rural
parish economy. Outdoor relief policies were adopted in response to
"the collapse of the economic position of the [rural] labourer" in the late
eighteenth century, but they proved to be
u
a wrong and disastrous an-
swer to certain difficult questions" (Hammond and Hammond 1913:
120,
170). The neo-traditional literature maintained that outdoor relief
was able to persist into the 1830s only because benefit levels were con-
tinuously reduced by parishes from 1815 to 1834.
The revisionist analysis of the Poor Law began in 1963 with the publi-
cation of Mark Blaug's classic paper "The Myth of the Old Poor Law
and the Making of the New." The work of Blaug

(1963;
1964), Daniel
Baugh (1975), and Anne Digby (1975; 1978) rejected the hypothesis that
outdoor relief had disastrous long-run consequences for the agricultural
labor market. To judge the disincentive effects of outdoor relief on labor
supply, Blaug
(1963:
161-2) estimated benefit-wage ratios for the pe-
riod from 1795 to 1825, and concluded that the typical relief scale was so
Introduction 3
modest that it did not offer "an attractive alternative to gainful employ-
ment." Baugh (1975: 61) and J. S. Taylor (1969: 295) argued that since
rural parishes were "generally small enough to apply any relief system
with discretion" (Baugh 1975: 61), the disincentive effects of outdoor
relief must have been small. Finally, Blaug
(1963:
164-7) and Baugh
(1975:
60-3) examined time series of real per capita relief expenditures
and concluded, in the words of Blaug, that "there is no evidence what-
ever of that most popular of all the charges levied at the Old Poor Law:
the
k
snow-ball effect' of outdoor relief to the able-bodied."
The revisionists also provided explanations for the persistence and
regional nature of outdoor
relief.
Blaug
(1963:
171-2) maintained that

outdoor relief was used to supplement "substandard" wage rates and to
support seasonally and structurally unemployed workers. Seasonal fluc-
tuations in the demand for labor were especially pronounced in grain
production, and the southeast was England's major grain-producing re-
gion. Digby (1978: 22-3, 105-7) attributed the persistence of outdoor
relief to the seasonal nature of arable farming and to the political power
of labor-hiring farmers, who used "their position as poor law administra-
tors to pursue a policy with an economical alteration of poor relief and
independent income for the labourer."
The contention that outdoor relief increased birth rates also has been
challenged by the revisionists. Blaug
(1963:
173-4) surveyed the avail-
able county-level data and concluded that there was "no persuasive
evidence" that outdoor relief caused birth rates to increase. James Huzel
(1980:
369-80) tested the hypothesis using parish-level data and found
that the payment of child allowances to laborers with large families did
not have a significant positive effect on birth rates.
In sum, most of the hypotheses of the traditional literature have been
challenged during the past 25 years. How then can I justify another
study of the Old Poor Law? The present work can be justified on three
grounds. First, some important issues have not been confronted by the
revisionists. None of the revisionists attempted to determine when the
payment of outdoor relief to able-bodied laborers became widespread.
Rather, they accepted the traditional literature's hypothesis that out-
door relief originated in response to the subsistence crises of 1795 and
1800.
This suggests either that the reason for the adoption of outdoor
relief policies was different from the reason for their persistence, or that

seasonal and structural unemployment suddenly became a problem in
1795.
Neither conclusion is satisfactory. The revisionists also have not
4
An
Economic History of the
English Poor
Law
confronted
the
hypothesis that outdoor relief slowed economic growth
by slowing
the
rate
of
migration from
the
agricultural south
to the
indus-
trial northwest.
The use of
outdoor relief might have represented
an
efficient solution
to
farmers' seasonality problems
but at the
same time
fostered

an
inefficient allocation
of
labor across regions.
Second, several aspects
of the
revisionist analysis
are not
well devel-
oped.
For
example, Blaug contended that
the
regional nature
of
outdoor
relief could
be
explained
in
part
by the
seasonality
of
grain production,
but
he did not
explain
why a
majority

of
parishes
in the
southeast chose
outdoor relief policies over other possible methods
for
dealing with
seasonality, such
as
allotment schemes
or
yearlong labor contracts. Simi-
larly, while Digby maintained that
the use of
outdoor relief
was "eco-
nomical"
for
farmers,
she did not
determine
the
precise conditions
un-
der which
it
was
in the
interest
of

farmers
to lay off
workers.
The
present
study develops
the
revisionist hypotheses into
a
model
of the
economic
role
of
poor relief
in
agricultural parishes.
Third, none
of the
competing hypotheses concerning
the
adoption,
persistence,
and
regional nature
of
outdoor relief
has
been tested empiri-
cally. This study provides such

a
test.
I
estimate
a
three-equation regres-
sion model
to
explain differences
in per
capita relief expenditures, agri-
cultural laborers' annual earnings,
and
unemployment rates across
311
rural southern parishes
in
1832.
The
results
are
used
to
evaluate explana-
tions
of the
economic role
of
outdoor
relief. The

major data sources
used
are the 1831
census
and the
returns
to the
Rural Queries,
a
ques-
tionnaire distributed
to
rural parishes
in the
summer
of 1832 by the
Royal Poor
Law
Commission.
The
returns provide information
on the
administration
of
poor
relief,
wage rates
and
annual earnings
in

agricul-
ture,
seasonal levels
of
employment,
and the
existence
of
cottage indus-
try
and
allotments
for
nearly
1,100
parishes, making them
the
most
important available source
of
information
on the Old
Poor Law.
How-
ever, they have never been fully utilized. That
is
unfortunate, because
the testing
of
competing hypotheses

is
necessary
in
order
to
determine
the economic role
of
poor
relief.
I also provide
a
test
of the
hypothesis that child allowances
had a
positive effect
on
birth rates. Huzel's (1980) earlier analysis
of
the effect
of child allowances
is
seriously flawed because
it
consists
of a
simple
comparison
of

relief policies
and
birth rates, without controlling
for
other possible determinants
of
fertility.
I
estimate
a
regression model
to
explain differences
in
birth rates across
213
rural southern parishes
in
Introduction 5
1826-30. The regression results show that, when other socioeconomic
determinants of fertility are accounted for, the use of child allowances
did indeed cause birth rates to increase.
The present work is an extension of the revisionist analysis, an attempt
to use economic theory to derive additional insights about the develop-
ment and impact of outdoor relief policies. The rural labor market is
analyzed in terms of a tool of modern labor economics: implicit contracts
theory. A model of the parish labor market is postulated, which incorpo-
rates three important features of the early-nineteenth-century rural econ-
omy: the seasonality in the demand for agricultural labor, the general lack
of nonagricultural employment opportunities in rural parishes, and the

tax system for financing the poor rate that enabled farmers to shift part of
their labor costs to non-labor-hiring taxpayers. The model portrays the
problem faced by farmers in the early nineteenth century: how to maxi-
mize profits subject to the constraint that any implicit contract offered to
workers must yield an expected utility large enough to keep the desired
number of workers from leaving the parish.
The model contains two somewhat controversial assumptions. First,
labor is assumed to be mobile. Although some historians would dispute
this assumption, it is supported by recent estimates made by Jeffrey
Williamson (1987: 646-7), who found that rural out-migration rates in
England from 1816 to 1831 were similar to out-migration rates in devel-
oping countries during the 1960s and 1970s. Further evidence of labor
mobility, and of the importance of London as a destination of rural
southern migrants, is provided by Deane and Cole (1967: 106-15), Wrig-
ley (1967: 45-9), and Schofield (1970: 271-3). The mobility of labor
forced southern farmers to take London wage rates (and wage rates in
neighboring parishes) into account when determining the value of the
labor contracts they offered to farm workers.
Second, I assume that farmers were profit maximizers and workers
were utility maximizers. In his Nobel lecture, Theodore Schultz (1980:
649,
644) stated that
poor people [in low-income countries] are no less concerned about improving
their lot and that of their children than those of us who have incomparably
greater advantages. Nor are they any less competent in obtaining the maximum
benefit from their limited resources. . . . Farmers the world over, in dealing
with costs, returns, and risks, are calculating economic agents. Within their
small, individual, allocative domain they are fine-tuning entrepreneurs, tuning
so subtly that many experts fail to recognize how efficient they are.
6 An Economic History of the

English Poor
Law
Similarly, T. S. Ashton (1955: 30) maintained that "those who controlled
[agriculture in eighteenth-century England] were no less concerned than
iron masters or cotton spinners to maximize their income and proper-
ties.
. . . Agriculture had its peculiar features. . . . But generally, like
other callings, it was ruled by the forces of the market."
However, many historians disagree with Schultz and Ashton. Eric
Hobsbawm and George Rude (1968: 50), writing about the Poor Law,
warned that
it is a mistake to apply abstract economic reasoning, however humanitarian, to a
situation which cannot be understood except in its context. Speenhamland was
not intended to achieve the results which . . . economists have in mind. It
was an instinctive escape of country gentlemen into the world they knew best -
the self-contained parish dominated by squire and parson.
But surely there is no more justification in dismissing an economic inter-
pretation out of hand than in assuming that any institution that existed
must have been rational. Perhaps the Poor Law was both paternalistic
and profitable to farmers. The proper way to proceed in research is, in
the words of Joel Mokyr (1985a: 1), "to employ a priori reasoning to
formulate and test hypotheses and then try our best to test these hypothe-
ses."
This methodology is adopted in the present study. Hypotheses
derived from the implicit contracts model and the traditional literature
are tested using both quantitative and qualitative evidence. The results
are used to determine the economic role of the Old Poor Law.
The analysis proceeds as follows. Chapter
1
provides the background

information needed to understand the role played by policies providing
outdoor relief for able-bodied workers. It focuses on three issues:
the precise form of outdoor relief payments to able-bodied workers;
the timing of the widespread adoption of outdoor relief
policies;
and the
changes in the rural economic environment that occurred during the
second half of the eighteenth century. I conclude that the adoption of
outdoor relief in the southeast was a response to a decline in family
income caused by the decline of cottage industry and laborers' loss of
land. Chapter 2 surveys the historiography of the Old Poor Law, from
the beginning of the traditional critique of outdoor relief in the late
eighteenth century to the development of the revisionist analysis in the
1960s and 1970s.
A theory of the economic role of outdoor relief is developed in Chap-
ter 3. A model of the parish labor market is constructed and solved to
Introduction
1
determine
the
conditions under which implicit labor contracts including
seasonal layoffs
and
unemployment insurance
(in the
form
of
outdoor
relief) were cost-minimizing
for

farmers.
The
extent
of
seasonal fluctua-
tions
in
labor demand
is a key
determinant
of the
nature
of the
optimal
contract.
The
model therefore provides
an
explanation
for the
regional
nature
of
outdoor
relief:
Contracts including layoffs
and
outdoor relief
were cost-minimizing
in

grain-producing areas
but not in
pasture-
farming areas.
The
chapter also contains
a
discussion
of the
effect
of
seasonal migrant labor
on the
form
of
grain farmers' cost-minimizing
labor contracts.
Chapter
4
provides
a
test
of the
hypotheses obtained from
the
model
developed
in
Chapter 3,
as

well
as
several other hypotheses
put
forward
by contemporary critics
and
historians.
A
three-equation regression
model
is
estimated,
to
explain cross-parish variations
in 1832 in per
capita relief expenditures, agricultural laborers' annual wage income,
and
the
rate
of
unemployment.
The
data used
in the
analysis were
obtained from
the 1831
census
and

from
the
returns
to the 1832
Rural
Queries.
The
regression results support several
of the
hypotheses
ob-
tained from
the
implicit contracts model
and
reject most
of the
tradi-
tional literature's criticisms
of
outdoor
relief.
Chapters
5 and 6
examine
the
effect
of
outdoor relief
on

birth rates
and rural-urban migration. Chapter 5 provides
a
test
of the
hypothesis,
advanced
by
Thomas Malthus
and
adopted
by the
Royal Poor
Law
Commission, that
the
payment
of
weekly allowances
to
laborers with
large families caused birth rates
to
increase.
I
estimate
a
regression
model
to

explain differences
in
birth rates across rural southern parishes
in 1826-30.
The
results show that child allowances
had a
significant
positive effect
on the
birth rate.
The
widespread adoption
of
child allow-
ances was
a
major cause
of
the increase
in
birth rates during
the
first
two
decades
of the
nineteenth century.
Chapter
6

offers
a
test
of
Arthur Redford's (1964:
93-4)
hypothesis
that policies providing outdoor relief
to
able-bodied workers slowed
the
rate
of
migration from rural southeast England
to the
industrial north-
west. Assuming that workers' migration decisions were determined
largely
by the
size
of
rural-urban wage gaps,
an
estimate
of the
Poor
Law's effect
on
migration
is

obtained
by
determining
the
extent
to
which
relief payments raised agricultural laborers' incomes above
the
marginal
product
of
labor,
and by
comparing this increase
to
existing wage gaps.
I
conclude that even
if all
relief payments
to
able-bodied workers were
in
8 An Economic History of the
English Poor
Law
excess of the marginal product of labor, the effect of poor relief on
migration was small.
Chapter 7 examines the effect of the New Poor Law on the agricul-

tural labor market. It focuses on three issues: the reasons why the New
Poor Law was adopted; the effect of the substitution of the workhouse
system for outdoor relief on grain farmers' cost-minimizing labor con-
tracts;
and the effect of the abolition of outdoor relief on agricultural
laborers' annual income. I conclude that the high cost of indoor relief
caused grain farmers either to adopt full employment contracts or,
where possible, to evade the 1834 legislation and continue to provide
outdoor relief to seasonally unemployed workers. The adoption of the
New Poor Law is shown to have had little, if
any,
effect on farm laborers'
income.
The economic role of poor relief in industrial cities is examined in
Chapter 8, which presents evidence that textile manufacturers used the
Poor Law as an unemployment insurance system. Workers not needed
during downturns were laid off or put on short time, enabling manufac-
turers to shift part of their labor costs to other urban taxpayers. The
hypothesis that industrial cities slowed rural-urban migration and per-
petuated large rural-urban wage gaps by removing large numbers of
nonsettled workers during recessions is tested. I conclude that cities
followed a selective removal policy, which should not have reduced the
propensity to migrate of able-bodied workers.
1
THE DEVELOPMENT
AND
ADMINISTRATION
OF THE OLD
POOR
LAW IN

RURAL AREAS,
1760-1834
During
the
last third
of the
eighteenth century, several changes took
place
in the
administration
of
poor
relief, the
most important
of
which
was
the
widespread provision
of
relief outside
the
workhouse
to
able-
bodied laborers
who
were unemployed
or
underemployed.

The
changes
in relief methods
led to
changes
in the
economic role
of the
Poor
Law in
rural parishes.
A
knowledge
of
the methods
of
relief that were adopted,
the time when they were adopted,
and the
changes
in the
economic
environment that brought about their adoption is essential
for an
evalua-
tion
of
the economic role played
by the
Poor Law from 1795

to
1834,
the
so-called Speenhamland
era.
This chapter provides
the
background necessary
for an
evaluation
of
the
Old
Poor Law.
It is
divided into three sections. Section 1 describes
the methods used
to
relieve able-bodied laborers from
1780 to 1834. I
conclude that
the
major function
of
poor relief
was the
provision
of
unemployment benefits
to

seasonally unemployed laborers. Section
2
focuses
on the
timing
of the
adoption
of
policies granting poor relief
to
able-bodied laborers.
The
year 1795 was
not a
watershed
in the
adminis-
tration
of
poor
relief;
real relief expenditures began increasing rapidly
at
least
20
years before
the
famous meeting
at
Speenhamland, Berkshire.

Section
3
discusses two important changes
in the
rural economic environ-
ment that occurred during
the
second half
of
the eighteenth century,
and
presents evidence that these environmental changes caused
the
sharp
increase
in
real
per
capita poor relief expenditures.
The
conclusions
concerning
the
methods
of
relief used,
the
timing
of
their adoption,

and
the reasons
for
their adoption
are
considerably different from those
reached
by the
traditional literature. Whereas
the
traditional literature
viewed
the
changes
in
relief methods
as
exogenous causes
of
economic
dislocation,
I
view
the
adoption
of
outdoor relief
as an
endogenous
response

to
changes
in
economic conditions.
10 An Economic History of
the English
Poor Law
1.
The Administration of Poor Relief
It is possible to identify six methods used by rural parishes to relieve
poor able-bodied laborers from 1780 to 1834: allowances-in-aid-of-
wages, payments to laborers with large families, payments to seasonally
unemployed agricultural laborers, the roundsman system, the labor
rate,
and the workhouse system. The first five methods are forms of
"outdoor"
relief,
while the workhouse system, which forced relief recipi-
ents to enter workhouses, is referred to as "indoor"
relief.
Under the allowance system, a laborer (whether employed or unem-
ployed) was guaranteed a minimum weekly income, the level of which
was determined by the price of bread and the size of his family. Accord-
ing to the 1834 Report of the Royal Poor Law Commission:
In perhaps a majority of the parishes in which the allowance system prevails, the
earnings of the applicant, and, in a few, the earnings of
his
wife and children, are
ascertained, or at least professed or attempted to be ascertained, and only the
difference between them and the sum allotted to him by the scale is paid to him

by the parish. (Royal Commission 1834: 24)
The most famous allowance scale was that adopted by the Berkshire
magistrates who met at Speenhamland on May 6, 1795. The Berkshire
scale stipulated that
when the gallon loaf of second flour, weighing
8
lbs.
11
oz. shall cost one shilling,
then every poor and industrious man shall have for his own support 3s. weekly,
either produced by his own or his family's labour or an allowance from the poor
rates,
and for the support of his wife and every other of his family Is. 6d. When
the gallon loaf shall cost Is. 4d., then every poor and industrious man shall have
4s.
weekly for his own, and Is. lOd. for the support of every other of his family.
And so in proportion as the price of bread rises or falls (that is to say), 3d. to the
man and Id. to every other of the family, on every penny which the loaf rises
above a shilling. (Quoted in Hammond and Hammond 1913: 163)
1
The allowance scales were, in effect, negative income taxes "with a 100
percent marginal rate of tax on earned income below the minimum"
(McCloskey 1973: 434).
The traditional literature maintained that the allowance system was by
far the most widespread form of outdoor relief (Hammond and Ham-
mond 1913: 161, 164; Polanyi 1944: 78). It was assumed that most rural
parishes in the south and east, in response to the subsistence crisis of
1
For examples of other allowance scales, see Royal Commission (1834: 21-4).
The Old Poor Law in

Rural
Areas,
1760-1834 11
1795,
followed the lead of the Berkshire magistrates, and that allow-
ances remained the major form of relief until 1834.
Recent studies of poor relief at the county or local level do not sup-
port this hypothesis. Evidence obtained from parish account books sug-
gests instead that allowance systems were extensively used only during
years of exceptionally high food prices, as a substitute for increases in
nominal wages. After a study of the records of sixteen Berkshire par-
ishes,
Neuman (1972: 102, 107) concluded that although it was "proba-
bly true that at one time or another most Berkshire parishes adopted
some sort of bread scale as a general guide for relieving their able-
bodied poor, . . . evidence suggests these allowances were often of a
temporary sort, in response to unusually severe seasons and high
prices." A. F. J. Brown (1969: 152) similarly concluded that "from 1795
to 1814, many Essex parishes did thus assist large families for limited
periods of very high prices. . . . Generally, when prices fell, allowances
were discontinued." My study of parish record books for Essex, Nor-
folk, and Bedford found that most parishes that adopted allowance
systems in 1795, when bread prices were exceptionally high, removed
them in 1796 or 1797 when prices declined. The high prices of 1800-1
caused parishes to set up allowance systems again, only to remove them
during the summer of 1802. This pattern of instituting bread scales in
response to high food prices continued throughout the period up to
1834,
although evidence suggests that the number of parishes using the
allowance system was never again as high as in 1795 and 1800.

2
The assumption that allowances-in-aid-of-wages constituted the major
form of relief to able-bodied laborers is further refuted by parish re-
sponses to questions
24
and
25
of the
1832
Rural Queries and question
1
of
an
1824
questionnaire distributed by the Select Committee on Labourers'
Wages. Only
41%
of the parishes or districts that responded to the 1824
questionnaire admitted paying allowances-in-aid-of-wages (Williams
1981:
151).
3
This led Blaug
(1963:
160) to conclude that "fewer parishes
practised outdoor relief to the able-bodied in 1824 than in previous
years."
Blaug's conclusion follows, however, only if one assumes that the
allowance system represented the sole form of outdoor
relief,

which was
2
My study of surviving parish record books in Essex, Norfolk, and Bedford found that the
use of allowance systems occurred primarily during the years 1795, 1796, 1800, and 1801.
3
The use of allowance systems was particularly widespread in the grain-producing south-
east; 50% of the responding southeastern districts admitted paying allowances-in-aid-of-
wages (Parl. Papers 1825: XIX).