The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700–1948

by Lynn Hollen Lees

• ISBN13: 9780521030663
• ISBN10: 0521030668
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Solidarities of Strangers is a study of English policies toward the poor from the seventeenth century to the present that combines individual stories with official actions. Lynn Lees shows how clients as well as officials negotiated welfare settlements. Cultural definitions of entitlement, rather than available resources, determined amounts and beneficiaries. Indeed, industrialization and growing wealth went along with restricted payments to the needy, while universal allowances and insurance systems expanded as the economy faltered and world wars crippled budgets and drained resources. Although the English poor laws were a 'residualist' system, aiding the destitute when neither family nor charities covered needs, they went through cycles of generosity and meanness that affected men and women unequally. The long-term history of welfare in England and Wales has not been a story of continued progress and improvement but one determined by continually changing attitudes toward poverty.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Residualism Taken for Granted, 1700-1834

The welfare process under the old poor laws

Weekly doles: communal support in the eighteenth century

Excluding paupers, 1780-1834

Residualism Refined and Restricted, 1834-60

Classifying and confining paupers, 1834-60

-Though poor, I-m a gentleman still-

'Pauperism' in practice, 1834-70

Residualism Re-evaluated and Rejected, 1860-1948

Re-evaluating the urban poor, 1860-90

The multicampaign war on pauperism, 1870-1906

Popular rejection of the poor laws

New principles for social action, 1906-48

Epilogue: residualism redux, 1948-95

Appendix: collection and analysis of settlement examinations

Bibliographic essay

Index

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