The English Poor Law dates from 1597, when Parliament passed a law (39 Elizabeth, c. 3) making it the responsibility of each parish to maintain its poor inhabitants. Four years later Parliament passed another law (43 Elizabeth, c. 2) clarifying several provisions of the 1597 act. Together, these laws established “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 unemployed and underemployed able-bodied laborers, and on the effect of such policies on the rural labor market. In particular, it provides explanations 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.