The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1162: Chapter 122: Irreverent Imperialists

If there is no strong opposition, the government cannot maintain long-term security.

——Benjamin Disraeli

The “English Poor Laws” have a long-standing history in Britain. Even before the central government began uniformly collecting the Poor Relief Tax in the 16th century, local governments in Britain were already levying this tax according to their needs to provide relief to the poor.

The cause of this was the “enclosure movement” originating in the 16th century, which significantly altered the social structure of Britain. A large number of adult laborers, having lost their land, were forced to leave their homes and wander.

The enclosure movement also resulted in a particularly dire consequence: as many farmlands were converted into pastures, the price of staple grains saw an explosive increase in the 16th century.

In the late 15th century, a British worker could earn enough to feed a family for a year with 15 weeks of labor. By the mid-16th century, it required 40 weeks of work. By the late 16th century, even working year-round, it was difficult to meet the basic needs of one’s family.

Meanwhile, the English Reformation in the mid-16th century led the King to take control of the lands and properties of Catholic monasteries, resulting in the closure of nearly half of the Church’s poorhouses and hospitals nationwide. This broke the Church’s charity relief model, which had lasted for several centuries, thus forcing the government to undertake the charity relief work previously handled by the Catholic Church.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, London had a population of just over 200,000, of which more than 50,000 were vagrants. Throughout Great Britain, over one-third of the general populace was undernourished.

At that time, local governments, in order to manage the large number of impoverished people, were even willing to set aside the pride that the British Government had maintained for centuries by issuing a certain number of begging permits to local poor people. In exchange for allowing this group to beg publicly, they used this method to count their numbers and regulate their behavior.

Under such a severe social reality, in 1601, the British Parliament announced the enactment of the “Elizabethan Poor Laws,” formally incorporating the relief system into the government’s work agenda.

According to the act, parishes would levy a Poor Relief Tax on the wealthy and middle class, and this tax would be exclusively used to aid those at the lowest economic level within the parish.

The poverty relief under the Poor Laws was mainly divided into two types.

The first type was indoor relief, where the recipients had to join a reformatory, poorhouse, or local training workshop to participate in labor until they found a job.

The second type was outdoor relief. As the name implies, this kind of relief did not require entry into a poorhouse to participate in labor but rather involved staying at home to receive aid. Initially, however, only five categories of people—old, weak, sick, disabled, and young—were allowed to receive outdoor relief.

It wasn’t until the late 18th century, when the British government’s fiscal capacity was greatly enhanced, that Parliament passed the “Gilbert’s Act,” permitting able-bodied individuals to also receive outdoor relief.

The relief methods of the old Poor Laws largely focused on three aspects.

The first was cash relief, which, as the term suggests, involved giving money to those receiving aid. Various parishes typically paid relief money to the elderly, disabled, and destitute widows with children, whom they deemed deserving of aid, on a monthly or weekly basis.

As for able-bodied young men, if they suddenly fell into poverty due to illness, unemployment, or other emergencies, they could also apply to the parish for ‘temporary relief’ until they recovered or found work.

However, this did not mean one could rely on relief payments indefinitely. If it was found by the Poor Law Commission that you were physically able but refused to work out of laziness, or if you had been receiving relief money for too long, whipping and being sent to a poorhouse to perform compulsory labor were considered legal actions.

Moreover, due to the large number of poor people, the balance of the parish’s Poor Relief Tax was often stretched thin. Thus, the Poor Law Commission would re-evaluate each year who within the parish was worthy of aid. Consequently, during that time, it was nearly impossible to live a lifetime just relying on welfare benefits.

Aside from cash relief, housing relief was another important form of aid. From the 18th century, parishes began to provide housing relief to those poor people who couldn’t afford rent despite earning from labor.

Parishes would typically pay the rent directly to the landlords of the poor to ensure they had a place to stay. If a landlord found a tenant unable to pay rent, they might also directly request the parish to pay the rent for their impoverished tenant. If the parish itself had enough property, the poor could apply to rent at a lower rate.

However, for most parishes, their property consisted of poorhouses. Yet, since the conditions were too basic, most able-bodied young people were unwilling to move in; only vagrant children, the disabled, or sick poor would choose to live there. Because, no matter how poor the conditions, at the very least, the poorhouse was free.

For solitary elderly individuals and orphans, they could reside with caretakers designated by the parish for care, with the caretakers’ salaries paid by the parish.

Moreover, another more common aid was medical relief. Depending on the financial resources of each parish, the relief programs varied.

From the mid-18th century, backward parishes would hire private doctors, ordinary parishes would sign annual contracts with hospitals, and affluent parishes would directly establish poor hospitals to help the impoverished in the district with preventive vaccinations, providing medications, deliveries, spiritual care, and other medical services. Ill poor individuals could also choose home-based treatment, and their relatives were required to assume basic care responsibilities, for which they could receive compensation from the parish.