poverty

• cause : sheep farming


  enclosure

  less workers

  less people growing food
• cause : increasing population

  2.8 million —> 4 million

  food& housing inflation
• cause : dearth

  3 bad harvests in a row
• cause : henry viii

  removed the monasteries
• attitude : undeserving poor


  those able to work but were lazy

  e.g. able bodied beggars
• attitude : deserving poor

  no fault of their own

  e.g. sick, old, orphans
• attitude : thomas harman

  seminal work on beggars

  ‘ a caveat or warning for common cursitors, vulgarly called vagabonds ‘ - 1566
• attitudes : vagabonds


  fear around poverty

  committing crimes& stealing

  spreading the plague
• actions : 1601 poor law

  taxes to pay to help the deserving poor

  first ever national act

  doesnt change until 1834