ACC Context

• Workhouse


  An early form of imprisonment whose purpose was to instil habits of industry in the idle.
• Poor Law of 1834


  People who needed help due to poverty could only get it if they were prepared to leave their home and go into the workhouses.
• Industrial Revolution


  A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods.
• Factory owners became very rich and powerful as a result of the Industrial Revolution.


  This meant that some lower-classes found themselves becoming more wealthy.
• Malthusian Theory


  Overpopulation would lead to poverty and poor people dying. Dickens did not agree with this.
• Malthus thought poverty was linked to laziness.


  Dickens disagrees and shows this through the hard working Cratchit family.
• Social Responsibility


  The duty of a person or business to contribute to the well-being of a community
• Sabbatarianism


  Victorian practice of going to church, resting and closing shops on Sundays.
• Dickens was opposed to Sabbatarianism


  If shops were closed on a Sunday, the poor couldn't have hot meals when shops were closed
• Education in Victorian England

  Education wasn't compulsory and had to be paid for. Children would leave school to provide for their family.
• Consequence of lack of education

  The lack of education leaves people with no hope of ever escaping poverty.
• Before The Poor Law the cost of looking after the poorer people of society was growing.


  The cost reached £7 million and came from the taxes from the upper classes.
• Workhouse conditions meant it was the last thing poor people wanted to go to

  Workhouses were degrading and humiliating.
• Arriving at the workhouse

  People were interviewed, stripped, washed and given a haircut. Their clothes would be thrown away and they were given a uniform.
• Families were split up at the workhouse


  Women and children were separated and not allowed to communicate with each other.
• Dickens wanted the audience to realise that they should be socially responsible.


  The rich should help the poor people to have a good life, rather than leaving them to go to the workhouse.