3.5 Government Self-help and Charity

• The initial teething troubles caused by the assiduous implementation of the main principles of the Poor Law Amendment Act (see Chapter 4) had been largely dealt with by the mid-1840s
• Commissioners and assistant commissioners had worked hard and with some measure of success
• Opposition had, broadly, died down
• Those seeking relief knew what to expect, and those paying for the relief knew what they were paying for
• The Andover workhouse scandal of 1845-46, although undoubtedly exaggerated, brought some of the worst abuses of the new Poor Law system to the attention of parliament and the public
• The scandal provided the trigger for the abolition of the Poor Law Commission
• It was replaced by the Poor Law Board, whose president was a cabinet minister and accountable to parliament
• Dominant 19th-century attitudes to poverty

  • The poor had themselves created the poverty in which they lived
  • Their lifestyle-the drunkenness of men and the prostitution of women, the poorly nourished babies, the filthy children and the hovels in which they lived - was essentially their own choice
  • Only the destitute would be given relief, although some concessions were made for widows, orphans, the sick and the old
  • It was widely believed that, with a bit of effort on their own part, no able-bodied person need live in poverty
• These commonly held beliefs about poverty and the poor were challenged in different ways and from individuals in very different positions in society
• It was these mid-19th-century challenges that played a part in changing attitudes to the poor and which resulted in an easing of the strictures of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act
• The Andover workhouse scandal led to the end of the Poor Law Commission
• For a long time, the Andover Union in Hampshire had been held up as being the model of post-1834 Poor Law administration
• Outdoor relief had been abolished, and the strictest dietary was used in the Andover workhouse
• The union administration was praised in the annual reports of the Poor Law commissioners
• In 1837, the guardians appointed Colin M'Dougal and his wife as the Andover workhouse master and matron
• Reports began filtering out that all was not well in the Andover workhouse
• Thomas Wakley, who was MP for Finsbury and a strong opponent of the new Poor Law, asked a question in the House of Commons about the situation in the Andover workhouse
• The Poor Law commissioners ordered Henry Parker, assistant commissioner with responsibility for the area, to investigate
• Henry Parker discovered that the rumours were all true and that a range of dreadful abuses were being perpetrated in the Andover workhouse
• The abuses ranged from sexual abuse of the female paupers by M'Dougal and his son, to serving even less food than laid down by the worst dietary and so forcing starving paupers to suck meat and marrow from the bones they were supposed to be crushing to make fertiliser
• The Poor Law commissioners tried to extricate themselves from the situation by sacking M'Dougal from his post as workhouse master and blaming Parker for not uncovering the abuses sooner, conveniently forgetting they had reduced the number of assistant commissioners from 21 to nine, thus making his job impossible
• London organised into asylum districts

  1867-Metropolitan Poor Act
• The Andover scandal was not driven by the need to implement the Poor Law Amendment Act quickly and efficiently
• The apparent autonomy given by parliament to the three commissioners (see Chapter 4) was envisaged that the power given to the commissioners would be temporary
• The 1834 Act limited the life of the Commission to five years
• After 1839, the Commission's powers were renewed on an annual basis
• By 1842 opposition to the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act was waning
• Parliament extended the commission's contract for a further five years to 1847
• The Andover scandal (1845-46) revealed the worst abuses of the workhouse system and the apparent lack of willingness of the commission to detect and correct such matters
• The way the commission itself pilloried the assistant commissioner responsible for the Andover workhouse, Henry Parker, alarmed those who knew how administrators should be treated in problematical situations
• The select committee revealed that there were considerable tensions within Somerset House, where the commission worked
• Edwin Chadwick, for example, had never reconciled himself to the lowly' position of secretary and used the Andover scandal to attack his superiors
• The Penny Satirist was published in September 1846
• The principle of the bill is that there should be a general superintending authority immediately responsible to Parliament and the existing powers of the Commission shall be transferred to a new Board
• The government replaced the Poor Law Commission with the Poor Law Board in 1847
• Poor Law Board


  • A president and two secretaries undertook the day-to-day work
  • Several cabinet ministers sat on the Board ex officio
  • The president himself was invariably an MP
• The switch from autonomy to parliamentary control did not signal an absolute break from the original administrators of the Poor Law Amendment Act
• George Nicholls (one of the three original commissioners) was appointed permanent secretary to the Board
• Most of the assistant commissioners, renamed 'Poor Law inspectors, stayed on and their numbers were increased from nine to 13
• The intention of the changes was not only to rid the administration of the Poor Law of arrogance, rigidity and cant, but also to link it more firmly to government