THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS, 1834 437 



years later. 1 The general principle of this latter Report, on which was based the 

 Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 and 5 Wm. IV. c. 76), was that outdoor 

 relief of able-bodied paupers was the root-evil of the existing system, and that 

 their position must be made less eligible than that of independent labourers. 

 Relief must, therefore, not be given in the home of the recipient. Destitu- 

 tion, or, as the Report expresses it, indigence, not poverty, is to be regarded 

 as the proper object of a Poor Law, and the workhouse affords the only reliable 

 test by which the two conditions can be discriminated. A man is only 

 destitute when he is ready to accept the restraint of a workhouse rather 

 than rely on his own resources. Parliament refused to adopt the extreme 

 course of absolutely and universally prohibiting outdoor relief to able-bodied 

 persons or to their families, as the Commissioners recommended. It is signi- 

 ficant that no power was given to dissolve the Gilbert Unions, in which the 

 overseers were compelled by statute to employ able-bodied applicants for 

 relief in work conveniently near their own homes. Nor was Parliament 

 altogether convinced that workhouses were essential to properly administered 

 Poor Relief, and it showed its hesitation by not arming the Commissioners 

 with powers to compel their provision. In other respects the main principles 

 of the Report were adopted. 



The Act of 1834 did not itself attempt to frame a new system of Poor 

 Relief. It rather aimed at correcting abuses by substituting for every variety 

 of practice the uniform adoption of improvements which experience had 

 proved to be salutary. Instead of elaborating its own code of rules, it con- 

 ferred on a newly constituted public body ample discretionary powers. It 

 altered the existing law of settlement and of bastardy. But the really 

 important change which it effected was the creation of a Central Authority, 

 consisting of three Poor Law Commissioners, empowered to issue orders 

 regulating every detail of the local administration of Poor Relief. To this 

 Board were transferred the powers of all the unskilled and irresponsible 

 authorities of 15,000 parishes. Existing incorporations under Gilbert's Act 

 or local Acts were not to be dissolved. But with these exceptions, the Com- 

 missioners were specially empowered to group parishes into unions for the 

 management of workhouses common to the united parishes, thus spreading 

 the cost over a larger area, minimising the influence of local interests, enabling 

 each union to employ competent paid officials, and facilitating the classifica- 

 tion of the inmates. Power was reserved to two justices to order outdoor 

 relief in cases where one of the justices making the order certified, of his own 

 knowledge, that the recipient was, from old age or bodily infirmity, unable 

 to work. In all other cases, relief to the able-bodied was to be regulated 

 by the Commissioners' orders, and any relief administered contrary to their 

 regulations was declared unlawful, and was to be disallowed. In pursuance 

 of these wide powers, the Poor Law Commissioners, appointed under the Act, 

 entrusted the ordinary administration of relief within each union to the 

 " relieving officers," under the direction of the Board of Guardians, subject to 

 the following, among other, regulations : (1) Except in cases of sickness or 

 accident, no relief is to be given in money to any able-bodied pauper, who 

 is in employment, nor to any part of his family. (2) If any able-bodied 

 male pauper applies to be set to work by the parish, one-half at least of the 

 relief is to be in kind. (3) No relief is to be given by payment of house- 

 rent, or by allowance towards the same. The first regulations were tem- 

 porary, designed as the first stage in a stricter administration of the law. 

 But the attitude of Parliament towards the complete prohibition of out- 

 door relief and the universal establishment of workhouses faithfully reflected 

 the feeling of the country. Round these two points raged a prolonged contest. 



1 Feb. 24, 1834. It had been preceded by the publication of Extracts from Information 

 received by His Majesty's Commissioners, etc. (March 19, 1833). 



