This Day in History: 1834-08-14

Parliament passes the ‘Poor Law’ The British Parliament on this day in 1834 passes a revision to older laws governing charities and relief to the poor. The “new” poor law of 1834 led to the building of 500 new houses for paupers across Britain. Most were built to keep men, women, children and the infirm separate from each other. The workhouses were supposed to be a last resort. Able-bodied poor and starving families would be “offered the house” — or nothing — under the new law. Once in the workhouse, there was no way to make money to leave it, so in effect, going into the workhouse was a life sentence. Many people were opposed to the cruel and high-handed approach to taken by the British government to force the poor into workhouses. In fact, one notorious piece of anti-poor law propaganda was called the Book of Murder. Charles Dickens, the framed British writer, spent a good deal of his youth in the workhouse, and wrote with compassion about the suffering the inmates endured.