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Speenhamland
The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law (the Poor Relief Act 1601). It was created as an indirect result of Britain's involvements in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). Operation The system was named after a meeting held on 6 May, 1795 in the Pelikan Inn, Speenhamland, Berkshire, where local magistrates devised the system as a means to alleviate the distress caused by high grain prices. The increase in the price of grain may have occurred as a result of a poor harvest in the years 1795–96, though at the time this was subject to great debate. Many blamed middlemen and hoarders as the ultimate architects of the shortage. The Speenhamland scale read, "When a gallon loaf of bread cost one shilling:... every Poor and Industrious Man should have for his own Support 3s wee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speenhamland, Berkshire
Speenhamland is a suburb of Newbury, Berkshire. Name and location Its name is probably derived from Old English ''Spen-haema-land'', "land of the inhabitants of Speen", with "Speen" perhaps being formed on a Brittonic root deriving from Latin ''spinis'', "thorns".Coates and Breeze (2000) ''Celtic voices, English places: studies of the Celtic impact on place-names in England'', p. 41. Speenhamland was a tithing, or administrative subdivision, of the parish of Speen, though even in the early 19th century it was contiguous with the suburbs of Newbury.Lysons & Lysons (eds., 1813: ''Magna Britannia'', vol I, part II, London: Cadell & Davies, p. 372. It lies to the north of the River Kennet, between the centre of Newbury and Speen village to the north-west. Poor relief The Speenhamland system of poor relief In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great Transformation (book)
''The Great Transformation'' is a book by Karl Polanyi, a Hungarian political economist. First published in 1944 by Farrar & Rinehart, it deals with the social and political upheavals that took place in England during the rise of the market economy. Polanyi contends that the modern market economy and the modern nation-state should be understood not as discrete elements but as a single human invention, which he calls the "Market Society". A distinguishing characteristic of the "Market Society" is that humanity's economic mentalities have been changed. Prior to this, people based their economies on reciprocity and redistribution across personal and communal relationships.Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', ch. 4. As a consequence of industrialization and increasing state influence, competitive markets were created that undermined these previous social tendencies, replacing them with formal institutions that aimed to promote a self-regulating market economy. The expansion of c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George And Pelican Inn
The George and Pelican Inn was an English coaching inn that provided food, entertainment and overnight accommodation for travellers between London and Bath for over 200 years, from the middle of the seventeenth century until the opening of Newbury station in 1847. Originally two separate inns, they later combined, although each retained a separate identity by providing different services. Located in Speenhamland, Newbury, Berkshire, it was the most famous of a series of pubs located on the London to Bath Road, now the A4 as it runs through Newbury. The building occupied by the George and Pelican was Grade II listed in 1950. Famous visitors *1784: George III and an entourage including his queen and two of their daughters stopped briefly at the inn to change horses whilst on their way to visit Tottenham Park in Marlborough. *1822: William Cobbett William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Sur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Relief Act 1601
The Poor Relief Act 1601 ( 43 Eliz. 1. c. 2) was an act of the Parliament of England. The act, popularly known as the Elizabethan Poor Law, the "43rd Elizabeth", or the "Old Poor Law", was passed in 1601 and created a poor law system for England and Wales. It formalised earlier practices of poor relief distribution in England and Wales and is generally considered a refinement of the Poor Relief Act 1597 ( 39 Eliz. 1. c. 3) that established overseers of the poor. The "Old Poor Law" was not one law but a collection of laws passed between the 16th and 18th centuries. The system's administrative unit was the parish. It was not a centralised government policy but a law which made individual parishes responsible for Poor Law legislation. The 1601 act saw a move away from the more obvious forms of punishing paupers under the Tudor system towards methods of "correction". Several amending pieces of legislation can be considered part of the Old Poor Law. These include: *1662 – Poo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 Will. 4. c. 76) (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the British Whig Party, Whig government of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, Earl Grey denying the right of the poor to subsistence. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the Poor Relief Act 1601 (43 Eliz. 1. c. 2) and attempted to fundamentally change the social security, poverty relief system in England and Wales (similar changes were made to the Scottish Poor Laws, poor law for Scotland in 1845). It resulted from the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws, which included Edwin Chadwick, John Bird Sumner and Nassau William Senior. Chadwick was dissatisfied with the law that resulted from his report. The Act was passed two years after the Reform Act 1832, Representation of the People Act 1832 which extended the Suffrage, franchise to middle-class men. Some histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roundsman
The Roundsman System (sometimes termed the billet, or ticket, or item system), in the Poor Relief Act 1601, was a form of organised labour exchange for the poorest labourers by which a parish vestry helped to pay local farmers, households and others to employ such applicants for relief at a rate of headline wages negotiated and set by the parish. It depended not on the services, but on the wants of the applicants: the employers being repaid out of the poor rate (local taxation) all they advanced in wages beyond a very low-wage amount. Variants of the Roundsman system operated and co-existed from parish-to-parish and sometimes depending on type of labour. Details According to this plan the parish in general agreed with a farmer to sell to him the labour of one or more paupers at a certain price, paying to the pauper out of the parish funds the difference between that price and the subsistence rate (the difference being an ''allowance'' which the scale, according to the price of br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swing Riots
The Swing Riots were a widespread uprising in 1830 by agricultural workers in southern and eastern England in protest of agricultural mechanisation and harsh working conditions. The riots began with the destruction of threshing machines in the Elham Valley area of East Kent in the summer of 1830 and by early December had spread through the whole of southern England and East Anglia. It was to be the largest movement of social unrest in 19th-century England. As well as attacking the popularly-hated threshing machines, which displaced workers, the protesters rioted over low wages and required tithes by destroying workhouses and tithe barns associated with their oppression. They also burned ricks and maimed cows. The rioters directed their anger at the three targets identified as causing their misery: the tithe system, requiring payments to support the established Anglican Church; the Poor Law guardians, who were thought to abuse their power over the poor; and the rich tenant fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workhouse
In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse (, lit. "poor-house") was a total institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as Scottish poorhouse, poorhouses. The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, Abingdon reporting that "we have erected within our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work". The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Statute of Cambridge 1388, which attempted to address the labour shortages following the Black Death in England by restricting the movement of labourers, and ultimately led to the state becoming responsible for the support of the poor. However, mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers in particular, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Child Labour
Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists, family duties, supervised training, and some forms of work undertaken by Amish children, as well as by Indigenous children in the Americas. Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout history. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5–14 from poorer families worked in Western nations and their colonies alike. These children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories, mining, and services such as news boys—some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours. With the rise of household income, availability of schools and passage of child labour laws, the inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Ricardo
David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was born in London as the third surviving child of a successful stockbroker and his wife. He came from a Sephardic Jewish family of Portuguese origin. At 21, he eloped with a Quaker and converted to Unitarianism, causing estrangement from his family. He made his fortune financing government borrowing and later retired to an estate in Gloucestershire. Ricardo served as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire and bought a seat in Parliament as an earnest reformer. He was friends with prominent figures like James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and Thomas Malthus, engaging in debates over various topics. Ricardo was also a member of The Geological Society, and his youngest sister was an author. As MP for Portarlington, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poverty Trap
In economics, a cycle of poverty, poverty trap or generational poverty is when poverty seems to be inherited, preventing subsequent generations from escaping it. It is caused by self-reinforcing mechanisms that cause poverty, once it exists, to persist unless there is outside intervention. It can persist across generations, and when applied to developing countries, is also known as a development trap. Families trapped in the cycle of poverty have few to no Factors of production, resources. There are many self-reinforcing disadvantages that make it virtually impossible for individuals to break the cycle. Lack of financial capital, education, and Social network, social connections all play a role in keeping the impoverished within the cycle of poverty. Those who are born into poverty have been shown to consistently remain poor throughout their lives. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold Standard
A gold standard is a backed currency, monetary system in which the standard economics, economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the late 1920s to 1932 as well as from 1944 until 1971 when the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system. Many states nonetheless hold substantial gold reserves. Historically, the silver standard and bimetallism have been more common than the gold standard. The shift to an international monetary system based on a gold standard reflected accident, network externalities, and path dependence. Great Britain accidentally adopted a ''de facto'' gold standard in 1717 when Isaac Newton, then-master of the Royal Mint, set the exchange rate of silver to gold too low, thus causing silver coins to go out of circulation. As Great Britain became the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
