Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
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The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the poverty relief system of the United Kingdom. It was devised and drawn up by a Poor Law Commission made up of Edwin Chadwick, George Nichols and Nassau William Senior.
The Act was based in two core principles. The first was "less eligibility": that the position of the pauper should be less eligible (that is, less to be chosen) than that of the independent labourer. The other was the "workhouse test", that relief should only be available in the workhouse. The reformed workhouses were to be uninviting, so that anyone capable of coping outside them would choose not to be in one. It also established a Poor Law Board to oversee the operation of the system on a national scale.
The Amendment Act effectively abolished all forms of outdoor relief. From now on the only method of relief would be for the poor to enter a workhouse. The workhouses themselves were little more than prisons, and the separation of families was often the resulted.
When the new Amendment was applied to the industrial North of England (an area the law had never considered during reviews), the system failed catastrophically as many found themselves temporarily unemployed, due to recessions or a fall in stock demands, and were reluctant to enter a workhouse, despite it being the only method of gaining aid. The Government admitted that the law had not been designed to deal with the industrial north and reinstated outdoor relief.
Fierce hostility and organised opposition from workers, politicians, and religious leaders eventually lead to the Amendment Act being updated and softened, removing the very harsh measures of the workhouses to a certain degree.
With the arrival of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, the working class finally had a voice in Parliament and began taking action to bring about yet more changes to the Poor Laws of Great Britain.