Coping with Risk in the Seventeenth Century: The First Age of the English Old Poor Law: A Regional Study

ABSTRACTThe development of the poor law has formed a key element of recent discussions of ‘state formation’ in early modern England. There are, however, still few local studies of how formal poor relief, stipulated in the great Tudor statutes, was implemented on the ground. This article offers such a study, focusing on Lancashire, an economically marginal county, far from Westminster. It argues that the poor law developed in Lancashire surprisingly quickly in the early seventeenth century, despite the fact that there is almost no evidence of implementation of statutory relief before 1598, and formal relief mechanisms were essentially in place before the Civil War even if the numbers on relief remained small. After a brief hiatus during the conflict, the poor law was quickly revived in the 1650s. The role of the magistracy is emphasized as a crucial driving force, not just in the enforcement of the statutes, but also in setting relief policy. The thousands of petitions to JPs by paupers, parishes, and townships that survive in the county archives suggests that magistrates were crucial players in the ‘politics of the parish’.

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The Poor Law of Old England: Institutional Innovation and Demographic Regimes

Journal of Interdisciplinary History ◽

10.1162/jinh_a_00105 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 41 (3) ◽

pp. 339-366 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Morgan Kelly ◽

Cormac Ó Gráda

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Institutional Innovation ◽

Institutional Changes ◽

Real Wages ◽

Poor Law ◽

The Poor ◽

Demographic Regimes

The striking improvement in life expectancy that took place in England between the Middle Ages and the seventeenth century cannot be explained either by an increase in real wages or by better climatic conditions. The decrease in the risk of utter destitution or of death from famine that was evident on the eve of the Industrial Revolution stemmed, in part, from institutional changes in the old poor law, which began to take shape and become effective early in the seventeenth century.

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Robert Plot: Britain's 'genial father of county natural histories'

Notes and Records the Royal Society journal of the history of science ◽

10.1098/rsnr.1985.0007 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 159-177 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Small Area ◽

Great Benefit ◽

Regional Study ◽

Useful Knowledge ◽

The People ◽

History Of ◽

Natural Histories ◽

John Leland

Robert Plot (1640—1696) has deservedly been called the ‘genial father of County Natural Histories in Britain’ for his work in this Field. Like his friend John Aubrey, Plot was interested in promoting useful knowledge, emphasizing how his own work would contribute ‘to the great benefit of Trade, and advantage of the People’. Also like the famous Aubrey he was interested in the supernatural and therefore he included accounts of occult phenomena in his natural histories. His Natural History of Oxfordshire, published after a lengthy period when natural history was still experiencing some difficulty in firmly superseding the chorographic element in the field of regional study, was chiefly responsible for popularizing regional natural history. It was deliberately intended by its author to supplement the ‘Civil and Geographicall Historys’ which up to that time still managed to exert an influence on the field as a whole. These ‘Civil and Geographicall Historys’ were generally called ‘chorographies’ by most of Plot’s fellow virtuosi, a name originally derived from the Classical Greek art of chorography whose purpose, according to Ptolemy, was to treat the geography and history of a relatively small area of the Earth’s surface. This genre was practiced by W illiam Camden, John Leland and other sixteenth and early seventeenth-century men, who adapted it to their own particular purposes. Plot, however, was one of the first ‘regional writers’ to discard many of the methods and interests of the chorographers, preferring rather to scientifically investigate the natural history.

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