Opposition To The Poor Law
Fierce hostility and organised opposition from workers, politicians and religious leaders eventually led to the Amendment Act being amended, removing the very harsh measures of the Workhouses to a certain degree. The Andover workhouse scandal, where conditions in the Andover Union Workhouse were found to be inhumane and dangerous, prompted a government review.
Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens, was written in retaliation against the Poor Law.
In the North of England particularly, there was fierce resistance since the system there was considered by local people to be running smoothly. They argued that the nature of cyclical unemployment meant that any new workhouse built would be empty for most of the year and thus a waste of money. However, the unlikely union between property owners and paupers did not last and opposition, though fierce, eventually petered out. In some cases, this was further accelerated by the fact that protests very successfully undermined parts of the Amendment Act and became obsolete.
Read more about this topic: Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
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“Human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. The power of this community is then set up as “right” in opposition to the power of the individual, which is condemned as “brute force.””
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
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—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
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—Sarah Josepha Buell Hale 1788–1879, U.S. novelist, poet and women’s magazine editor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 36-40 (December 1828)
“There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)