The guardians of the poor and the administration of the Poor Law in South Hampshire 1870-1914

Abstract

In this study of the poor law in three unions in South Hampshire between 1870 and 1914, namely the Southampton Incorporation, and the South Stoneham and the New Forest Unions, the poor law is set in its wider context of the social, economic and party policial background of the three areas, and policies and reasons for their adoption are examined within this context. Although traditions of non-partisan administration were maintained at elections, the poor law in the urban area of Southampton was influenced to a major degree by the nature of party politics within the town, and local councillors and magistrates used the poor law elections and administration to further the interests of the Conservative and Liberal parties at other local and parliamentary elections in areas of policy and patronage. Certain matters were dealth with in a partisan way by the Board, notably temperance and religious issues. In suburban South Stoneham the maintenance of the Conservative party's local prestige was a factor in prompting guardians to serve, but the Board was apparently run in an entirely non-partisan way, in contrast to other local institutions. In the New Forest the poor law was used as a means of exerting social rather than political control by the gentry over the rest of local society. In this the New Forest is shown to be unusual in that the power of the gentry had not declined here as elsewhere by 1870, and the local landowners played an active part in poor law administration, a role which was augmented by institutions peculiar to the New Forst such as the Court of Verderers and the New Forest Association, formed to negotiate with the Crown over local commoners rights.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record

ASCII CitationAtomBibTeXData Cite XMLDublin CoreDublin CoreEP3 XMLEndNoteHTML CitationHTML CitationHTML ListJSONMETSMODSMPEG-21 DIDLOpenURL ContextObjectOpenURL ContextObject in SpanRDF+N-TriplesRDF+N3RDF+XMLRIOXX2 XMLReferReference ManagerSimple Metadata