Navigating the Old English Poor Law - The Kirkby Lonsdale Letters, 1809-1836

At the heart of this book are the stories, in their own words, of ordinary people who fell into need and required the help of the local state in the early nineteenth century. We read their hopes, fears, detailed experiences of illness, and aspects of material conditions across a spectrum from nakedness and starvation to homelessness and eviction.

List of contents

• List of Figures


• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• THE KIRKBY LONSDALE LETTERS, 1809-1836


• Bibliography


• Index

About the author

Steven King is Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Health, Medicine and Society at Oxford Brookes University. He publishes widely on the history of British and European welfare, 1700-1920.

Summary

This edition of over 600 letters written by or for the poor in the early nineteenth-century Cumbrian town of Kirkby Lonsdale provides a unique window onto the experiences, views and conditions of a much-neglected group in English society. At the most human level, these letters are replete with sickness and suffering, the inability of mothers and fathers to fulfil their basic roles, claims that people were starving and naked, writers who were at death's door and those who were homeless and desperate.

The letters also provide a sense of the emotional landscape of those who have largely escaped the attention of historians of emotion. Here we find anger, suffering, gratitude, hopelessness, fear, humiliation and humility, largely in the words and voice of those who experienced such emotions. And above all we find agency - a group of poor people and their advocates who were willing and able, indeed saw it as their right, to challenge those who administered welfare and attempt to shape a system which notionally at least afforded them no power. Here, then, are ordinary lives played out on a canvas that will be appealing to a wide readership.

Additional text

This collection provides thought-provoking insights into the workings of the Old Poor Law.

Product details

• Authors: Peter (Nottingham Trent University) King Jones
• Assisted by: Peter Jones (Editor), Jones Peter (Editor), Steven King (Editor), King Steven (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 24.12.2020
• EAN: 9780197266816
• ISBN: 978-0-19-726681-6
• No. of pages: 400
• Series: Records of Social and Economic History
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, Diaries, letters & journals, HISTORY / Modern / General, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Letters, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Economic history, Social & cultural anthropology, c 1500 onwards to present day, Social and cultural anthropology, Diaries, letters and journals, History and Archaeology, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs