McGill-Queen's University Press Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s: Volume 1 (States, People, and the History of Social Change)

From the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, the English Old Poor Law was waning, soon to be replaced by the New Poor Law and its dreaded workhouses. In Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s Steven King reveals colourful stories of poor people, their advocates, and the officials with whom they engaged during this period in British history, distilled from the largest collection of parochial correspondence ever assembled. Investigating the way that people experienced and shaped the English and Welsh welfare system through the use of almost 26,000 pauper letters and the correspondence of overseers in forty-eight counties, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s reconstructs the process by which the poor claimed, extended, or defended their parochial allowances. Challenging preconceptions about literacy, power, social structure, and the agency of ordinary people, these stories suggest that advocates, officials, and the poor shared a common linguistic register and an understanding of how far welfare decisions could be contested and negotiated. King shifts attention away from traditional approaches to construct an unprecedented, comprehensive portrait of poor law administration and popular writing at the turn of the nineteenth century. At a time when the western European welfare model is under sustained threat, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s takes us back to its deepest roots to demonstrate that the signature of a strong welfare system is malleability. Review "The English poor law was part of a discretionary world of welfare in which the poor had both agency and voice, both of which, until now, have been glimpsed only fleetingly in the literature on poverty and poor relief. This monograph changes everything. In this wonderfully rich and scholarly book, Steven King provides a highly original approach to understanding the Old Poor Law from the bottom up based on an extraordinary excavation of an entirely new corpus of poor people's letters originating from a wide range of geographical settings. The scholarly eye cast over this new body of evidence is impressive and focuses attention on the material context of letter writing as well as the experiential world of the letter writers themselves. Exploring the linguistic registers and rhetorical structures used by the poor opens up fresh and novel perspectives on the process of claiming and receiving relief and on the operation of the poor law itself. King maps out an entirely new corpus of evidence with which to explore a broad range of historical topics, from the emergence of eloquence and the spread of literacy to the experience of poverty and the provision of welfare. It is a book about letter writing as well as letter writers and will appeal to scholars across a wide disciplinary spectrum from literary studies to welfare historians. Above all, by using the words of the poor themselves, King amply demonstrates deep empathy as well as insight to the experience of poverty in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and Wales. He reminds us of that poor people had agency and a need to be heard not just in the past but also in the present." David Green, King's College London From the Author Steven King is professor of economic and social history at the University of Leicester. About the Author Steven King is professor of economic and social history at the University of Leicester.