Editing Workhouse (section)

===1834 Act===
[[File:Cleveland Street Work House London.jpg|left|thumb|Former [[Cleveland Street workhouse]], London W1, photographed in 1930. It later became part of the Middlesex Hospital.]]
By 1832 the amount spent on poor relief nationally had risen to £7&nbsp;million a year, more than 10&nbsp;[[Shilling (British coin)|shillings]] (£{{£sd|s=10}}) per head of population,{{sfnp|Fraser|2009|p=50|ps=none}} up from £2&nbsp;million in 1784.{{sfnp|May|1987|p=121|ps=none}}{{efn|Britain's [[gross national income]] in 1830 was £400&nbsp;million, of which the £7&nbsp;million spent on poor relief represents 2%, not a great deal by modern standards according to the historian Trevor May. He further observes that "As poor relief was the only social service provided by the state this might seem to be a small price to pay for saving Britain from the revolution that must have seemed so imminent during the [[Swing Riots|Swing riots]].{{sfnp|May|1987|p=121|ps=none}}}} The large number of those seeking assistance was pushing the system to "the verge of collapse".{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=103|ps=none}}{{efn|It has been estimated that there were 1.5&nbsp;million paupers in Britain in 1832, about 12% of the population of 13&nbsp;million.{{sfnp|May|1987|p=121|ps=none}}}} The economic downturn following the end of the [[Napoleonic Wars]] in the early 19th century resulted in increasing numbers of unemployed. Coupled with developments in agriculture that meant less labour was needed on the land,<ref name=FowlerPP14-16/> along with three successive bad harvests beginning in 1828 and the [[Swing Riots]] of 1830, reform was inevitable.{{sfnp|Knott|1986|p=51|ps=none}}

Many suspected that the system of poor relief was being widely abused. In 1832 the government established a [[Royal Commission]] to investigate and recommend how relief could best be given to the poor.<ref name=FowlerPP14-16>{{Harvnb|Fowler|2007|pp=14–16}}</ref> The result was the establishment of a centralised Poor Law Commission in England and Wales under the [[Poor Law Amendment Act 1834]], also known as the New Poor Law, which discouraged the allocation of outdoor relief to the able-bodied; "all cases were to be 'offered the house', and nothing else".{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=242|ps=none}} Individual parishes were grouped into [[Poor Law Union]]s, each of which was to have a union workhouse. More than 500 of these were built during the next 50 years, two-thirds of them by 1840.{{sfnp|Fraser|2009|pp=63–64|ps=none}} In certain parts of the country there was a good deal of resistance to these new buildings, some of it violent, particularly in the industrial north. Many workers lost their jobs during the major economic depression of 1837, and there was a strong feeling that what the unemployed needed was not the workhouse but short-term relief to tide them over. By 1838, 573 Poor Law Unions had been formed in England and Wales, incorporating 13,427&nbsp;parishes, but it was not until 1868 that unions were established across the entire country:{{sfnp|May|1987|p=124|ps=none}} the same year that the New Poor Law was applied to the Gilbert Unions.{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=42|ps=none}}

Despite the intentions behind the 1834 Act, relief of the poor remained the responsibility of local taxpayers, and there was thus a powerful economic incentive to use loopholes such as sickness in the family to continue with outdoor relief; the weekly cost per person was about half that of providing workhouse accommodation.{{efn|In 1860 the weekly cost of maintaining a pauper in a workhouse in the east of England was 3s 0½d (£0.152) a week, as opposed to 1s 9d (£0.088) a week for outdoor relief.{{sfnp|May|1987|p=125|ps=none}}}}  Outdoor relief was further restricted by the terms of the [[Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order|1844 Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order]], which aimed to end it altogether for the able-bodied poor.{{sfnp|Fraser|2009|pp=63–64|ps=none}} In 1846, of 1.33&nbsp;million paupers only 199,000 were maintained in workhouses, of whom 82,000 were considered to be able-bodied, leaving an estimated 375,000 of the able-bodied on outdoor relief.{{sfnp|May|1987|pp=124–125|ps=none}} Excluding periods of extreme economic distress, it has been estimated that about 6.5% of the British population may have been accommodated in workhouses at any given time.{{sfnp|Fraser|2009|p=67|ps=none}}{{efn|Official twice-yearly headcounts, taken on 1 January and 1 July, suggest that between 2.5% and 4.5% of the population was accommodated in workhouses at any given time.{{sfnp|Fraser|2009|p=67|ps=none}}}}