Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 2 (2008), p. 234

This excellent study of the administration and politics of the English poor law, in a comparatively neglected phase of its history, contributes greatly to our understanding of the ‘poverty, politics and poor relief’ of the title. Hurren sets out to examine the origins and, especially, the impact of the ‘crusade against outdoor relief’ (for reasons that are not made explicitly clear, Hurren italicizes crusade and words derived from it), which has been examined by Karel Williams, Mary MacKinnon and others. From the late 1860s to the mid-1890s, poor law unions were encouraged by the central government, particularly after the establishment of the Local Government Board in 1871, to cut back on the payment of outdoor relief, adopting various harsh and controversial strategies to retrench on poor law expenditure. Hurren’s book focuses on a single rural poor law union, the notorious Brixworth Union in Northamptonshire, where the crusade against outdoor relief was embarked upon with greater enthusiasm and success than in most other unions. The Brixworth crusade was led by an imposing trio: the fifth Earl Spencer, who was the largest landowner in the union, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Gladstone’s first two governments; Albert Pell, the Conservative MP for south Leicestershire, a spokesman for the Charity Organisation Society and a leading figure in national poor law debates; and the Rev. William Bury, rector of Haselbech and chairman of the board of guardians in Brixworth for much of Hurren’s period. Brixworth was not a typical poor law union; it was one of the Local Government Board’s ‘model’ unions, and was often discussed in official investigations, the Board’s annual reports, Charity Organisation Society publications and in the leading periodicals of the day. It was an important theatre of political conflict between ‘crusaders’ on the board of guardians on the one side, and more liberal guardians and representatives of the labouring poor on the other.

The introduction and part one of the book convincingly locate Hurren’s study within the large historiography of the English poor law; she sets out to establish the importance of the late nineteenth century in the history of the poor law, and of social policy more generally. In parts two and three Hurren takes her readers on a compelling ‘poor law journey’ (p.217), which follows the ‘political journey’ (pp.160, 251, 253) taken by the ‘working people’ of Brixworth, as they responded to the crusaders’ attacks on the poor law benefits to which they had customarily been entitled. We read of the origins of the crusade at the level of central government – the ‘Goschen Minute’ and ‘Longley Strategy’ are familiar to students of the poor law – but Hurren also points to the local factors behind the Brixworth ‘crusade’, which can be seen as a ‘pre-emptive strike’ (p.112) against incipient agricultural trade unionism in the district. She shows that the labouring poor in the Brixworth union fought back in a variety of ways against the ‘crusading’ majority on the board of guardians, arguing that previous historians have understated the extent of resistance to this phase of poor law administration. A central place in Hurren’s analysis is given to the ‘coming of democracy’ (pp.155, 244): the spread of the poor law franchise and the abolition of plural voting in the early to mid-1890s allowed the anti-crusaders in the Brixworth District Outdoor Relief Association to obtain a majority on the board of guardians by 1896, and to reverse the crusading strategy. Some of these anti-crusaders had served their political apprenticeship in the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union some two decades earlier. In the intervening period, the labouring poor and their supporters were often able to voice opposition to stringent poor law administration in parish vestries, the significance of which has often been overlooked by historians of the later nineteenth century.

In common with many social historians, Hurren is eager to emphasize the agency and political participation of the ‘working people’ of Brixworth, although it is notable that, before the franchise reforms of the 1890s, their victories over the crusaders were often won with, and perhaps only because of, the prominent support of other members of local elites, such as the dowager Viscountess Milton (pp.161–2). Nevertheless, it is clear that the working-class population had a detailed knowledge of the rules and workings of the poor law, as other historians have also suggested. This was not surprising, as the crusading policies of the guardians were posted on church doors within the union (p.119; this is a feature of the poor law that Keith Snell has recently emphasized). Hurren’s study illustrates the profound physical and psychological impact of these policies on the poor – often through detailed accounts of individual cases, ably reconstructed from a range of sources – and details the complex strategies to which they resorted in response to them. There are some useful insights from contemporary sociology and anthropology, although perhaps these could have been developed further. There are also some minor presentational infelicities: for example, the use of the same quotation from Sidney Ward, a local anti-crusader, twice (pp.104–5, 262–3), a reference to Joseph (rather than Seebohm) Rowntree as the author of Poverty: a study of town life (p.72) and a number of typographical errors.

The local focus of Hurren’s study does not prevent it from making a significant contribution to the historiography of the later nineteenth century. She successfully challenges the ‘misconception that studying the minutiae of pauperism records means losing the bigger poor law picture’ (p.250). Protesting about pauperism is an impressive account of the importance of local politics in the development of social policy in the period, and contains several useful suggestions for further research. It is a significant contribution to the historiography, not only of the poor law, but also of English local politics and rural life in the later nineteenth century.