The 1834 New Poor Law – an Act which, for many liberal Victorians, appeared to criminalise the poor. Charles Dickens was a vigorous critic of this New Poor Law and he relentlessly lampooned the harsh utilitarian ethics behind it – the belief that the workhouse would act as a deterrent so fewer people would claim poor relief and thereby the poor rate would reach its ‘correct’ level.
[Poverty and the Poor]
The 2014 New Poor Law; I wonder, what would Charley have to say about our ‘progress’?
