Description
Book SynopsisThis comparative study of urban poverty is the first to chart the irregular pulse of poverty''s encounters with officialdom. It exploits an unusual methodology to secure new perspectives from familiar sources.
The highly localised characteristics of the welfare economy generated a peculiarly urban environment for the poor. Separate chapters examine the parameters of workhouse life when the preconceptions of contemporaries have been stripped away; the reach of institutional charities such as almshouses, schools and infirmaries; and the surprisingly broad clientele of urban pawnbrokers. Detailed analysis of the poor is achieved via meticulous matching of individuals who fell within the purview of two or more authorities. The result is a unique insight into the survival economics of urban poverty, arising not from a tidy network of welfare but from a loose assembly of options, where the impoverished positioned themselves repeatedly to fit official, philanthropic, or casual
Trade Review
Tomkins presents the conditions under which the poor lived, drawing on life in the workhouse, traditional poor relief such as lodging in poorhouses, health care, and schools for the poor. The section on credit and pawn broking among those in distress is especially significant because this is a field that has hardly been researched so far, and it demonstrates the flexibility of the poor in their struggle against want. -- .
Table of Contents
List of tables, figures and appendices
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Life in Urban Workhouses
3. Traditional Forms of Voluntary Charity
4. ‘Medical’ Welfare and Provincial Infirmaries
5. Charity Schools and the Treatment of Poor Children
6. Pawnbroking and the use of credit
7. Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
