Report of the Poor law commissioners to the most noble the Marquis of Normanby, Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the Home department, on the continuance of the Poor law commission, and on some further amendments of the laws relating to the relief of the poor. With appendices.
- Board of guardians
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Poor law commissioners to the most noble the Marquis of Normanby, Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the Home department, on the continuance of the Poor law commission, and on some further amendments of the laws relating to the relief of the poor. With appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![in their letters of instruction and answers to inquiries the facts and reasonings on which their rules or recommendations are founded. On this part of the subject your Committee have agreed to the following Resolution. “ That in the important duties committed to them, the Commis- sioners have evinced zeal, ability, and great discrimination ; and the Committee recommend the continuance of their power, in preference to any system which, by leaving the administration of the Poor Laws without the control and superintendence of a Central Board, might cause the recurrence of those abuses which existed in many counties previously to the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act.”— p. 26, 27. We are conscious of the delicacy of the task which a compli- ance with the instructions of Her Majesty’s Government imposes upon us, and of the suspicions with which a statement of reasons in favour of the continuance of the Poor Law Commission, made by the Commissioners themselves, is likely7 to be received. Nevertheless, as our position has necessarily given us the widest and most exact knowledge of the operation of the new law, and of the means by which it has been carried into execution, we think that we should be wanting to our duty if we were deterred by a fear of the imputation of interested motives from laying before your Lordship those reasons in favour of the continuance of the Poor Law Commission which have not been adverted to by the Committee of the House of Commons. We feel the less hesitation about taking this course, as we shall confine ourselves to the statement of facts, and to the suggestion of obvious in- ferences from them. To the reasons stated in the passage from the Report of the Committee, which we have just quoted, the following considera- tions may, as it appears to us, be added. 1. Even upon the most limited view of the purposes of the Poor Law Commission, its functions have not yet been dis- charged. The change in the administration of the English Poor Law which it was intended to introduce, has not yet been com- pleted. The machinery by which that change was to be effected is not yet in operation over the whole country. There still remain 799 parishes in England and Wales which have not been brought under the operation of the Poor Law Amendment Act, containing a population of 2,055,733 souls.* Of these, some are No. of Parishes united. * Total number of Unions and single parishes unden Boards of Guardians, now under the provisions of I the Poor Law Amendment Act, including five In-7 corporations in Norlolk and Suffolk . . . 5S3J Total number of parishes, &c., not yet placed under the) _qq Poor Law Amendment Act . J 7JJ [December, 1839.] Totals . . . 14,490 Population in 1831. 11,841,454 2,055,733 13,897,187](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29291148_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
