£30.00
This book focuses on one of the most contentious areas of English and Welsh poor law history: the exercise of petty tyranny by officials on the workhouse poor. The book examines the period from the late-eighteenth-century crisis of the Old Poor Law, through the adoption of the New Poor Law reform in 1834, the loosening of the ‘principles of 1834’ in the 1890s, and on past the early-twentieth-century Liberal reforms, to the eve of World War I. This long chronological sweep thus examines the Old and New Poor Laws together as experienced by generations of pauper inmates. See the main description below for details on how the book can be pre-ordered.
This book focuses on one of the most contentious areas of English and Welsh poor law history: the exercise of petty tyranny by officials on the workhouse poor. The book examines the period from the late-eighteenth-century crisis of the Old Poor Law, through the adoption of the New Poor Law reform in 1834, the loosening of the ‘principles of 1834’ in the 1890s, and on past the early-twentieth-century Liberal reforms, to the eve of World War I. This long chronological sweep thus examines the Old and New Poor Laws together as experienced by generations of pauper inmates.
For the first time the notion of ‘tyranny’ and its various typologies within the historical workhouse estate is set out clearly and tested against archival evidence of neglect, beatings, refusal to supply adequate relief, the denial of medical aid, and much more. While other work has centred on discipline and scandal, we instead examine the everyday experience of tyranny in the round – the potential for which was a central part of workhouse life and fed into the common fear and loathing of ‘the House’ – and the ways that it might have been contained and resisted.
The book draws on a wide archival base including pamphlets; diaries, overseers’ accounts and vestry minutes; the records of the central poor law authority; orders and circulars; punishment books; and local, regional and national newspapers. This collective archive contains many thousands of accounts of tyrannical behaviours throughout the whole of England and Wales and across the whole period.
Petty Tyranny and Oppression: Workhouse Lives Under the Long Nineteenth-Century Poor Laws can be ordered via the link below, with free UK postage and packing:
https://lpp-books.sumupstore.com/product/petty-tyranny-and-oppression-by-paul-carter-and-steven-king
Anyone ordering via that link will receive the book ahead of its official publication date in late May 2026. Buyers outside the UK will be able to purchase the book from local retailers and online sellers at the time of publication or a little before.
Paul Carter is the Principal Records Specialist for Collaborative Projects in the Collections, Expertise and Engagement Department at The National Archives, UK. Steven King is Distinguished Professor of Economic and Social History at Nottingham Trent University, UK. With others, they co-authored In Their Own Write: Contesting the New Poor Law, 1834–1900 (McGill-Queens University Press, 2022), which won both the 2022 North American Victorian Studies Association Best Book of 2022 Prize and the American Historical Association Morris D. Forkosch Prize 2023.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying and distributing the work, providing author attribution is clearly stated, that you are not using the material for commercial purposes, and that modified versions are not distributed.
You will be able to download the Open Access version of the book in PDF form from this page after the publication date.
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