The Commission of Enquiry, 1832

Abstract

STUDENTS of this subject will find a typically thorough account of the circumstances and some of the consequences of the Commission in one of the great studies by the Webbs, English Poor Law History: The Last Hundred Years, volume i. The evidence that was set forth by these authors, despite some recent questionings, leaves little doubt that the Commission was influenced, decisively, by utilitarian thought. This body also set about the most detailed social investigation ever undertaken in these isles up to that time. Twenty-six investigators — suspected by the Webbs to be Benthamites! -visited about three thousand townships and parishes throughout England and Wales, mostly in the late months of 1832, in an attempt to find out the relevant details of parish Poor Law administration. The absence of any previously accumulated body of knowledge of equal weight meant that the investigators, the Assistant Commissioners, were assisted greatly by a ready common hypothesis in what might otherwise have been an unmanageable task. This hypothesis, which undoubtedly appeared extremely fruitful, and which therefore seemed to justify itself, was that allowances-plus-indiscriminate-parish-relief were widespread and harmful.