What isĀ Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain?

Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain is a multi-archive collection of primary source materials tracing the government policy, philanthropic efforts and social reform movements that impacted Britain’s poorest and most deprived communities between the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834 and the abolition of the workhouse system in 1930.

The resource comprises material from Senate House Library, The National Archives and the British Library. Topics covered include the workhouse system and outdoor relief, health and medicine, housing, politics, sanitation, education, cooperatives and charitable institutions.

Researchers can explore pamphlets from the Family Welfare Association collection, periodicals published by different settlement houses and other charitable institutions, correspondence of the Poor Law Commission, Poor Law Board and Local Government Board, and further material to discover more about the complex and shifting social climate of nineteenth and twentieth century Britain.

Homepage of Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain

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