An Emotional History of the Workhouse under the New Poor Law

其目的是对贫民如何在济贫院生活和经历进行研究，重点是英格兰中部地区的八个贫穷的法律联盟，这些联盟广泛反映了该地区的主要社会经济和地点特点，包括城市工业、畜牧业和交通枢纽社区。与英格兰的北方和东南部相比，中部地区仍然没有得到贫穷的法律历史学家的充分研究。在这种背景下，对济贫院生活经历进行大规模和系统的研究，将对我们更广泛地理解新济贫法的性质和作用产生重要影响。五个关键问题将映射到论文的离散章节：（一）谁进入/离开/留在这八个工会的济贫院1834年至1896年？济贫院在依赖和独立的生命周期中处于什么位置？(ii)贫民是否通过直接对抗、与中央当局接触或较低级别的日常抵抗行为（包括八卦和破坏）等机制寻求代理？(iii)工作人员和监护人如何回应修改济贫院规则、控制饮食和自由或惩罚方面的代理主张？(iv)不同生命周期组的这些变量是否存在模式？像疯子这样的群体的代理是否给工作人员和监护人带来了广泛的概念问题？(v)我们能重建贫民对济贫院的“理解”吗？

The aim is to conduct a study of how paupers navigated and experienced the workhouse, with a focus on eight poor law unions in the English midlands that broadly reflect the region's key socio-economic and locational particularities, including, for instance, urban industrial, pastoral and transport-hub communities. The midlands remain under-studied by poor law historians, compared to northern and South-East England. A large-scale and systematic study of experiences of workhouse life in this context will have important implications for our understanding of the character and role of the New Poor Law more widely. Five key questions will map onto discrete chapters of the thesis:(i) Who entered/left/remained in the workhouses of these eight unions 1834-1896? Where did the workhouse fit into a life-cycle of dependence and independence?(ii) Did paupers pursue agency through mechanisms such as direct confrontation, engagement with the central authorities or lower level day-to-day acts of resistance including gossip and vandalism?(iii) How did staff and Guardians react to assertions of agency in terms of amending workhouse rules, controlling diets and freedoms, or punishment?(iv) Were there patterns in these variables for different life-cycle groups? Did the agency of groups like lunatics pose broad conceptual problems for staff and Guardians?(v) Can we reconstruct pauper 'understanding' of the workhouse?