HS2S066 - Poor Lives: Poverty, Welfare and History 01 Sep 2021 - 31 Aug 2027 | Version 1

Associated Module Information

Module Code: HS2S066
Module Title: Poor Lives: Poverty, Welfare and History
Faculty: Faculty of Business and Creative Industries
Faculty Group: Culture and Animation
Faculty Sub Group: Culture
Module Leader: Rachel Lock-Lewis
Module Team:
First Intended Intake: SEP 2021 Final Year of Intake: 2026
Date Closed:
Credit Value: 20 Credit Level: 5
Language: English
Percentage of Module Taught in Welsh: 0
Equivalent Module:
HECOS codes:
HECOS Code Weighting:

Document Version Information

Version 1
Valid From 01 Sep 2021
Valid To 31 Aug 2027

Module Aims

The module has two aims. The first is to consider and make informed judgements about the various factors that shaped debates, welfare policies and public responses to the poor in Britain during the eras of the Old and New Poor Laws. The second is to consider and make informed judgements about the effectiveness of various methods historians have deployed when interpreting primary sources and writing the history of the poor.

Content Summary

Topics to be studied include: changing understandings of poverty; the operation of the Old and New Poor Laws; the question of turning-points in welfare history; the matter of pauper agency and the importance of ‘welfare bargaining’ under the poor laws; the culture of the workhouse system; the ‘sympathetic revolution’ and compassion towards the poor; changing attitudes towards the hungry poor.

Learning and Teaching Methods

Activity Type Hours
Lecture 16
Seminar 20
Practical classes and workshops 4
Independent Study 80
Directed Study 72
Formative Assessment - Scheduled 8
Total Hours Selected 200

Learning Outcomes

# Learning Outcome
LO1 Identify and analyse the various factors that shaped debates, welfare polices and public responses to the poor in Britain during the eras of the Old and New Poor Laws.
LO2 Analyse the effectiveness of various methods historians have deployed when writing the history of the poor.

Module Requisites

N/A

Assessment Criteria

Assessment Category Assessment Type Description Duration Word Count Weight (%) Best of? Pass Mark
Asynchronous Assessment Essay 1 Essay on key module theme 0 2400 60 No 40
Asynchronous Assessment Document analysis 1 Analysis of a primary source 0 1600 40 No 40

Assessment Matrix

Assessment Type Learning Outcomes
LO1 LO2
Essay 1
Document analysis 1

Reading List

Lorie Charlesworth, Welfare’s Forgotten Past: A Socio-Legal History of the Poor Law (2010).
Megan Evans and Peter Jones, ‘“A stubborn and intractable body”: resistance to the workhouse in Wales’, Family and Community History, 17, 2 (2014), pp. 101-121
David R. Green, ‘Pauper protests: power and resistance in early nineteenth-century London workhouses’, Social History, 31, 2 (2006), pp. 137-159.
Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800 (2020 edn.).
Lynn Hollen Lees, The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948 (1998).
Elizabeth T. Hurren, Protesting About Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in Late Victorian England, 1870-1900 (2007).
James Vernon, Hunger: A Modern History (2007).