Reform of the poor law

How did the Comission conduct its enquiry?

Consists of severn members appionted in 1832 and two more appoionted in 1833
two most influencial Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick.
The commsion set about gathering evidence concerning the opporation of the poor law.
26 assistant commissioners were dispatched to carry out this investigation, armed with precise instructions from the commissioners they were to
- interview clergy, parish officers and magistrates
- inspect parish documents
- cross-examine witnesses
- attend vestry meetings
- follow up the replies to questionnaires that had been sent out by the commissioners.

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Wildly unstatical
of the 1500 parishes in Endland and Wale on 10 percent were investigated.
in the parishes visited the questions were confusing therefore the replies were less then useful.
the overseers that answered the questions were often semi-literate and certainly unaccustomed to dealing with such matters
However there is a recorgnition that such a survey was in itself groundbreaking in an age with very primitive bureaucratic procedures.
it would be unacceptable to expect modern standards to be carried out in a survey in the early 1830's
Chadwick and Senior had come to thier conclusion before the evidence was gathered and therefore used the evidence to support thier ideas. Using it as a tool to reform the poor law in a way they had already chosen.

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The first part of the report the poor law was attacked using research from the assisstant commissioners, the second part contained the conclusion and recomendations for reform.
The central argument concerned the demoralisation of the labouring class, which the commissioners claimed had resulted from the poor laws.
They made it clear that people should distingish between the labourer who was poor, but independent, and the pauper.
They belived that poverty was a naturalk form of existance, but indigence was not.
They also thought that the poor should be separated from the pauper phsyically and psychologically.
The report recomended that all froms of relif apart from the workhouse should be outlawed. therefore able-bodied persons and thier families would only be able to use the workhouse asd a from of relief.
To enforce this a new central authority should be established to compel parishes to co-operate.

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