This thesis presents an account of the operation of the system of poor relief in Scotland, as it developed under legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament in the 16th and 17th centuries. Attention is given to the principles which underlay what is usually called the Old Scottish Poor Law as well as to an analysis of the varied practice in providing relief in the country. The first four chapters concentrate on the actual working of the old system---how it was funded, which categories of poor it was intended to support, how and by whom it was managed, the varying mixture in localities of "public" funding (collections at church, dues and fees, interest on accrued capital, legal assessment where this was introduced) and of "private" or "voluntary" funding in money or in kind (individual gifts, community-based subscriptions, and so on). The distinctive approaches to the problem of the local destitute by town and rural areas, and between towns and in different regions of the country, are reviewed. The strains on the old system in the late 18th and early 19th centuries are noted---particularly, the impact of rising and shifting population, the social disorganization caused by agrarian improvements and the onset of rapid industrialization and then by intermittent periods of deep trade recessions and widespread unemployment and of crop failures and dearth in the countryside. In chapters 5 and 6 these social and economic strains form the background to a long debate between those who resisted any change in the Old Poor Law and would-be reformers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:480874 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Oh, Yeon-Soo |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU089063 |
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