How the old workhouse system became the new workhouse system: a case study of Hampshire in the 1830s

This article examines the transitional process between the Old and New Poor Laws, specifically concentrating on the establishment of poor law unions and union workhouses in Hampshire. Rather than making a decisive judgement on whether this shift represented continuity or discontinuity in poor law arrangements, the article focuses on regional variations in the process to present a more accurate picture of the intricate reality. Drawing upon detailed notes produced by Colonel Charles Ashe A’Court, the assistant commissioner in charge of Hampshire, which offer a wealth of information on poor relief provision in individual parishes on the eve of the New Poor Law, it demonstrates that the transition in the county was notably influenced by different local circumstances surviving from the Old Poor Law era. The county’s geo-economic diversity was closely intertwined with varying social contexts, resulting in highly localised patterns of indoor and outdoor relief provision under the old system. These enduring intra-county variations had an impact on the way in which the reformed system was implemented, as power structures and political cultures played a significant part in forming poor law unions and demarcating their boundaries, and the previous matrix of workhouse provision provided a basis for establishing the new workhouse system.