The Experience of Urban Poverty, 172382: Parish, Charity and Credit
By (Author) Alannah Tomkins
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
31st October 2006
United Kingdom
Hardback
304
Width 156mm, Height 234mm
This comparative study of urban poverty is the first to chart the irregular pulse of poverty's encounters with officialdom. It exploits an unusual methodology to secure new perspectives from familiar sources. The highly localised characteristics of the welfare economy generated a peculiarly urban environment for the poor. Separate chapters e
Tomkins presents the conditions under which the poor lived, drawing on life in the workhouse, traditional poor relief such as lodging in poorhouses, health care, and schools for the poor. The section on credit and pawn broking among those in distress is especially significant because this is a field that has hardly been researched so far, and it demonstrates the flexibility of the poor in their struggle against want. -- .
Alannah Tomkins is Lecturer in History at the University of Keele