Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
Devised and drawn up by a Poor Law Commission made up of Edwin Chadwick, George Nichols and Nassau Senior, the Amendment Act effectively abolished all forms of outdoor relief. From now on the only method of relief would be for the poor to enter a workhouse. The workhouses themselves were nothing more than prisons, with people told what to do, when to do it and so on. Families were divided, children were removed from mothers and misery was strife.
When the new Amendment was applied to the industrial north of England (an area the law had never considered during reviews) the system failed catastrophically as many found themseleves temporarily unemployed due to recessions or a fall in stock demands and were reluctant to enter a workhouse, despite it being the only method of gaining aid. The Government admitted that the law had not been designed to deal with the industrial north and reinstated outdoor relief.
Fierce hostilty and organised opposition from workers, politicians and religous leaders eventually lead to the Amendment Act being updated and softened, removing the shockingly harsh measures of the workhouses to a certain degree.
With the arrival of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, the working class finally had a voice in Parliament and began taking action to bring about yet more changes to the Poor Laws of Great Britan.