Book reviews

Abstract

Writing the Lives of the English Poor 1750s–1830s presents an important and innovative perspective on poverty, the Old Poor Law and the poor themselves. Steven King puts the poor at the heart of the poor law, through extensive analysis of pauper letters. Rather than define the poor in terms of statistics or legislation, King ensures the way in which people experienced and shaped the welfare system is foregrounded. Agency and negotiation are central tenets throughout the book. He demonstrates how the Old Poor Law was meant to be negotiated, and that poor relief was a process of negotiation between officials, claimants and advocates. Steven King is a leading scholar in the field of poverty, poor relief and welfare, ensuring he adeptly handles complex questions of power, agency and practice. The book begins with a discussion of how welfare was constructed through the Old Poor Law, highlighting diversity in practice which in turn affected experiences of the poor law. Integral to this was the role of agency and negotiation by the poor. The letters written by the poor and their advocates underpin the author’s main arguments, making methodological discussions about the epistolary practices of the poor an invaluable foundation. King considers how historians should conceptualise and understand these letters, including the role of authorship in this process. The structure and form of pauper letters was affected by their function, characteristics and tone, and raise questions of honesty and representativeness. However, as King argues, most letters were written by those that signed them and the information was broadly accurate and honest. Nevertheless, they still present challenges and King raises numerous questions towards the end of the first part of the book, which are addressed in subsequent sections. Part 2 examines acts of navigation and reception. This includes practical elements such as how the poor obtained paper and ink, the quality of the paper they wrote on, where they wrote the letters and how their letters were conveyed to their recipients – aspects which King argues took on symbolic value in the process of negotiation. As King states, ‘the dependent poor were engaged in a rich epistolary interchange’. This section also considers the official reception of the letters including their private and public nature and the process of reception and decision making. The terminology of the letters is discussed, together with the extent to which there was a shared language and the extent to which this was necessary in order to negotiate poor relief. Part 3 explores the rhetorical structures of the letters. Here King discusses the ‘cooperative process of persuasion... that is played out in a public forum and draws on a complex amalgam of logical, rational, emotional, and strategic thought and language’, and highlights letter types, the importance of situational context, personal connections