Reprint of the sole edition. Nicholls [1781-1865] was a pioneering poor-law reformer and administrator. While Great Britain's Poor Law Commissioner he drafted the Irish Poor-Law Act (1832). One of the first to assert that relief bred a culture of dependency and a resistance to work, he advocated the abolition of relief except as a last resort. Includes sections on urban poor, workhouses, housing conditions, child labor, vagabonds etc. In addition to the present study, he wrote A History of the English Poor Law (1854) and A History of the Scotch Poor Law (1856). Like his other studies, this one relates the evolution of poor laws since the medieval era to economic, social and political history. Notably sophisticated works, they were held in high regard by Sir Leslie Stephen and F.W. Maitland.

A pioneering collection of essays aiming to open up the previously neglected area of the social history of medicine in Ireland.

A detailed examination of the political forces and events that shaped smallpox vaccination policy in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland during the nineteenth century.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1860.

In The Poor Law of Lunacy, Peter Bartlett examines the legal and administrative regime of the 19th-century asylum, arguing that it is to be thought of as an aspect of English poor law in which the medical superintendent of the asylum has little power. The text also examines the place of the county asylum movement in the poor law debates of the mid-19th century. Using the Leicestershire asylum as a case study, the author looks at the role of the poor law officers in the admission processes of the asylum, and relations between poor law staff, asylum staff and the poor law and lunacy central inspectorates.