ABSTRACT
The Whig government of Lord Grey needed no reminding that its assumption of office and the passage of the Reform Act for which it is best remembered owed much to the social and economic crisis of 1829–32. Poor Law reform was to be supported by the twin pillars of centralisation and compulsion. The political battle over Poor Law reform had been won by 1832. The Poor Law was to be professionalised, rationalised and unified. The Poor Law Amendment Act in practice proved to be a very different instrument from that envisaged by the Benthamites as they carefully sifted the evidence thrown up by the Royal Commission. George Nicholls was head of the Birmingham branch of the Bank of England but known as a Poor Law reformer through his work in the Nottinghamshire parish of Southwell. Anti-Poor Law sniping continued into the 1840s, though the stereotype of the inhumane, centralised Commission was constantly belied by wide local and individual variations.
