ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors propose to rethink and retell the story of Speenhamland. They show how the findings of recent studies in social and economic history undermine the Speenhamland stories that have been deployed in social policy debates. The authors offer their own alternative narrative that both makes sense of recent historical findings and helps to explain the centrality of the Speenhamland story to classical political economy. If the authors focus on the Southeastern parts of England, there is a second dimension of empirical complexity. When the authors look at what happened to the rural standard of living across the period from 1790 to 1834, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that rising poor law outlays were response to loss of established forms of family income rather than cause. The authors recognize the central role of larger economic processes such as the severe agricultural deflation and the shift of industry to the North in explaining mounting rural poverty.
