ABSTRACT
At first glance, an historical approach to modern welfare law provision in England and Wales that links welfare with the poor law may seem an intellectual indulgence. This chapter will argue that an understanding of welfare’s legal history provides an explanation for many of the legal presumptions inherent in contemporary law and for the manner in which that law has developed as public law. It will suggest that the old poor law personal right to relief might produce a hardier welfare model than that currently available based upon the Beveridge Report. This chapter will take a broad contextual approach to the history of welfare, drawing many strands together, including its ecclesiastical and customary welfare elements, to illustrate certain themes that the modern welfare lawyer will recognise. The writer’s indulgence in history may seem greater as few law graduates have encountered the history of law during their studies since, unfortunately, legal history is a discipline in search of a home in mainstream academic legal studies. It rarely forms part of the undergraduate law curriculum in the universities of the UK, and is found as part of taught masters degrees, for the most part, only in our most ancient and/or prestigious institutions. This is not true of the United States and Canada where undergraduate courses in legal history abound. 2 One result of this is that few practising lawyers have encountered the history of that law which forms the greater part of their professional work. This is true in spite of the fact that these lawyers are working within a common law system that originated within customary law and whose legal techniques are founded upon the historical doctrine of precedent.
