ABSTRACT
The right to assistance under the old poor law came under further attack from utilitarians and the new “science” of economics. Together they abolished the right to assistance with the “new poor law” of 1834, legislating that all support for able bodied person is in need outside the workhouse should end. Yet the legacy of the old ethos of local fuelled resistance to the act. The chapter focuses on relieving officers (ROs), a new post within the reformed administration of the new poor law. ROs were responsible for gathering information from those claiming assistance and for distributing cash or other forms of sustenance to those whose claims were approved. By drawing on their reports and diaries a picture of the day-to-day work is evoked, together with the heavy responsibilities they carried and the dilemmas they had to wrestle with. Scottish poor law was also reformed but with pronounced differences. Scotland had no tradition of a right to assistance and local funding for assistance was often inadequate. Reform did allow destitute individuals to appeal adverse decisions to sheriffs’ courts, but the level of assistance remained lower than in England and Wales.
