ABSTRACT
This chapter reexamines the official statistics of total numbers on relief in England and Wales for the years 1840–1939. The only statistics continuously available for nearly the whole of this period are day count figures which show the number in receipt of relief on one day. A sub-division into ‘indoor’ and ‘outdoor’ relief was also always made because the distinction between the two types of pauperism was fundamental to most discussion of the issue: indoor paupers were those relieved within the workhouse and outdoor paupers those who received a cash allowance while they continued to live in their own homes. Up to 1858, the totals in the columns headed ‘indoor’ and ‘outdoor’ include all classes of paupers. From 1901 the columns headed ‘indoor’ and ‘outdoor’ continue to exclude all casuals but now only exclude those insane who were institutionalised in county and borough asylums, registered hospitals, and licensed houses.
