Poor relief and English economic development before the industrial revolution 1

The English economy was distinctive, even before its transformation by the technological advances of the late eighteenth century. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries England diverged in economic structure from most continental countries. English agriculture attained a high level of labour productivity, thus permitting relatively rapid population growth, a shift in economic activity towards manufacturing and services, and rising incomes relative to the continent.2 At the same time the English state, thanks to its ability to mobilize resources through taxation and borrowing, was able to ensure domestic tranquillity and to extend its power around the world.3 The nexus between these economic and political developments has been the subject of recent work on the finances and policies of central government.4 Poor relief, the quintessential function of local government in England, is ripe for inclusion in this new political economy of English development in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.5 A fresh look at the economic impact of the old poor law should help to reconcile two apparently divergent strands in the history of poor relief. One line of research, launched by Blaug in the early i96os, drew its inspiration from nineteenth-century critics of the poor law and focused primarily on developments during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.6 It tested several alleged adverse effects of poor relief and generally found little