In The 19th Century British Poverty Concept Changes

In the19th century, the traditional ideas of poverty in Britain have undergone tremendous changes. Traditionally poverty has been seeing as a normal social phenomenon and ethical issues, now it becomes a pressing social issue. Thinkers, political economists, social reformers, and novelists put forward their own ideas of poverty at that time. They focus on the problems such as the definition of poverty, the causes of poverty, the moral perspective of the problem of poverty, the way to solve the problem of poverty. These ideas are rooted in the context and strongly influence the social legislation at that time. Though the Poor Law system and the welfare state system are two different systems, the constant maturity of the ideas of poverty hardly influences the establishment of the British welfare state.This thesis bases on the process of legislative relief and the decipherment of writings at that time. It is proposed to figure out the changes of the ideas of poverty in the nineteenth Century and the interaction between the ideas and the social actions in Britain.The first part explores the origin of the obscure definition of poverty, including the ideas of the thinkers, political economists, social reformers, and poor themselves at that time. And then, it comes to the conclusion that the ideas of poverty profoundly influence the poor law reform in1834.The second part introduces the process of the poverty legislation in late nineteenth Century and the way to eliminate the ambiguity of the definition of poverty. It also points out the new social problems caused by the new poor law, and then makes a further discussion of poverty concept from the perspective of morality. Finally it makes a brief introduction of new changes of the ideas of poverty after the80’s in Britain.The third part focuses on Dickens’s novels and uses them as history materials. This part proposes to use novels to represent the ideas of poverty in the nineteenth century in Britain bases on the profile of the poor and the problem of poverty in Dickens’s novels and bases on the author’s thoughts behind the interpretation of his writings.In the ending part, the thesis points out that with the changes of social environment, poverty will be presented in different ways in front of us, so we need to put forward correct solutions timely.