A Proposal for making an Effectual Provision for the Poor, for amending their morals, and for rendering them useful members of the society. To which is added, a plan of the buildings proposed, with proper Elevations. Drawn by an Eminent Hand.

FIELDING, Henry.

Published by Printed for A. Millar. 1753, 1753

About this Item

iv, 91, [1]p ad., folding plate supplied in excellent facsimile. 8vo. Old tear to E2 repaired with archival tape, titlepage a little creased & dusted, small repair to lower outer corner. Expertly bound in recent quarter sprinkled calf, gilt banded spine, red morocco label, marbled boards, vellum tips. ESTC T4726. 'The ever more disparate nature of poor relief provision in London ensured that few projectors or politicians could contemplate a single unified solution to the issue of housing and employing the poor of the metropolis. On a national scale politicians and projectors such as William Hay and Sir Richard Lloyd had long argued for 'county' workhouses, as a means of overcoming the problems associated with amateurish parochial administration and the costs of policing pauper settlement. But the only substantial advocacy of this kind of solution for London, following the failure of the London Workhouse, was produced by Henry and John Fielding. Published in the form of three separate pamphlets, they developed a broad analysis of social problems and policing in London, depicting them as facets of a single issue. The workhouse proposed by the Fieldings combined a county workhouse for Middlesex with a house of correction. Much of the programme of reform in these pamphlets was eventually implemented in the following decades. The Middlesex-wide workhouse they proposed was designed to accommodate 5,000 paupers (3,000 men and 2,000 women), and a further 600 petty criminals in the associated house of correction. One nineteenth-century commentator, C.D. Brereton, accused Fielding of attempting to, 'effect the reformation of manners and the employment of the poor, by brick and mortar, and architectural devices'. The house was never built, but its proposal forms part of a major building programme that eventually resulted in the rebuilding of Newgate Prison, and many of the other major carceral institutions of greater London.' ref: London Lives 1690-1800, Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the Metropolis.

Seller Inventory # 99004

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Proposal for making an Effectual Provision for the Poor, for amending their morals, and for rendering them useful members of the society. To which is added, a plan of the buildings proposed, with proper Elevations. Drawn by an Eminent Hand.
• Publisher: Printed for A. Millar. 1753
• Publication Date: 1753
• Binding: Hardcover
• Seller catalogs:
  • box one