Restrictions and rules of work have plagued us for quite some time in the UK. And I use that word on purpose, plagued. Because I keep coming back to that event as a marker, and a starting point to try and work from, taking it on face value as all true.

“It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351″

That’s an awful lot of people isn’t it? We must have had quite the population back then to have so many taken out of the general masses, across a whole range of countries too apparently. But what followed after neatly paved the way for many changes and things to occur.

1388 – The Statute of Cambridge was enacted to deal with the labour shortage caused by the plague and it’s fallout. They say we in England lost a third of our population, so it was decided (yes over 30 years later), that a new law was needed to ‘fix wages and restrict the movement of labourers’. Doesn’t entirely sound like a move to help now does it? Beggars were also included in being restricted from free movement, which sort of makes sense, but I see it as the start of the slippery slope we are on again now. Making me think of today’s moves to ‘help’ society improve by imposing laws and restrictions on movement. The 1388 Act decided that if people were allowed to leave their parishes and find higher paid work elsewhere, they would. Funny that, people wanting to get more for their skills in a time when they are greatly needed, shocker. And others deciding they don’t want to pay a decent wage and will instead hold down the workforce, hold back the economy and initiate laws to make them comply. Not so shocking after all, to realise it really is the same shit, different day (or century in this case). And the ones who got to dictate this got to make the profits and control the labour force, the distribution of workers and the ability to earn a decent wage. Sounds mad really doesn’t it? To think they had that much control even back then.

And strangely in that time, the state decided to take ‘responsibility’ for the poor away from any Christian charity, apparently through fear of social disorder (claims a historian), and were able to bring in vagrancy laws which became the origins of state-funded poor relief. Benefits. Before then, it was just down to the Monasteries or hand-outs from people and the community to look after their own and others, and even for quite some time after it seemed to be a group effort. With a change in the law in the 16th century to distinguish between the ones who can work, and the ones who won’t work, the unemployed and the idlers. We know these two groups well, as they are still very much with us today. A blow was then to hit upon the social workings of this country as it was, which I hadn’t quite understood some of the social repercussions that came from it which lead into this subject of work and benefits. Henry VIII and his move against the Catholic Church, which led to the Dissolution of the Monasteries (starting in 1536), also added to the issues, as they say the monasteries provided a fair amount of relief to the poor and in need, as well as direct and indirect employment. So once that was taken out, guess what? Loads more unemployed people, and people who then become state dependents.

1631 – The first workhouse is noted in Abingdon, Oxford. “we have erected within our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work”. And that idea of a workhouse was to take off, not for a couple of centuries they say, but seems they were here and there and becoming well placed across the country. Apparently there was a large swathe of unemployment after the Napoleonic wars (1815), and they really took off. Although, seems that Britain did rather well out of those wars in all, gaining 20 new colonies between 1793 and 1815. People and the ’employment’ being offered to them constantly being at the whim of the ‘rulers’. Go to war, work over there, no more pay, sent to a colony, given ‘social status‘ to work in your favour or indeed ‘social stigma’ to work against you. You can see how they have had a grip on our lives and opportunities for a while now.

Being called poor houses in Scotland, the term became interchangeable after a while and they meant the same thing. Destitute and having to rely on the state to ‘help you’. But even then as with now, there are those who see it as an opportunity “Some Poor Law authorities hoped to run workhouses at a profit by utilising the free labour of their inmates.” You can see how they then have no incentive to get people out of that situation, and can even be of further profit to funnel people into that system. Like the prison system today, and many of the other ‘here to help or protect’ services that appear to be on offer. And by 1776 there were over 1800 registered with a capacity for 90,000 people.

1739 – The Foundling Hospital. A side point perhaps in this, but a strange name for an institution I thought, given that the word makes me personally think of changelings, as they were known to switch babies and infants in myth and folklore. But this particular place it says,

“The word “hospital” was used in a more general sense than it is in the 21st century, simply indicating the institution’s “hospitality” to those less fortunate. Nevertheless, one of the top priorities of the committee at the Foundling Hospital was children’s health, as they combated smallpox, fevers, consumption, dysentery and even infections from everyday activities like teething that drove up mortality rates and risked epidemics.^[2] With their energies focused on maintaining a disinfected environment, providing simple clothing and fare, the committee paid less attention to and spent less on developing children’s education.”

Interesting I thought, almost sounds like a strange experimental site doesn’t it? No time to teach them anything, they probably weren’t expected to make it that far. Or maybe I really am just too cynical. Who can say for sure.

1832 – A reform was needed because the poor relief costs were spiralling out of control. An inquiry was launched so they could determine at cost, what they already knew, that the system was being abused, but not by the people running it of course, oh no. It was the able-bodied people apparently seeking help and assistance to find work. They were the ones abusing it they say, leading to guess what? More laws and regulations and rules, so that they could keep their grip on the elderly, infirm and incapable and keep draining taxpayers money for them. Keeping in mind, it is said that there was a few bad harvests starting in 1828 as well as high unemployment within the agriculture sector already due to technological advances, it just so happened that economically there was a greater need for help from able bodied people. But it does seem that rather than temporarily address and help these issues, it is preferred to recognise them, and make permanent laws and changes based upon them but to not actually sort them out. Thereby helping to create the continued issues from them, rather than let them pass. May as well read as 1832 or 2032 as it seems that gravy train has been fixed on its tracks for quite some time and isn’t going to be derailed anytime soon.

As I have said before, if someone is making money from someone else’s misery, then they have no incentive to stop causing misery, and in fact have a great one to keep going. If there was no profit in it, or no money to be made at all from it, then you would very quickly see a change in people’s interest in things. And it’s sad really, that everything does come down to money, time, power and control. Without money, it all falls apart a bit, because you wouldn’t be able to hold people’s lives to ransom. They can only control us all with money, if everything has a price, therefore it became imperative that everything did. Including time. Time is money they used to say (and probably still do). But time should be attributed to your life and passions, not to money as it has been engineered to be. Remember, it’s not usually how much money you make in your life that goes on your gravestone, it’s how long you lived, and what your position in your family was (more often than not). Take note of that on your way through…

(c) MKW Publishing