Impact of Political and Industrial Revolutions 209
tially emptied out during the war years, and for a decade or so south
ern Ireland enjoyed something approaching full employment.
Thus the most impacted regions of the British Isles each found a
reasonably effective solution to the problem of growing rural popula
tions: the Highlands by enlisting in the army, Ulster by sending a
proportion of its workforce overseas, and southern Ireland by shifting
from pasture to tillage. In England itself, where commercial agricul
ture and “high farming" were far more fully developed, the most
significant response to the growth of population was modification of
poor law administration. After 1795 more and more parishes au
thorized outdoor relief for the indigent, tying amounts disbursed to
the applicants’ wage income, to the size of his family and—signifi
cantly—to the price of bread. Administrative practices varied from
place to place, but this so-called “Speenhamland” system^47 assured a
minimal subsistence to everyone. It meant that even in bad years,
when partial crop failures pushed the price of bread to great heights,
the poor could count on escaping outright starvation. In the absence
of the poor law help, rural laborers in time of dearth and in the seasons
of the year when work on the land was slackest, would have had no
choice but to flee into town, hoping against hope to find employment
there or survive on charity unavailable within their hard-pressed rural
community. Crowds of just such desperate people had flooded into
Paris because of bad harvests in 1788–89. After 1795, however, the
like could scarcely occur in England. The new pattern of poor law
administration allowed rural laborers to survive seasons of dearth sim
ply by remaining where they were. As a result, the Speenhamland
system of outdoor relief went a long way towards stabilizing English
society.
Thereafter, migration within England was governed by response to
economic opportunities and wage differentials; and such migration in
turn contributed to the distinctive and fundamentally important way
in which British society adjusted itself to the population growth of the
late eighteenth century, that is, by expanding opportunities for eco
nomically productive work in commerce and industry. New tech
nologies lowered prices; lowered prices expanded markets; expanded
markets increased the scale of production, which in turn required
more and more factory hands, transport workers, and service per
- Named for the place where justices of the peace from Berkshire met in 1795 to
set up a schedule for outdoor relief payments which became a model, widely imitated, in
the following years. See Michael E. Rose, The English Poor Laws, 1780–1930 (New
York, 1971), pp. 18–20.
