Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:32:51.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christian Political Economics, Richard Whately and Irish Poor Law Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2014

JOHN-PAUL MCGAURAN  and
JOHN OFFER
JOHN-PAUL MCGAURAN
Affiliation:
School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy, University of Ulster email: [email protected]
JOHN OFFER
Affiliation:
School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy, University of Ulster email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Irish poor law debate of the 1830s has largely been overlooked, but is a substantial source in understanding the impact of social theory concerning ‘virtue’ on social policy making in the early nineteenth century and on into the present time. The Chair of the Royal Commission for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland (1833–36) was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Richard Whately, a leading figure in intellectual endeavour in the first half of the nineteenth century. Although his contributions to theology, economics and education have been reassessed, his central role in poor law thought is not well understood. This article examines the key tenets of his social theory and reassesses their impact on the Irish poor law debate. Whately was an Oxford Noetic (Greek for ‘reasoners’) committed to merging the study of natural theology and political economy in order to encourage ever greater levels of virtue on individual and societal levels. He believed that individual and social lives were designed to advance through the reciprocal exchange of labour, goods and ideas in a free and open market economy. Ireland in the 1830s presented the ideal opportunity for Whately to express his theory of moral growth and social advance in terms of poor law policy, directed towards modifying circumstances to make possible the development of individual abilities while avoiding measures which would encourage vice or discourage virtue.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 43 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akenson, D. H. (1981), A Protestant in Purgatory, Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, Hamden: Archon Books.Google Scholar
Bicheno, J. E. (1830), Ireland, and Its Economy: Being the Result of Observations Made in a Tour Through the Country in the Autumn of 1829, London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Black, R. D. C. (1960), Economic Thought and the Irish Question 1817−1870, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brent, R. (2004), ‘Whately, Richard (1787–1863)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, online edn, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29176.Google Scholar
Calderwood, H. (1881), ‘The relations of moral philosophy to speculation concerning the origin of man’, The Princeton Review, 2: 288–302.Google Scholar
Cameron, D. (2011), ‘PM's Speech on the Fight Back after the Riots’, 15 August, http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/pms-speech-on-the-fightback-after-the-riots/.Google Scholar
Combe, G. (1831–32), ‘Archbishop Whately – scripture and science’, Phrenological Journal, 7: 321–34.Google Scholar
Corsi, P. (1988), Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800–1860, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Corsi, P. (2004), ‘Powell, Baden (1796–1860)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, online edn, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22642.Google Scholar
De Giustino, D. (1995), ‘Finding an Archbishop: the Whigs and Richard Whately in 1831’, Church History, 64: 2, 218–36.Google Scholar
Dunkley, P. (1982), The Crisis of the Old Poor Law in England 1795–1834, New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Goldstrom, J. M. (1966), ‘Richard Whately and political economy in school books, 1833–1880’, Irish Historical Studies, 15: 58, 131–146.Google Scholar
Gray, P. (2009), The Making of the Irish Poor Law 1815–43, Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, J. (2002), ‘From poor law to welfare state? A European perspective’, in Winch, D. and O’Brien, P. K. (eds.), The Political Economy of British Historical Experience 1688–1914, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hilton, B. (1988), The Age of Atonement, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
HMSO (1835), First Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland, London: HMSO (369).Google Scholar
HMSO (1836a) Poor Inquiry (Ireland), Appendix (H), Part 2, London: HMSO (42).Google Scholar
HMSO (1836b), Third Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland, London: HMSO (43).Google Scholar
HMSO (1837a), Second Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland, London: HMSO (68).Google Scholar
HMSO (1837b), Report of Geo. Nicholls, Esq. to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department on Poor Laws, Ireland, London: HMSO (69).Google Scholar
HMSO (1837c), Second Report of Geo. Nicholls, Esq. to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department on Poor Laws, Ireland, London: HMSO (104).Google Scholar
HMSO (1838a), Third Report of Geo. Nicholls, Esq. to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, Containing the Result of an Inquiry into the Condition of the Labouring Classes and the Provision for the Relief of the Poor, in Holland and Belgium, London: HMSO (126).Google Scholar
HMSO (1838b), An Act for the More Effectual Relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland, 1&2 Victoria I, c. 56.Google Scholar
HMSO (1906), Report of the Vice-Regal Commission on Poor Law Reform in Ireland, Cd 3202, Dublin: HMSO.Google Scholar
HMSO (1909), Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress Report on Ireland, Cd. 4630, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. (1986), Evolution and Social Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. (1995), The Voluntary Sector, the State and Social Work in Britain, Aldershot: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Lloyd, D. (2007), ‘The political economy of the potato’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 29: 2, 311–35.Google Scholar
Mandler, P. (1987), ‘The making of the new poor law redivivus’, Past and Present, 117: 131–57.Google Scholar
Mandler, P. (1990), ‘Tories and Paupers: Christian political economy and the making of the new poor law’, The Historical Journal, 33: 81–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthew, H. C. G. (1990), ‘Noetics, Tractarians, and the reform of the University of Oxford in the nineteenth century’, History of Universities, 9: 195–225.Google Scholar
McDowell, R. B. (1994), ‘Ireland on the eve of the famine’, in Dudley Edwards, R. and Desmond Williams, T. (eds.), The Great Famine, Dublin: Lilliput Press.Google Scholar
National Archives, HO73, Home Office: Various Commissions: Records and Correspondence, 1786–1949.Google Scholar
National Library of Wales, Nassau Senior Papers, Senior Collection, C/548.Google Scholar
Offer, J. (2006a), An Intellectual History of British Social Policy, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Offer, J. (2006b), ‘“Virtue”, “citizen character” and “social environment”: social theory and agency in social policy since 1830’, Journal of Social Policy, 35: 2, 282–302.Google Scholar
Parssinen, T. M. (1974), ‘Popular science and society: the phrenology movement in early Victorian Britain’, Journal of Social History, 8: 1, 1–20.Google Scholar
Poster, C. (2006), ‘An organon for theology: Whately's rhetoric and logic in religious context’, Rhetorica, 24: 1, 37–77.Google Scholar
Powell, B. (1859), The Order of Nature Considered in Reference to the Claims of Revelation, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Vance, N. (2000), ‘Improving Ireland: Richard Whately, theology, and political economy’, in Collini, S., Whatmore, R., and Young, B. (eds.), Economy, Polity, and Society, British Intellectual History 1750–1950, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Waterman, A. M. C. (1983), ‘The ideological alliance of political economy and Christian theology, 1798–1833’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 34, 2: 231–44.Google Scholar
Whately, E. J. (1866), Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D., Late Archbishop of Dublin, 2 Vols., London: Longmans, Green.Google Scholar
Whately, R. (1847), Substance of a Speech Delivered in the House of Lords, on Friday, 26th of March 1847, on the Motion for a Committee on Irish Poor Laws, London: B. Fellowes.Google Scholar
Whately, R. (1855), Introductory Lectures on Political Economy Delivered at Oxford in Easter Term 1831, 4th edition, London: J.W. Parker.Google Scholar
Whately, R. (1861), Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews, London: Parker, and Bourn.Google Scholar
Whately, R. (1864), The Judgement of Conscience and Other Sermons, London: Longman.Google Scholar