Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
1834 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Act of Parliament 4 & 5 Will 4 c. 76
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 Will. 4. c. 76) (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey denying the right of the poor to subsistence. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the Poor Relief Act 1601 (43 Eliz. 1. c. 2) and attempted to fundamentally change the poverty relief system in England and Wales (similar changes were made to the Scottish poor laws in 1845). It resulted from the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws, which included Edwin Chadwick, John Bird Sumner and Nassau William Senior. Chadwick was dissatisfied with the law that resulted from his report.
“Poor Law Amendment Act 1834” enters the record as 1834 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Act of Parliament 4 & 5 Will 4 c. 76. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Poor, Amendment and United can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3131141. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1834, 1601, 1845 and 1832.
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This entry incorporates text from “Poor Law Amendment Act 1834” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.