Technologies of identification under the Old Poor Law

In this important article Steve Hindle, the leading historian of the local state and the pre-1834 Poor Law, considers the different ways in which parish and township authorities labelled and identified paupers. His paper is closely based upon the lecture which he gave to the British Association for Local History in June 2006. Steve Hindle gives an accessible and comprehensive explanation of the background and rationale for the various ways in which the poor could be categorised, and discusses in fascinating detail the methods which were used, drawing his evidence widely from different parts of the country. His review covers four main categories of identification: first, licences to beg, which were issued to paupers and provided them with the means to obtain an ‘honourable’ livelihood; second, the vagrant’s passport, which was a means of allowing a pauper to move, or be moved, from one part of the country to another; third, the settlement certificate, which specifically identified the place which was legally responsible for a pauper; and fourth, the parish badge, an outward physical identifier of pauper status. He makes clear the administrative procedures whereby these four methods were implemented, and emphasises the advantages and disadvantages of each for the pauper and the ‘system’ alike. In this article Hindle gives prominence to the pragmatic and responsive nature of the Old Poor Law. The article is a major contribution to the literature on the functioning of the Poor Law as it affected individuals, and as such deserves to be widely-read by local historians

From a "Gin Palace" to a "King's Palace?" The Evolution of the Music Hall in Preston c1840-1914

This thesis adopts a chronological approach to the development of Preston's music halls between 1840 -1914. It was partly inspired by the apparent lack of similar academic work having been undertaken. Nevertheless comparable studies of other provincial towns have provided valuable models against which the Preston experience can be tested. Through documentary analysis, based particularly on the local press and music hall trade press, the principal aims are to place Preston within the historiography of the music hail genre; to evaluate the evolution and growth of the Preston Victorian and Edwardian music hall and its relationship with rival forms of entertainment and to assess the impact of reformers on the social class composition of audiences in their quest for moral and legal reform. Research has revealed several significant findings: Preston was at the forefront of music hall development and by 1839 its first concert hall was established. The movement against music hall was strengthened because of the local influence of Joseph Livesey and his followers who advocated total abstinence and promoted counter-attractions. Nevertheless the 1860s and early 70s was a particular boom time for Preston Music Hall with the opening of several new concert halls. Preston broadly follows the national pattern of growth but with a notable exception: there was no major variety theatre or properly constructed pub music hall in the town between 1889-1905. The years between 1905 and 1914 represents a second period of music-hall resurgence with three established variety theatres filling the void in music hall provision. However, a suggestion of a surplus of seats for music hall coincides with the opening of Broadhead's vast King's Palace Theatre in 1913 and rival cinema entertainment. Part of the Broadhead syndicate's management philosophy was that in case of poor box office returns their music halls could be re-designed for use as factories. Neither Preston theatre found this adaptation necessary and both survived to present the genre of inclusive music hall entertainment until the 1950s

Dependency, shame and belonging : badging the deserving poor, c.1550-1750

The badging of the poor under the terms of the statute of 1697 has long been regarded as the most visible expression of the repressive and discriminatory nature of the welfare regime established by the Elizabethan poor laws. In a historiographical tradition stretching back to the Webbs, pauper badges have been regarded as weapons of deterrence in the campaign against a nascent 'culture of dependency' among the able-bodied poor who had come to believe that they were entitled to parish pensions. Even the Webbs, however, remained unconvinced that the 1697 statute was effectively enforced, and more recent revisionism in the historiography of welfare has not only welcomed but amplified their scepticism in its attempt to rehabilitate the old poor law as benevolent and sympathetic in operation. There has, however, been little attempt to measure the enforcement of the policy in the archives of county and parish governance, and even less to reconstruct the negotiations that took place over the wearing or removing of these symbols, which at the same time implied both belonging to, and yet paradoxically also exclusion from, the local community. This paper rehearses the discourses which gave rise to the badging of the poor in the years before and after the 1697 statute, and analyses the politics of identity among paupers, parish officers and magistrates as they actively debated if, when and by whom badges should be worn

Pengujian Format dan Isi Kartu Berat Badan

Although there is much experience in the use of weight charts to monitor the growth of children, there have been virtually no comparative experiments that is, where one type of chart is scientifically tested against alternatives. This paper describes a simple comparative experiment, where the effect of inserting an instruction on interpretation is measured. The experiment was conducted at the Nursing Teachers Training School, and the Health Services Research and Development Centre in Surabaya in May 1977. The results show that nurses arc better able to interpret the trend of growth when an ins­truction on the meaning of trend is inserted on the chart. This paper recommends that further compar­ative experiments of this type be undertaken so that decisions on the further development of the weight chart can be based on scientific analysis rather than on personal judgments

How community context affects entrepreneurial process : a diagnostic framework

This study reports a multi-faceted search to discover and articulate, in the form of a manageable framework, a diagnostic system for assessing the influence that community factors will have upon the conduct and outcome of any proposed entrepreneurial process. A methodological approach based on investigation of a rich empirical database supported by a wide examination of extant theory in several literatures, resulted in the production of a diagnostic system whose diagrammatic depiction employs a 'bridge' analogy. It depicts the culmination of the diagnostic procedure as the ability of different travellers (entrepreneurial actors and community members affected by their actions) to proceed via multiple pathways from an origin to a destination. The origin is a deep understanding of the community as an intermediate environment containing factors both conducive and hostile to any proposed entrepreneurial process. This deep understanding is founded upon intense local examination of the nature and interrelationship of three generic institutional components of any community: physical resources, human resources and property rights, and three generic human factors: human resources, social networks and the ability to span boundaries. The destination thus becomes a contextualised understanding and re-articulation of any proposed entrepreneurial process under consideration. Validation of the efficacy of the framework is being undertaken internationally as a key component of seven substantial projects, which simultaneously involve research and practice. Implications for research and practice are discussed